Ah, the old “stare over the crowd’s head” advice. I have bad news. It doesn’t work. It makes you look like you are reading from an inconveniently placed teleprompter or that you are trying to identify the nearest exit for hasty escape. People who give this advice probably don’t speak much in public. At least not very well.
Find some attentive, friendly faces, and make eye contact. Hell, make a personal connection. It is presumed that you’d be talking to this group with the goal of persuading them of something. Last thing you need is to look deranged.
One on one; same deal. Only it’s even more noticeable if you find the floor to the lower left more interesting than the person you are speaking to. Someone trained in interviewing or an astute observer of body language will note an inability to make eye contact. It can mean a bunch of things, but many of them will be interpreted to be negative.
Me… I always make eye contact. I can set people at ease with the gesture of attentiveness or stare right through them and make them quite uncomfortable, depending upon my mood and what I’m after.
I used to have a problem with eye contact but forced myself to learn better ways of behaving/communicating.
As a teenager I went to a new school and whilst still in the ‘don’t know anybody here’ stage I became aware that my eye contact was fleeting. I’d glance, look away, glance back etc - basically I was nervous and it showed in this way. Once I’d worked out that I did it I forced myself to maintain eye contact for gradually longer periods until I got better at it. I don’t have issues now.
On the other side of the coin, some people maintain eye contact for far too long and it can come over as aggressive and unpleasant. There’s definitely a happy medium which is hard to quantify. One tip is to watch others and see how they do it then mimic. Eventually it becomes second nature.
I have to remind myself, and I find it difficult if I’m physically close to the person (less than four feet away or so). I rarely hold it for more than 5-10 seconds before looking away, but I try to go back every minute or two. I do think it’s a delicate balance. I don’t have self esteem problems, I just find eye contact in close quarters very intimate and it makes me uncomfortable to be that intimate with someone who I don’t want to have sex with. I don’t have any trouble in interviews or the quick-eye-contact-and-smile thing when I pass someone on the street.
I have problems keeping eye contact going in conversations, not because I’ve got low self-esteem or can’t stand the scrutiny – I have problems because they’re boring me. Good Lord, it is agony trying to seem interested when someone is droning on and on about something you know very well or could care less about.
I have to force myself to occasionally make eye contact just to give the illusion of being marginally un-rude. I’ve noticed that I’ve developed a routine – eye-contact, weak smile, nod, look down as though considering what they’re saying, repeat.
Fortunately, I’m an engineer working with lots of engineers – most of 'em hardly notice me looking away, scanning the room for a big axe or knife or something to end the agony with. Unfortunately, I’m an engineer working with lots of engineers, and all of 'em can’t seem to figure out how painful conversations with them are.
Of course, the same may be said of my parents, with whom I also have eye contact problems…
I am trying to do this. In general, other people scare me and I have a lot of self-worth problems, but I recently started taking an improv class, and boy is the eye contact issue rearing its head. You have to look into the eyes of the person you’re next to, there’s no getting around it, so I’m learning fast to get over myself. Still freaks me out, though.
In a non-personal situation, I can do eye contact. I just have to be phony to do it, so people I work with, or with store clerks, or random strangers who ask for the time will get it, but my friends will get me looking at everything else – their hands, usually – and then occasionally jumping up to meet their gaze for a few seconds.
I’ve never noticed - which I guess means I don’t have a problem with it in general - except that I can’t seem to make eye contact with someone I have thought about having sex with.
This can be profoundly embarrassing at times, as I get overtaken by the “I can’t meet his eyes - oh no does he know that means I want to have sex with him? - no, it’s fine, just make eye contact - but if I make eye contact then he’ll know for SURE” internal monologue and the blushing and the stammering.
In this case, it is fortunate that most of the people I think about having sex with are totally indifferent to social cues about people wanting to have sex with them.
More of a problem at a distance, say 20 metres away. Far enough away that you can judge that someone you know is going to come by you and can say hello, but far enough away that you can’t say hello. So I have to look away or at my feet and then look up hoping I’ve timed it well enough so that I can say hello straight away.