Closing your eyes while talking

In My Humble Opinion
1

I work with two people - both of whom I really like – who do something that bugs the crap out of me.

With great frequency, when talking, they both screw their eyes shut. For quite awhile I’ve tried to figure out if there is a certain topic/situation that causes eye squinching, but they do it during intellectual conversations and when answering stuff like “do you want a piece of cake?”

They are both (a male and a female) phobic about workplace conflict and are very apologetic about practically everything. So, maybe it’s a protective tic?

I tend to roll my (open) eyes up and to the right when trying to remember something – maybe their eye squinching is a form of idea retrieval, etc, but having a piece of cake doesn’t usually require deep thought.

I’m unsure about why conversation squinch eye drives me crazy. It may be because I derive a lot from sustained eye contact and they interrupt it.

Do you know anyone who does this? Do you do it? If so, do you know why?

2

I had a boss who would do this.

It’s likely a coping mechanism. Just like how when I’m talking to someone, I often have to look off to the side. Sustained eye contact disrupts my thought processes and causes me to lose my train of thought. I can make eye contact when someone is talking to me, though.

3

I’ve not seen that, but I do close my eyes during certain workout times - lifting weights, yoga, planks, push ups, as I always felt my technique was better if I shut my eyes and concentrated on what my body was doing…I often wonder when I’m at the gym if people look at me and think, “WTF?”

But it’s become such habit that I don’t even realize I’m doing it, so I agree with monstro and submit my very humble and completely WAG that it started as a coping or concentration mechanism for them, and has evolved into them doing it all the time without noticing…

4

It may be their way of dealing with a speech impediment such as stuttering.

5

I know a guy who does exactly this. He is a bit cognitively and socially challenged, although he does hold down a job and own a home.

He doesn’t exactly stutter, but sometimes he squeezes his eyes shut when he seems to be searching for a word or phrase. Other times it seems random.

And it’s not a matter of simply closing his eyes. He squinches them like there’s a solar eclipse about.
mmm

6

For me it’s a stuttering thing. If I close my eyes, or at least break eye contact, I find the words come out much smoother. Can’t win for losing, if I do normal things then I annoy people, if I use coping mechanism, I annoy people.

7

Interesting input! I didn’t think conversational eye squinching was so common; both my friends are hyper-articulate professors (no stuttering or speech impediments).

I don’t know why this trait bugs me so much, it might be because it’s so constant.

OTOH, I have hyper-mobile eyebrows - I don’t think I can talk without using them.* A friend is probably on some other forum bitching about how irritating my conversational eyebrows are.

*Mrs. Jennshark is a Jewish-Italian Manhattanite. I have scientifically proven that she is unable to speak without hand gestures.

8

I have noticed a lot of professional singers do this.

Maybe it is a concentration thing.

9

I’ve noticed it in technical discussions at work when one person is trying to describe or understand a complex process. It seems like they are trying to visualize the process and block out extraneous data.

10

Problems with eye contact are a common Asperger/autism type thing. Lots of people (like me) are that neurotype without being totally disordered by it; that’d be my guess.

11

If I’m discussing technical stuff with someone, it can be a huge help if I shut my eyes and eliminate visual stimulation. It also allows me to visualize what I’m talking about.

12

It could be a reaction to being called out on prior improper eye contact.

Used to be, when someone asked me a question, I would roll my eyes up as part of thinking about it.

Unfortunately, I got accused of “rolling my eyes” at them on a relatively frequent basis.

So, rather than having to stop and explain to each of these people individually that I am not rolling my eyes at them, that’s just my natural reaction when I think, I worked really hard on suppressing that urge.

I still occasionally get called out on rolling my eyes at people who ask me questions, so it is something that I cannot just retrain, but have to remember consciously everytime.

I can understand, if they have had similar issues, why they find it easier to just close their eyes.

13

When I picture people doing this, I’m with Jennshark - it bugs the crap out of me. It comes across as . . .dramatic and kind of arrogant (?) even though I like the people who do it. In reality I think it’s probably just a tic that may be part of helping the person to recall / concentrate, as others have said. My personal version of it is kind of moving my mouth to the side (which probably annoys other people).

14

I don’t think the OP is talking about folks who merely close their eyes during conversation. The acquaintance mentioned in my example above is actively squeezing his eyelids together tightly, not simply closing them.

Correct me if I’m wrong, Jennshark.
mmm

15

Jennshark I also have hypermobile eyebrows. I didn’t realize how expressive they were until we started doing teleconferencing with GoToMeeting (or whatever) and I could see my face. Oops. I may have been expressing a little too much of my “indoor” thinking*. I worked on my poker face after that.
*Really, we don’t have enough meetings?! We have to add teleconferencing at stupid hours to talk more about other meetings. FFS.

16

Yes, it’s intense squinching-screwing down the lids.

17

I didn’t realize either until a friend told me I have “talented eyebrows.”

I’m with you on meetings. We have meetings about other meetings about other meetings; I’m of firm belief that 96.6% of the meetings I attend could be replaced by distributing a well-written, short paragraph.