Eye contact-such a tricky one.

Concerning Eye Contact.

I had watched this topic/thread in some hope that others may contribute more to it... but that was almost a week ago... and I wonder if I myself may have said... something... towards discouragement over further discussion concerning this "staring" topic, --- just by by mentioning " skin colour", maybe...? This last is a topic not allowed much by NAS, and so what I later discuss has little to do with that. Meanwhile, if anyone felt "offended", then I apologise (again)...??

If nothing else... Please do the thing that at least ROBERT123 suggested, which also agrees with what I myself posted: To avoid staring, Look at the face, and shift from one eye to the other, and then onwards to the nose or mouth, and repeat... and so that does not count as "fixedly staring".

This is for any "later" discussion.
I shall post here what I myself do. I do not know if it is because of my own "skin colour", or simply because of "being ASD and so 'acting unusual' ".
When younger, I used to act "normally", looking at everything and being alert or cheery...yet being told off for "staring" or "not looking", was, as it suited other people, to find simply the smallest excuse to begin to "tell me off" for anything else at all.
But nowadays, when "walking down the street", what I do is stare fixedly at the ground, and only looking up when concerning avoiding people, or looking at traffic lights, or something (not someONE) of interest.
As I carry myself in this manner, I have seen that, to gain any accusations of "staring", it requires much WORK from casual persons...
1- They *have* to gain "a look" from me, before they can begin to start whatever they had planned (in advance) to say at or about me.
2- Some persons, as you are NOT looking at them, they actually WILL shift to block your path, and then yell/wave/trip/anything-else... to *force* you to look at them. (I might start another thread about this (!), because it happens to me so often.) Once you look at them, then they begin whatever they wanted to begin at you in their own first place. E.G. "Hey, weirdo! (Why are you staring at the ground??) You're so weird/stupid/badly dressed/you better buy what I want to sell to you"... that sort of discussion.

This is posted in wondering if anyone else (here) has the same trouble or can understand what I mean. It is a social thing. It is also one of the reasons for my own USERNAME - The "Disallowed Cynosure" --- for it happens to me quite constantly. 'Bye for now.

Concerning Eye Contact.

I had watched this topic/thread in some hope that others may contribute more to it... but that was almost a week ago... and I wonder if I myself may have said... something... towards discouragement over further discussion concerning this "staring" topic, --- just by by mentioning " skin colour", maybe...? This last is a topic not allowed much by NAS, and so what I later discuss has little to do with that. Meanwhile, if anyone felt "offended", then I apologise (again)...??

If nothing else... Please do the thing that at least ROBERT123 suggested, which also agrees with what I myself posted: To avoid staring, Look at the face, and shift from one eye to the other, and then onwards to the nose or mouth, and repeat... and so that does not count as "fixedly staring".

This is for any "later" discussion.
I shall post here what I myself do. I do not know if it is because of my own "skin colour", or simply because of "being ASD and so 'acting unusual' ".
When younger, I used to act "normally", looking at everything and being alert or cheery...yet being told off for "staring" or "not looking", was, as it suited other people, to find simply the smallest excuse to begin to "tell me off" for anything else at all.
But nowadays, when "walking down the street", what I do is stare fixedly at the ground, and only looking up when concerning avoiding people, or looking at traffic lights, or something (not someONE) of interest.
As I carry myself in this manner, I have seen that, to gain any accusations of "staring", it requires much WORK from casual persons...
1- They *have* to gain "a look" from me, before they can begin to start whatever they had planned (in advance) to say at or about me.
2- Some persons, as you are NOT looking at them, they actually WILL shift to block your path, and then yell/wave/trip/anything-else... to *force* you to look at them. (I might start another thread about this (!), because it happens to me so often.) Once you look at them, then they begin whatever they wanted to begin at you in their own first place. E.G. "Hey, weirdo! (Why are you staring at the ground??) You're so weird/stupid/badly dressed/you better buy what I want to sell to you"... that sort of discussion.

This is posted in wondering if anyone else (here) has the same trouble or can understand what I mean. It is a social thing. It is also one of the reasons for my own USERNAME - The "Disallowed Cynosure" --- for it happens to me quite constantly. 'Bye for now.

I assure you that you have not offended anyone.  It's just people have moved on to other topics.

Back to eye contact.  In the NT world, appropriate eye contact is encouraged.  Today  I was shopping at Aldi.  And I noticed that on the inside of the cash till there was stuck a reminder.  "GREET,. SMILE, EYE CONTACT".