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Post by SADdaydreamer on Oct 24, 2003 23:14:44 GMT -5
I'm curious, how many of you find eye contact difficult? I think I'm starting to become overly obsessed with it. Whenever I'm talking with someone my mind badgers me about maintaining eye contact and how my eyes are shifty and the other person notices. It makes it hard to focus on the conversation let alone having ADD which lets my mind wander to such nonsense. I know it's stupid to worry about, I rationalize it all the time but for some reason it's still a big deal to me. And what is it about the eyes that can make it so difficult to look at and maintain a gaze. I've had the though before the eyes are portals to your soul and if someone looks to long the'll see how messed up I am. I also feel that eye contact is so natural for everbody besides me. To not maintain eye contact shows loss of interest or weakness inferiority. Do I sound crazy, am I going insane?---sometimes I feel like it. This is just one of the many social anxiety that plagues my mind
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Post by Twice-Shy on Oct 25, 2003 7:32:36 GMT -5
I find looking people in the eye very difficult. I'm always terrified they'll discover things about me that I don't want them to see. Its funny but I can look strangers in the eyes moreso than people I am more familiar with.
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Post by johnadams on Oct 25, 2003 8:47:29 GMT -5
I have a little trouble initially meeting eyes with a conversant, especially close acquaintances. However, my confidence in any conversation hinges on my words. If I say something that I consider even remotely embarrassing or awkward, I avert my eyes and talk into my desk. It's interesting that oftentimes I can respond more readily with humor than with serious commentary. Is this true for anyone else?
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Post by spitzig on Oct 25, 2003 14:47:03 GMT -5
Well, I think I do a good job with eye contact when I'm interested in the topic. Or, I'm romantically interested in the female.
I have been trying to figure out the flirting kind of eye contact, lately. I have trouble with that. Largely because all I understand about it are facts from a book on body language, which I did not get to read all of.
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Post by GodHAMMER on Oct 25, 2003 21:10:13 GMT -5
It seems to me that many of us seem to have the same problem. In my case, the reason for not looking in the other person's eyes seems to be both my shyness (the fear of revealing my own insecurity) and my lack of practice in maintaining conversations. It hapens when I talk to strangers and also when I talk to people I know well (such as my parents for example). But I remember times when I managed maintain eye contact with a person for more than just a few seconds. I did it deliberately to prove myself I could do it. But most of the times I won't pay too much attention to where I look or what I do with my eyes in a conversation.
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Post by glenn miller on Oct 26, 2003 0:52:22 GMT -5
i have that problem to. with eye contact. with people i dont know and some that i do.
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Post by NewOrleansLady on Oct 27, 2003 1:42:21 GMT -5
I hate Hate HATE my damned shifty eyes! I'm like Shane and have a harder time looking people that I know in the eye as oppose to strangers. Because of that, I'm even more nervous to talk to people that I know and should be comfortable with. I feel like they are thing, "Why is this girl such a freak that she can't even have a normal conversation?". I know that most of it's in my head, or at least I'm pretty sure but, I just can't seem to overcome it.
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Post by SADdaydreamer on Oct 28, 2003 1:21:46 GMT -5
Well I'm glad I'm not the only one with this issue, that's very assuring. I know exactly what you guys mean, even people I have known for years, even all my life; I still eye can't maintain eye contact like "normal" people. I'm concious of my eyes with all people and in all conversations, and like I said, think I am becoming obsessive over it! Why is this so difficult or important! Everybody I see can just stare straight in your eyes and seems second nature for them! I didn't obseess and worry about such stupid BS and could communicate and socialize w/ ease like everybody else. Sometime I feel like such an alien...
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Post by Sanity FreeZ0ne on Nov 2, 2003 18:43:44 GMT -5
I'm curious, how many of you find eye contact difficult? I think I'm starting to become overly obsessed with it. Whenever I'm talking with someone my mind badgers me about maintaining eye contact and how my eyes are shifty and the other person notices. It makes it hard to focus on the conversation let alone having ADD which lets my mind wander to such nonsense. I know it's stupid to worry about, I rationalize it all the time but for some reason it's still a big deal to me. And what is it about the eyes that can make it so difficult to look at and maintain a gaze. I've had the though before the eyes are portals to your soul and if someone looks to long the'll see how messed up I am. I also feel that eye contact is so natural for everbody besides me. To not maintain eye contact shows loss of interest or weakness inferiority. Do I sound crazy, am I going insane?---sometimes I feel like it. This is just one of the many social anxiety that plagues my mind I can releate to that feeling...Im worse at eye contact with friends..worried that im giving too much eye contact, not enough, etc...
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Post by moogle on Nov 7, 2003 21:28:04 GMT -5
eye contact is one of the few things i don't have trouble with. i think it might be thanks to getting high a lot in high school. it was hard to look people in the eye, so i'd have to focus on the spot between their eyes and it would look like i was looking them in the eye. guess it just comes from practice
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Post by smartie on Nov 30, 2003 10:19:12 GMT -5
I think there are times when we all suddenly realise that we find it difficult to make eye contact. I am noe exception. Such was my determination to avoid the gaze of other people in the past, that I even turned my back on them completely when I was forced to speak to them. It was pointed out to me, and I then over compensated by refusing to break eye contact at all!!!! I can laugh about it now (and I am giggling as I write this), but I used to have the hypnotic stare of Rasputin when I spoke to anyone. As I started to waffle, they would soon start to shuffle and fidget, as my unblinking gaze gradually peeled away their sense of security like the skins of an onion! I know now how I must look when I dance nervously when any one engages me in a conversation unexpectedly.
Can I ask, does any one here find that they also compensate for their nerves by talking very loudly, or quickly? This also includes stammering, losing track of what I was saying, staring at the ceiling, waving my arms about, blushing, apologising at the end of every sentence (if I get there), and going off at a tanget only to finish up talking about a completely different subject at the end of the sentence to the one I started out addressing! (that sentence is a case in question). This is a problem for me, and I am just starting a course of hypnotherapy to learn to calm down, speak mire slowly, gain confidence and a whole heap of other things.
Any advice or feedback, would be welcome.
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Post by CaryGrant on Nov 30, 2003 12:37:35 GMT -5
Smartie, I have done and still sometimes do many of the things you listed! I recently realised that the reason I speak very quickly is because I am afraid that the other person/people will not be interested and give me time to finish, so I fire it out quickly. I am trying to avoid the pain of rejection from being cut off mid-sentence.
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Post by greedy_goddess on Dec 20, 2003 18:47:17 GMT -5
I can maintain eye contact for about two minutes tops. I've tried to do it for a longer period of time,but I end up laughing,and then they're just like what? what did I do or what did I say? And then I feel like an idiot especially when it's a guy,and plus I end up making them feel bad; because they think I'm laughing at them It's horrible! Melisa
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Post by CaryGrant on Jan 3, 2004 13:42:52 GMT -5
I came across a neat (ie useful) suggestion about eye contact: Hold eye contact long enough to know the other person's eye colour. This gives a time guideline and something other than yourself to concentrate upon (and comes in handy when it's a woman and she later expects you to know what colour her eyes are...).
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Post by prawnie on Jan 10, 2004 12:13:52 GMT -5
i find it hard to show eye contact, even though i have been working in the same shop for 9 years, i still struggle to do it
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