What's up with people who don't make eye contact when they talk to you? When I'm serving customers at work and they don't make eye contact I assume that they're uncomfortable or intimidated by me. Some people with autism don't make a lot of eye contact; it's one of the traits of autism. It can also be a trait of ADHD. One of my children could do better at making eye contact; she falls into the ADHD category.
When I'm with my husband, having a conversation with someone, there are occasions when he gets all the eye contact. If the conversation is with a man, I assume he doesn't want my husband to think he's checking me out, or maybe he is struggling with checking me out, or maybe he just wants to have a guy to guy conversation. Although I feel awkward, I don't get hung up on it. However, I do get hung up when we're talking with a woman and he gets all the eye contact. It's not that I think she's flirting with him, or checking him out, it's that I wonder how I got to be invisible. Why is she not looking at me? Is she intimidated by me? Or does she not respect me? Generally, I feel untrusting of her, and as though she is not interested in getting to know me or letting herself be known to me.
Eye contact is important. When people make eye contact with me I feel respected, listened to and connected to them. It is also easier for me to listen to and understand them when they make eye contact with me.
Sometimes I notice myself avoiding eye contact and I start to think about why. Usually it's because I'm tired, feeling introverted or overwhelmed. Why do you avoid eye contact?
Down East eye contact was pretty much the norm, but when I moved up to Ontario I had people tell me that direct eye contact freaked them out. That led to huge internal conflicts over the practice. I still prefer eye contact when getting to know people - eye contact was the formal way of conversing and non-eye contact was more something you did with people you were familiar with, like your friends. It wasn't that you didn't have eye contact with them - but that you didn't need to always have it, you could let your guard down.
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