I’m back on my bullshit.
Others don’t like me having eye-contact with them, because I’m too intense.
When people have told me that, I think it was because I was forcing myself to maintain eye contact rather than do it naturally like NTs do, so I would do wayyy to much of it 😳, which made them feel uncomfortable. “How do you like it‽” 😆
Thank you! I’m glad we were able to relate on it. I think it’s helpful for self-awareness and developing healthy relationships.
thanks!
understanding the differences between autism and- ? Other what’s?
Understanding the difference between autistic neurotype and every other neurotype. If you would like, you can choose specific neurotypes or provide education on neurotypes that also share a similar style with eye contact.
Makes me think of The Hypno-toad - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDsIlAXWORw
lol! Yesss! This is very close to how I experience it. Too overwhelming that I dissociate.
eye contact feels like someone is talking to me, and most of the time it feels like they’re unaware they’re talking, and like they’re telling me intimate details that seem like a bit much to be sharing.
I feel similar! It’s like they are being too intimate. I feel completely uncomfortable with that in the vast majority of situations/relationships. In fact, I accidentally did it at salsa dance class this week with someone I barely know. I have only seen them in dance class once a week for the past ~4 weeks. Anyway, I maintained eye contact because it helped me understand what they were feeling, which was important information while we were learning and executing a complicated move. However, I didn’t just pick up on how they were feeling about the dance. It felt like they were having sex with me with their eyes. I still feel a bit violated by it, but maybe I misinterpreted what I picked up on. Regardless, I am going to make sure I limit eye contact in these situations. It’s too much for that level of a relationship.
I don’t want to look into anyone else’s brain, and I’m really not interested in having anyone looking into mine
From what I can tell, we are pretty similar in regards to eye contact. I found quite validating, so thank you for sharing. Check out my response to this post if you are interested.
Eye contact is particularly interesting to me because it was one of the first things I was ever self-conscious about. My parents never told me I was autistic, though in retrospect, they definitely knew. Anyway, I remember thinking something was wrong with me around late elementary school/early middle school because I couldn’t keep eye contact. I would try but would feel too weird at the time. It was like I would get dizzy, take off to another dimension, and completely miss anything that happened while I was maintaining eye contact. Sometimes, it was so apparent that I was having difficulty in the moment, that other people would notice something was going on with me. I didn’t know what it was and was confused as to how others forced themselves to maintain eye contact so intensely and easily.
I asked a trusted teacher about it one time. She looked pretty concerned and suggested that I look at people’s eyebrows when I talked to them. I tried it, but that didn’t feel right either. What I ended up doing is socializing with people that were okay with me looking off to the side during conversations. Later on when in college and taking classes on communication, I remember they would say that eye contact was an essential listening skill. During these classes, we would have role plays in front of the class to practice conversational skills. I would get stressed whenever these role plays would come up because I knew that it was either (a) I maintain eye contact and not hear the message while I feel intimately violated or (b) I hear the message with impressive recollection but then get criticized for looking disinterested.
The best I can come up with is that I’m hyper sensitive to some sensory inputs, and eye contact it one of them. Eye contact to me is like establishing a direct line from my mind to someone else’s. I feel too much empathy, that it overrides how I am feeling. Vice versa, I feel that the person can feel too much of me, and that is too vulnerable.
For me, it depends. If it’s someone I trust very well or am romantically involved with, then I engage in eye contact because it’s super awesome being connected at such an intimate level.
If it’s someone I know and am friendly with, then I use purposeful short glances to see how they’re feeling, especially in moments when they are sharing something that I find their feelings to be important information. If they are sharing something intimate or emotionally difficult, for example a difficult moment that they are experiencing, then I may maintain eye contact a little more until I feel I have a sufficient understanding. It’s like the eyes are the confirmation of or filling in the missing information of what they are saying.
If it’s someone I don’t know, I will barely make any eye contact if at all. Instead, I will look at their mouth. This is especially helpful if there is too much noise because it allows me to lipread. It also gives more information on their emotional disposition than looking at their eyebrows. If I’m too close to them that looking at their mouth would make them uncomfortable, I look off to the sides. I probably come off as completely disinterested, which I am not, but that’s better than eye contact with a stranger.
Again, it depends on our relationship. With strangers and acquaintances, it feels completely invasive like they can see the inside of my mind. As a thought exercise, if the options were either to be completely naked or maintain eye contact, I would choose to be completely naked. In some cases, I will turn around enough so that they can’t make proper eye contact, or become so uninteresting or disinterested that they stop. With closer friends, I have no problem if they keep it limited and they don’t expect it from me. With intimate relationships, I expect it. If they don’t engage in it, then I think something is up with them or the relationship.
Does anyone else relate to this?
better text them first
“grey hats”
What’s a grey hat?
Vigooooooo 👻
Not so weird to me or most Cubans, but prolly to the rest of the world: malta with a spoonful or two of sweetened and condensed milk. Pour the malta into a glass, then add the milk and stir until evenly mixed. Drink. If you’re not used to the flavor of malta, this combo may be too much to start off with.
Share away, please! Btw, I believe everyone has the right to understand in their own way how autism and society interact, so please don’t feel the need to exert too much effort on pedantry unless you really want to. Personally, I appreciate diverse persepectives because I feel it gives me a well-rounded view of the situation. It’s like if we were all standing around an object. I can only see my side, but if we all shared our own perspectives, then we could see 360*.
This is similar to how I function with reading people now. I have to build a profile of every person in my head. When I first meet them, I know the elementary ones like smiling, nothing, and crying. If it looks like I’m going to be around this person for a while, I start noting what their faces look like when they’re feeling a certain way. If it’s someone I will need to trust, I will ask them a question they will lie to to see what they look like when they are lying.
Me when someone asks me to tell/teach them about one of my special interests…
Me: For real‽
Them: Yep
Me: But like, how much do you want to know?
Them: Everything
Me: Even if it’s a lot of information and takes an hour?
Them: Yes
Me: And you’ll stop me if it’s too much?
Them: Yep, I’ll stop you if it’s too much.
Me: 😮 hold on. let me thing…ok… 😮💨 …so…non-stop talking for an hour possibly using props and a board/paper for illustrations. several related tangential topics come up and added to a list of topics to discuss later.
I can even do info dumps on topics I don’t care about. I really like the passion that comes along with it.
Looking at people and their intrinsic motivations desires
How to do this pls? One of my autistic traits is that I can’t read people’s intentions.
Could you elaborate on the lessons you have learned from those resources pls?
Learning to really accept myself and to stop judging myself helped me to build some confidence. Which in turn helps to handle (or survive) situations which ask to much from me.
Learning to listen to myself. If I feel, that I don’t want to do something, I don’t have to. Not now, maybe later, OK?
I like these two a lot. Congrats!
I’m happy for you :)
How did you come to like that? When was the first time you tried it?
I can see the Multipla being uglier than the Cybertruck because it looks like two differently-sized cars spliced together. However, there is no way I agree the PT Cruiser, Chevy SSR, and Aztec are uglier than the Cybertruck. Look at the Cybertruck again. It looks like a 10 year-old drew a truck on MS Paint using a mouse.
it might be the ugliest car ever made honestly, i urge people to find an uglier mass-produced car.
I was born, raised, and currently live in Florida. The guavas in Florida supermarkets are closer-tasting to plastic than the guavas I’ve had in the Caribbean.