Lack of eye contact in public

[Xalea]

Have there been any incidents or occasions where people would talk about your lack of eye contact?

There were times where people would note me looking down , even a doctor forced me to look up during a doctor's appointment.

 

[Masked Man]

I very rarely make eye contact in public around people I don't know. It used to be commented on when I was in school and my parents would often shame me a bit for it. I'm an adult now and I still don't do it for the most part, although I do make attempts to at least try to do it. It just doesn't feel natural for me at all.

 

[Xalea]

I'm also uncomfortable with eye contact. It has raised some concerns amongst the job coaches I've worked with since they feel it would affect my employment and how my potential bosses would treat me.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Have there been any incidents or occasions where people would talk about your lack of eye contact?

Not to my face, but likely. I have been on the other side of it too, where I had autistic students in which this behavior was quite profound and it was a struggle, even for me, to communicate with them.

There were times where people would note me looking down , even a doctor forced me to look up during a doctor's appointment.

Yes, it is difficult to communicate when someone is behaving like this.

Throw in the quiet voice, the one-word answers, and it is like pulling teeth trying to communicate.

 

[Rodafina]

I learned from a young age that I had to make eye contact and I’ve always forced myself to do it. But that came with the price of taking in far less relevant information. It’s so much easier to focus on what someone is saying when I am not looking at them.

Now, I am experimenting with telling people that it’s easier to comprehend what they are saying if I am looking away. But, so far there is only one person who really understands. (No surprise, that person is also autistic.)

 

[Vesta]

I usually avoid prolonged eye contact if a person makes me feel negative emotions or discomfort. Like everyone else. When I was a child, there were times when adult men or boys would intentionally scare me with an aggressive stare, which would make me cry.
Sometimes, when I look at someone, it irritates them, so I try not to look at people at all. However, overall, I can calmly look into the eyes of strangers, for example, on the street, and it doesn't make me uncomfortable at all.

 

[Xalea]

I usually avoid prolonged eye contact if a person makes me feel negative emotions or discomfort. Like everyone else. When I was a child, there were times when adult men or boys would intentionally scare me with an aggressive stare, which would make me cry.
Sometimes, when I look at someone, it irritates them, so I try not to look at people at all. However, overall, I can calmly look into the eyes of strangers, for example, on the street, and it doesn't make me uncomfortable at all.

I have the same feeling too, except with strangers or people I don't feel trusting of.

 

[Outdated]

It's not an issue that I ever had a problem with. In face to face situations I'm a fairly good communicator and I don't suffer any social anxiety. When I go out I'm one of those people that starts up conversations with random strangers.

 

[Vesta]

It's not an issue that I ever had a problem with. In face to face situations I'm a fairly good communicator and I don't suffer any social anxiety. When I go out I'm one of those people that starts up conversations with random strangers.

Could you please tell us how exactly your autism manifests itself? Could you describe it in detail?

 

[Outdated]

Could you please tell us how exactly your autism manifests itself? Could you describe it in detail?

I'm pure ASD, no comorbities. I have hypersensitivities, especially hearing and smell, and I'm very prone to social and emotional burnout. I also ended up with an abnormally high IQ. I used to get picked on all the time as a kid but I never saw myself as disabled in any way, quite the opposite, I believed I was picked on because the other kids were jealous of my abilities. In my eyes they were the ones with disabilities and I was the only fully functioning brain in the whole school, including the teachers.

That's part of the answer you're looking for - ego. I was always pretty proud of myself.

The other part is in the way I grew up, vastly different to how people live today. This isn't a cultural difference, it's a generational difference. Read through this forum and you'll notice a quite distinct generational divide. In those of us now over 45 social anxiety is not common, for those of us currently under the age of 30 that social anxiety is almost universal.

I blame the way kids spend most of their lives in either school or day care centres where their only social learning comes from other kids instead of responsible adults. In the school yard the bully rules and if you're exposed to that and nothing else during your formative years then damage is done that will follow you for the rest of your lives.

We didn't have day care centres when I was a kid. We walked ourselves to and from school and we went home to an empty house because both parents worked. We were also given a lot more responsibility at a much earlier age than most kids today. At 5 years old we'd come home from school and find a note on the table with some money telling us to go to the shop and buy milk, things like that. So two massive differences there:

We weren't trapped within a nasty social hierarchy (school bullies) for the majority of our lives.

We got to speak to normal adults outside of our family and without parental supervision and got to see that the social environment we experienced in school was seriously messed up and that the outside world isn't like that.

At age 7 I used to go door to door selling lemons for pocket money, we had a tree in the back yard. I learnt how to socialise and how to talk to people from a very early age.

 

[Vesta]

t. I also ended up with an abnormally high IQ.

Among people with autism, gifted individuals occur with the same frequency as among neurotypical people, as I have heard

 

[Outdated]

Among people with autism, gifted individuals occur with the same frequency as among neurotypical people, as I have heard

Apparently not true.

Average or high IQ in individuals with ASD may be higher than previously estimated

 

[Dagan]

I'm still the same. I can have a hard time with eye contact or wind up staring a hole through someone's face, so that they actually look away a lot. Oops.

 

[Judge]

Yes. Involving my own parents who knew there was something "different" about me, but at the same time neither they or medical doctors could articulate on autism (in the very early 60s).

Ultimately my parents approached me and told me that it's unacceptable not to look one in the eye when talking to them, and they emphasized how important it was to overcome this on my part. In hindsight it made me realize part of this on the part of my father, whose father and uncle were both federal law enforcement officers. Persons who both professionally and personally considered such behavior as a manifestation of dishonesty.

It was something I was able to physically overcome, although mentally to this day sustained eye contact with someone other than one I have an intimate relationship was still within the realm of being uncomfortable to me.

Equally my parents emphasized to me about the importance of being "right-handed" to get along with most everyone else. That I was told to give up the appearance of being ambidextrous as well.

 

[vergil96]

Have there been any incidents or occasions where people would talk about your lack of eye contact?

Yes and I wouldn't call that an "incident", because it's not a problem. One autistic friend was too rigid about eye contact, because he doesn't instinctively pick up on nonverbal communication, and asked if I don't like him, because I look through the window. But it's an exception. It usually reads as "shy" as far as I've noticed.

I'm also uncomfortable with eye contact. It has raised some concerns amongst the job coaches I've worked with since they feel it would affect my employment and how my potential bosses would treat me.

This strategy of treating everyone like your best friend mighy be good in sales, but is it so for an average person? I highly doubt.

 

[Jumpinbare]

Like others above, I had to learn to do eye contact as a kid. It never became natural though. As others have stated, maintaining eye contact detracts from paying attention to what's said. When I do make a point of making eye contact, the other person looks away. I guess my eye contact is intimidating. And trying to find a "balance" of contact vs lookiing away was always too contrived for me, and I only tried it a few times. Too much guessing was involved, and it detracted too much from listening. So it's an either/or usually. I either make the most fleeting contact initially then look away (usually down or out a window), or they get my "laser eyes:.