Just wondering. I’m a fairly tall person(6ft), but I feel awkward making eye contact with people who are extra-tall (people that are around 6’4" and taller. Its not that they are intimidating, but maybe I’m not use to moving my eyes upward or looking up at people.
Do you short people find it awkward to hold eye contact with tall people?
I remember eye contact. That was when two strangers would meet each other in the street, prepared to nod a greeting to each other, without patting their pocket to make sure their gun is at hand… I haven’t seen that in decades, especially with the opposite sex. I’d almost forgotten about that.
wait… what??
I’m just over 5’ and have several nephews well over 6’ and have never experienced any sort of issue looking them in the eye.
I once met a pro basketball player and I did have to considerably crook my neck to look him in the eye. But stepping back a couple of paces made it much easier.
I’m having a difficult time imagining that a 4" height difference presents real barriers to looking someone in the eye, to be honest!
I guess you’re too young to remember when eye contcat was considered a friendly gesture, and not a threat.
I thought this was going to be about how nobody makes eye contact anymore because everyone has their eyes glued to the screen of their cellphone.
Last weekend we had a reunion from a popular nightclub in the early 70’s. About 300 people showed up. It was interesting to see how the groups forming were usually of similar height.
No, because as a shorter person, I’m almost always conversing/interacting with taller people. It’s not unusual so it’s not awkward.
Nah. A swift punch in the nuts drops them to their knees. Then I’m the taller one! 
If there’s anything giving me trouble with eye contact, it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with the height difference.
Only in an extreme case.
I am of quite average height for a man and only remember one time having particular difficulty making eye contact with someone much taller. I was teaching a beginner’s sailing lesson and one of my students was a forward on the university’s mens basketball team. With his 7ft frame he had quite some difficulty squeezing his body under the boom while tacking and gybing. Looking him in the eye was impossible.
I’m about 4 feet tall in my wheelchair. People avoid eye contact with me like the plague. It’s only weird middle aged men and very old ladies who seem to make any eye contact.
I’ve never even seen a short person, but maybe I need to glance down more often.
This is why I don’t attend Doperfests.
My husband is a foot taller than I am. I have no trouble making eye contact with him (or any other contact).
And BTW, gay men tend to make eye contact much more than straight men.
My husband, at 6’3", was a fairly tall person from the time he was 11. He once said that whenever he met someone taller than him, it immediately made him feel younger but not in a good way. Taller women more so than taller men.
Now the funny thing is the way your height in relation to other people can affect your thinking like that. I am on the short-to-average side myself, and I’ve usually been in a mix where I am not the shortest person. But for one season in my dance class I was the tallest person. It was a little weird to me to be the one in the middle. I started to feel like the Jolly Blonde Giant.
But usually, in most mixes, I am average to short–I think people are getting taller and no, I am not shrinking (yet). So since I’m where I’m accustomed to be I have no trouble with eye contact or feeling like I’m standing out or disappearing.
Most people don’t realize how short dancers are, men and women alike. Audrey Hepburn couldn’t be a ballerina because, at 5’7", she was too tall. Baryshnikov is about 5’5"-5’6".
People still make eye contact. It’s just you’ve had a booger sticking out of your nose for 40 years.
In Smallville, all the female leads were a foot shorter than the male leads (the women were about 5’, the guys were all over 6’). Whenever there was any hugging, the woman would have to look straight up to make eye contact. Always looked awkward as hell.
Then in the 3rd season, they brought Erica Durance (5’7") in to play Lois Lane, and all the actresses were like “well, thank god…”