Photo by zolakoma
Eye contact has always been a sore spot for me. When I was younger, I was often pushed to make eye contact and was told that not doing so was both rude and unacceptable. These days, I understand that eye contact is both important and with practice, a bit less uncomfortable.
While this may be something that’s a bit specific to me, I find it much much easier to make eye contact with someone I trust, such as my fiancee. My best guess as to why this is the case lies in my higher level of trust in her. Trust like that is built over time and is not earned by trying to force eye contact or other things that are uncomfortable or painful for those on the autism spectrum.
If you are looking to understand why eye contact is difficult in general for aspies instead of my experience specifically, check this article out.
The most difficult part of learning to make eye contact has always been understanding why it is important. I mean, in all seriousness, why does it make any sense really? At least from the perspective of someone who has a harder time understanding expressions, making eye contact seems kind of useless, as I’m not getting any more information than I would have if I was just listening to the voice of the person whom I am talking to.
Over time, however, it has become easier for me to understand expressions, and I’ve become more accustomed to making eye contact without it being too obvious that I’m uncomfortable. Admittedly though, activities like interviews and meetings can be really difficult, as eye contact is expected for longer times than casual conversation (the 80-20 rule comes in handy for gauging how much eye contact to make).
I am very thankful that such times of expected eye contact are much less frequent at this point in my life, meaning I have just that much more energy to tackle each day.
Despite the brevity of this article, I think it provides a good image of what eye contact feels like for me. I hesitate to speak for all aspies, hence this article talking from my perspective, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if my experiences match up with those of my fellow aspies.
In any case, thanks for reading and for walking through some of my thoughts on eye contact!