Eye Contact

Today I watched my good friend lie to me. I was looking at his eyes because I trust him and all the tell tales were there and I was unable to make any more eye contact since that with him. He may be even lying to himself. I don't know how but it a tricky thing, for sure. I even asked him "really?" and he doubled down the same tell-tale signs. It may be that eye contact is hard for that simple reason, hearing one thing and see another truth.

I tend to struggle to take in what people are saying if I am busy "trying to make eye contact" ,there are the odd times I seem to do ok, but generally not.

Usually get accused of not listening by anyone who would say it, or a look of disapproval from those who wouldn't...

Weird though, I listen with my ears not my eyes, so it's a bit like that old "look with your eyes not your hands" phrase that kids say when someone grabs your toys and says they're " just looking "

It took me long time to start looking people in the eyes, especially if they look back. It feels intrusive and also makes it harder for me to concentrate on what to say or what the person says to me. When I finally started making eye contact, it happened many times that it was extensive, like stare. someone even told me once to stop staring like that. 
Now I make sure to make some short eye contact from time to time and I also use a trick. - I defocus my eyes or try to look generally at the person’s face, not necessarily deep in the eyes, so they don’t feel ignored. Defocusing my eyes helps me in that way that I don’t really concentrate on looking in the person’s eyes, it’s just for them to think that I’m doing it. I’m not sure how it looks from the person’s perspective, maybe they are able to catch my trick, or not, but I think it makes better impression than looking away into space. 
it was already said in this forum, I remember but can’t find it - the reason for NTs the eye contact is so important is that this way they show interest to the other person and they also read their expressions and decode it instantly. For us this is an issue. 

I have definitely had that experience. The big improvement at work now is that I switch off the video on teams so noone can see my eyes and I don't need to think where they are so hear what is being said.

Ok, so I grew up in place, and I've told this to SO many people where everyone says "what the *** are you looking at?". Maybe they said that because I was staring. I was once punched in the face for looking at someone "weird", so there's something to it.

Hi, perhaps you are maintaining the eye contact too long, what is considered "staring". I think most people somehow subconsciously know how to do the correct amount of eye contact to keep other people feeling comfortable.

I'm usually ok with eye contact at work, but there have been times where conversations have been long that I start to think about it and then I can get uncomfortable with it and start to worry if I'm staring and whether I should look away. If that happens, it's best to find a way to end the conversation.

At home it's no problem. My ND partner and I can have very long conversations without any eye contact whatsoever - we can connect through spoken language and shared thoughts.

Yes. That sounds about right. 

So my difference I think is that I've always been conscious of people's eyes, as in wondering what eye I am supposed to look at and thinking about maintaining eye contact while having a conversation, so I'm not sure what I am like from the outside. I should probably ask some people. I feel like i'm having a dual conversation in my head and with the person, but maybe everyone is doing that. 

I think it is exaggerated somewhat. The vast majority of people are not really maintaining eye contact with you all the time. Even neurotypical people I know are still moving their head/eyes.

I can look at someone when they're talking to me though.

This is an on and off obsession for me recently. I am trying to hack into it's secrets. When I'm trying to do it I tend to look at one eye and then the other, not sure which to focus on, noticing if there's been surgrey or if the iris has spots, the pattern of the lashes. Sometimes people say one thing and the muscles around their eyes tell another and it make me quite agitated and so I look away. I have asked some NT friends to experiment with me on it. One friend says its that right eye "rules" the left side of brain and left eye "rules" the right side so there may be something to that and how it signals. Experimenting on that.

I think the maintaining eye contact thing is a bit of a myth to be honest, I haven’t ever had any issues with making eye contact with people but the biggest issue I have is how long you’re suppose to maintain eye contact because we are taught it is very rude to not look at someone when they are talking to you because it’s considered "paying attention”.

It is possible that the reason why their eyes are darting is because they are checking their surroundings or they are uncomfortable because of how you are staring at them. I cannot tell you either way.

One of the reasons I have issues with eye contact though is because there is no clearly established amount of time where when you’re talking to someone how long you are suppose to maintain eye contact to “show” that you’re listening them. Is it a few seconds or the entire time they are talking? And even with that with everyone being their own unique individual so it can vary from person to person. It’d sure be nice if each individual person could just say “Hey, you don’t have to look at me when we’re talking.” or “Hey, looking up every five seconds is long enough to let me know that you’re paying attention.” or anything along those lines would make things so much easier…