Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello all
I have a question about eye contact. I can make and maintain eye contact, and I remember someone telling me when I was younger that I need to make sure to "look the interviewer in the eye" when I went for interviews. Which is one of my reasons for suspecting I am autistic rather than socially anxious. I don't like eye contact, I do not understand why people feel connected by eye contact.
I've been paying attention to this recently and I have noticed that when I look people in the eye, their eyes dart all over the place. Does anyone else recognize this? I wonder if my eyes are darting around and they are trying to follow or it's just something I'm picking up on.
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.