4 ms·

I'm very similar to you, got diagnosed early 30's, now 38. Still haven't gotten the hang of the eye-contact thing, I know I basically avoid eye-contact, it's no

by Aaargh20318 9y ago

I'm very similar to you, got diagnosed early 30's, now 38. Still haven't gotten the hang of the eye-contact thing, I know I basically avoid eye-contact, it's not a conscious thing. I have to force myself to make eye contact and always feels weird to do. As far as I understand the lack of eye contact is an issue for allistic people so I try to remember, but I usually fail.

krylon 9y ago
It might seem somewhat ironic for a borderline-autist, but I find it kind of comforting that I am not the only one with this condition. To me, eye contact gets harder if I have to focus. Greeting people or answering simple tech-support questions is not a big deal, but when I have to explain - or listen to! - something moderately complex, eye contact becomes difficult. I suspect the phenomenon is related to the Clippy-disaster with MS Office; recognizing faces takes a lot of brain power, and the human brain allocates a significant chunk to that specific task (at least that is what a neurologist once told me). Somebody wrote a Master's thesis or Ph.D. thesis in psychology about why Clippy was hated so much, and it was basically because face-like things at the margin of our field of vision take up a lot of "bandwidth" in the brain and thus distract from other things.