Talk about eye-contact. Do you make eye-contact? Why or why not? Does it make you uncomfortable?
I don’t make a lot of eye contact. It makes me really uncomfortable and when I am doing it, it takes up all of my attention. So, I can either be looking into someone’s eyes or I can be listening to what they’re saying. I will do brief glancing eye-contact with the people I’m really comfortable with, but the neurotypical brand of eye-contact is outside of my capabilities. I don’t really catch or understand the little micro expressions people do so it seems kind of pointless to make eye-contact when I don’t get anything out of it and it stresses me out. I usually use vocal tone to figure out their emotions which seems to work well for me.
In school and out in public I usually wear sunglasses. They serve 2 purposes: to block out the fluorescent lighting that most places seem to have and to hide my lack of eye-contact. In cases without the sunglasses I typically look at the ground or off to the side, though sometimes I attempt to appear like I’m looking them in the eye and I look at their forehead. But for the most part I don’t really care, most people know I’m autistic so it seems like a waste of time trying to blend in when it really serves no purpose.
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