When I look at people's eyes I get scared and I don't hear what they're saying. Maybe it's true that it's aggressive. I don't like people looking at my eyes either; it feels like they're reading my thoughts. So if someone is talking to me I look at their mouth- it helps me pay attention and understand them because I read their lips along with hearing what they're saying.
I typically look at a person's eyelids. That's the easiest way of doing it - some people can tell if you're looking at their unibrow (or their shaved unibrow which is now unibrow stubble).
for me it is like tring to watch a broken television set.
oh, yeah, number fourty-two, w00t!
All species aside from NT humans preceive eye contact as a threat. Even monkeys and apes. When I was little I would not make eye contact with people because I thought they would think it was threatning. People think I have this supernatural connection with animals. I think it's because I don't look them in the eye like NT people do and go, "Oh what beautiful eyes!" and then scare it away. I've been reading that AS/Autism is something to do with acient genes coming back or something. I think the eye contact thing may be from when humans were still basicaly animals and such.
I don't make eye contact because:
1) It feels like a hull breach into my inner self. It is unnerving.
2) I can not listen as well when I have to also concentrate on looking
3) I am faceblind and therefore not particularly drawn to look at faces.
4) Faces or eyes do not give me much information and I am not sending the right cues back. It is not a useful non-verbal exchange.
5) It causes pain in a nearly physical way that I've been unable to describe with words.
I think with some of these people it is quite scary as we appear very 'normal' with some issues, I think it challenges there own concept of what is normal
What an interesting thought
Eye contact feels really unnatural to me. I can't make eye contact because it makes me feel ill (like an imaginary pain in my chest) and makes it hard to breath. It also feels like they can see inside me.
I've felt this way for as long as I remember. Eye contact has always seemed unneccessary and overrated.
....I never know how long to look and when to look away. I find while people are talking to me I feel I need to stare at them, but this is uncomfortable, but when i'm talking I need to look away otherwise I don't remember what I was going to say.
I'm the same...when they are talking, I am drawn to their face but this is uncomfortable to them, and to me because i know I am creating distress by my fascination (and sometimes I get so fascinated by their face or eyes that their language turns into wah wah wah...). But good heavens I cannot look at you and talk at the same time or I loose or mix up all my cues for when it's time to shut up or how to modulate my voice. I try that third-eye thing with my boss and every time I do it, he squints.
[/quote]
I was often accused of staring at people in school, but what happened is that I had been listening but then drifted of into my thoughts but was still staring in their eyes...
[/quote]
~chuckles~
"what?! why are you staring at me?"
"you stood in the spot I was staring at"
(it is AMAZING at how puzzled and apologetic they get, stand aside and look at the spot too
)
I cant nutrally do it either i have to think but when i get in trouble my step dad yells in my face and he wants me to look into his eyes and so i think real hard and i do but when he's done yelling his head off he asks me what he said and i cant say because i was focusing on looking into his eyes.
Then he yells at me again for not listening.
That's truly brutal. I had a parent that would do that.
I cant nutrally do it either i have to think but when i get in trouble my step dad yells in my face and he wants me to look into his eyes and so i think real hard and i do but when he's done yelling his head off he asks me what he said and i cant say because i was focusing on looking into his eyes.
Then he yells at me again for not listening.
That's truly brutal. I had a parent that would do that.
BTW - I think I know exactly what you mean with the eye contact - I can do it, but then my whole focus goes there. My whole focus shift s to the eyes, and everything else is blocked out. Can't understand words at that point. My parent would alternate between rapping me on my head for not making eye contact, and rapping me on the head for maiking eye contact but "spacing out"
I actually enjoy eye contact with someone I am close to. But if they try to speak to me when it's occuring, I cannot comprehend what is being said.
Drives the wife nuts. At least she doesn't get that angry about it. 
My Doctor at first didn't think I had aspergers because I could look him in the eyes, but I only do it with people I am very comfortable with like family members (although I don't with my sister). I had been seeing my doctor since 1 month old so I was quite comofortable doing that, but at school I usually look at the floor when my friends are talking to me or I look around which makes them think I'm not paying attention.
I've been training myself to look people in the yes so I do it more often now then I used to, but I still can't for a lot of people. The "looking around or at the floor" happens.
(chuckle) I just suggested to a friend that I think I'd like to build for myself a furry little cave type piece of furniture, like those snug hidey beds you see for cats. That way i could hold a conversation, watch tv together or share a pizza but be comfortably hidden from view during that time. As an experiment I tried talking with him while we were on opposite sides of a curtain. It felt rather like a confessional though
Eye contact feels really unnatural to me. I can't make eye contact because it makes me feel ill (like an imaginary pain in my chest) and makes it hard to breath. It also feels like they can see inside me.
I've felt this way for as long as I remember. Eye contact has always seemed unneccessary and overrated.
Hmmm....after reading the thread on Alexithymia I have realised the emotion I am trying to describe here is anxiety.
Yes, eye contact makes me anxious.
I really haven't ever seen any point in looking at someone's eyes all the time in a conversation. If there are several people and I expect one of them to react, then I look at its face, but I really can't process speech and visual info at the same time anyway.
I can look people in the eyes that I know and usually I just don't. It sort of makes me feel uncomfortable and sometimes people have demanded that I look them in the face when I talk to them.