I have trouble with it, mostly because in Korea teachers would get angry if you looked them in the eye (and some would slap you for it). Needless to say it’s not an environment that encourages you to make eye contact.
I’m better at it nowadays, but occasionally the person I’m talking to will glance over their shoulder to see what the hell is distracting me. I’m not distracted, but I tend to look off into the distance while I talk. Not while I listen, though. For some reason I find it easier to make eye contact while listening than I do while talking.
Major eye contact problems here. I can describe in detail the 4 or 5 things around the office that I look at when I’m talking to my therapist. Looking AT her while talking about my feelings is next to impossible. If I try to make myself look at her, then I forget what I’m talking about completely.
When there’s no conflict, I don’t have a lot of problems making eye contact socially or interpersonally. But if I have to defend my feelings or opinions, or if I feel like there’s any kind of negativity brewing, then I avoid like a mofo. I hate that about myself. No poker face here…
I have a bit of a stammer…I found out relatively recently that I control it better when I can face the person but not make eye contact. What I’m losing in intimacy I’m making up for in clarity. I think everybody wins that way.
It’s funny- I always had problems with making eye contact with people until I was in college and had to make sure I did it. I had very low self-esteem as a kid and was always looking down or away. Now I make good eye contact, but I had to work at it. I was just more comfortable not looking at you.
The funny/ironic thing comes in when my youngest son is about 18 months old and won’t make eye contact. I assume it’s just a kid thing, like mine. Nope- he’s autistic. Inability to make eye contact is a primary indicator of an autism spectrum disorder.
I have read accounts of autistic young adults who say that direct eye contact hurts them. It has to do with executive functioning, I think- they are able to process the information coming in through their ears much better if they don’t have to watch the person speaking.
Judge Judy very often screams at the top of her lungs when she feels people aren’t making enough eye contact with her. I guess she feels that she has some power to know if they’re lying or telling the truth by looking in their eyes. She’s a smart lady so I can’t argue with her about it, though she could dial the yelling down.
The eyes are the windows to the soul, as they say. So it’s easy for some folks to get a little queasy about others barging in and taking a quick inventory of all the many shameful things lurking in there.
Once, many years ago when I was down on my luck, I was in a Texas welfare office to see about getting some stamps so I could eat, and this lady came in (for the same reason) and right away began talking to me about sex. For the whole time she talked she kept her eyes closed. And so the thing is, maybe she was on to something, maybe it would be a good thing if there was a movement towards an etiquette rule that would have people always keep their eyes closed when speaking to each other face to face. It might even help with respect to keeping one’s mind focused on the conversation, as well as keeping the lid closed to having others see the evil shame that lurks in all of us.
LOL! It is a distracting size :D, but he was actually just a little introverted at first. Our first date was a 2-hour-long conversation over coffee, so by the end of it he was feeling much more comfortable with me. The vastly improved eye contact during the last part of our date made me 100% sure about seeing him again.
I can do it sometimes, like when I’m up speaking in public, or playing music. If I am in class and a teacher makes eye contact with me on purpose (to see if I’m “paying attention”) it doesn’t matter if I am or not - I look down immediately. It just bugs me.
I force myself to make eye contact. Otherwise I’d just be staring at boobies.
Seriously though, I tend to look around a lot and and so my eye contact is sporadic. Sometimes I get a bit uneasy if I feel like I’m making too much eye contact. I don’t want to freak the other person out.
I usually look at a person’s whole face. I’ll move from eyes to nose to mouth and back again.
I can’t make direct eye contact without forcing myself, and when I do I find it quite painful. You probably wouldn’t notice though, as I’ve trained myself to fake it pretty well by looking at your forehead or nose. At least, no one ever complains anymore, so I think I’m faking it pretty well.
I either don’t look people in the eye enough or I have prosopagnosia. I think it is the latter because I don’t generally feel uncomfortable looking at people. But I really have trouble recognizing them later. And I often walk right by people I know without even realizing it.
I know people think I’m standoffish, or at best, absent-mindedly in my own little dream world. Funny thing is, it is probably all true: I’m not great at eye contact, I have mild prosopagnosia, I’m standoffish and I’m in a dream world.
Oh, gosh, yes. To the point that when I wrote an article about my experiences interviewing for jobs, one of my old professors e-mailed me out of the blue to tell me he thought I probably had an eye contact problem. The depressing part is that he nailed it on the head and he hadn’t even set eyes on me in nine years!
Sigh. I do try, especially in interviews, but most of the time I’m so focused on what I’m saying that I forget.
I use eye contact and other body language all of the time to pursuade and influence people (in my job). And in daily life I think it shows confidence to look people in the eye. It didn’t come naturally to me at first, but after some practice and some “fake it 'til ya make it,” I caught onto it quite easily.
Ditto for me. It’s a complete syndrome, I think: the “eye contact/small talk/phone” syndrome. Or maybe simple introversion.
It’s not that I don’t do eye contact, it’s that I’m not very good at it. I find it awkward. But it’s also pretty darn apparent that in the world at large, the working world in particular, eye contact is important. Even if it doesn’t come naturally to you, you have to work on it, or you’re in trouble.
And by the way, St_Ides, I found your location tag hilariously appropriate for this thread!
EEEeeeeehhhhh. That’s a pretty questionable act, methinks. Okay, maybe he had your best interests at heart, and maybe he was even right. But to contact you after nine years of not being in touch? With a criticism like that (which in all likelihood would just make you more self-conscious)?
He may not have had an eye contact problem himself, but I do think he might have other issues regarding what constitutes appropriate social interaction.
Interesting. When I first answered the OP, I was going on memory. Today I had the occasion to speak to three different women at work, and observed what I did. Straight in the eye with each of them. Of course, it probably helps that they are all drop-dead gorgeous and all have amazing eyes of blue, green, and jet black. I think I gave the one with black eyes a few lingering gazes. Wow.
Of course, to not come across as Uncle Skeevy, I was polite enough to occasionally look somewhere else. Like their blouses. You know, to see if they were in style. Oh yeah!
never really thought about it before reading this thread, but I realized that my eye contact varies depending on the conversation:
If I’m in a situation where I don’t want to listen to what someone is saying, but can’t explicitly tell them “I don’t care,” then I won’t make eye contact beyond a small glance now and again, and usually I’ll be trying to busily preoccupy myself with something in hopes that they’ll take the hint and stop talking to me.
If I’m hanging out with friends, I’ll make eye contact pretty regularly, and will maintain it as needed. Around friends I’m not nervous or anxious, and as such I don’t even notice my eye contact during conversations, but it’s never been mentioned so I assume there’s nothing off about it… or they’re too polite to mention it (but I think it’s the former).
If I’m at an interview or some other function where eye contact is essentially required, but I’m nervous/anxious it becomes more difficult and I have to force myself to make eye contact and not get distracted. Fortunately I’ve developed a few tricks to cause them to break eye contact for a few seconds and give my concentration a break (i.e. gesturing to a specific spot on my resume, gesturing to an object they have in their office as relates to the conversation, etc).
With other men I have a slight problem. I’ll make initial contact and then look around a bit and then come back for a quick glance and then look around again, unless it’s my boss then I force myself to keep constant contact.
With women I have no problem and I try to keep constant contact because I don’t want them thinking I’m staring at their boobies. Sometimes it gets me in trouble because instead of listening to what they are saying I’m concentrating on keeping eye contact and I’m thinking to myself, “Don’t look at her boobies. Don’t look at her boobies. Don’t look at her boobies. Don’t look at her boobies. Don’t look at her boobies.” Then I have to say, “Huh? What? Um could you repeat that please”
Yes, possibly, but I like him anyway He’s one of those blunt-spoken New Yorker types who will tell it to you straight no matter what, and such people are valuable. And it wasn’t exactly “nine years of not being in touch” – we’d certainly e-mailed more recently than that.
I’m better than I was though I’m definitely an introverted type, but I find in business settings or among friends I can do eye contact just fine. Business setting it is easier to do, because I am (generally) more comfortable with what I am doing or how I am trying to present myself, friend’s because we’re all casual and know each other already.
When I’m meeting a guy for the first time (especially if he’s someone I could really get into) I find I have a LOT of trouble making or maintaining eye contact. I met for drinks with a cute guy before Christmas and I totally blew it because of this. I was so nervous I kept looking away and staring off at the tv above the bar (note to self, don’t meet in a place with tv’s again. Too easy to do this.) I’m not great at small talk either, and have to watch myself so I don’t share too much (I tend to extremes when nervous, either I talk too much or am near silent).
