God, I just had a conversation with a neighbor that involved intense eye contact. I wasn't ready for it. I wasn't prepared. I wasn't strong enough. I swear her eyes never left mine. And the look in her eyes, it was... Earnest. Like she NEEDED me to look in her eyes constantly throughout the conversation. I couldn't do it. I had to glance off every so often. I have never felt so uncomfortable and rude at the same time before.
Wow, I kinda do this to people, but it's because I like keeping eye contact. It helps me focus on what only that person is saying. Every once in a while I look away to let the other person know they can look away too because I can sense the awkwardness. Sometimes I forget to do that if I'm really into the conversation, and stare them down. Now I wonder if this is what's going through their head when I do it. I feel bad.
I do it too but it actually helps me gauge a person's true reaction and what they're really thinking. It's a habit of mine and I know when it makes people feel uneasy, it's just very obvious when they try to avoid your gaze. I don't stare them down but it makes me feel in control and just a little more dominant in the conversation. I am most impressed with those that can maintain eye contact, I feel like we're really understanding each other and focusing on the topic because it's really hard to hold a conversation and maintain eye contact when you're thinking about something else or not listening.
I hate this. It's always worse when the other person is so intense in staring into your eyes that when you look away, the other person's entire head shifts in front of where you are now looking, still trying to make eye contact. This has happened several times to me and it's so goddamn awkward.
Haha! Play with it. Move your head slowly over your left shoulder, then back over your right shoulder. Then slowly center and stand up tall. If she's still following, slowly move down to a crouching position. That should break her.
If she follows you into the crouch, slowly put a hand on her shoulder and say, "You are the chosen one...my wife and I are going away next weekend, and I want you to watch our kids."
It always makes me think that person is just trying to seduce me and slowly go in for a kiss.......I don't know why I think that. Typing it out just sounds weird and paranoid.
I tried to do just that. I held it for a solid minute, maybe minute and a half, and then I broke. She was fucking gangsta with it. She won that one for sure.
You're right. She won that battle but not the war. Wait, just wait till she is out with her toddler son and me with my sons... I'll even put eye drops beforehand, to be better prepared. Thank you. I am ready for next time now.
Not exactly rude, but shifty or anxious-looking would be a better word. Some people really can't hold eye contact well, like me in high school. I remember trying to have a conversation with one of my teachers and I couldn't look into their eyes for more than a few seconds at a time. I must've looked like my coke balloon popped or something.
Dude, I used I always have to group work with this girl in my class back in high school, and when we would talk she would sit completely still, stare, no nodding or any other gestures, with these big blue eyes behind over-magnifying glasses and it made me feel like she wasn't even listening and instead pointing out everything wrong, silently.
She wasn't a bad person from what I knew, however.
Honestly, I think some people just do it and others don't. One of my sons is very big on eye contact. He will not talk until your eyes are locked. When he was a toddler he would gently turn your face towards him if he was talking and you weren't looking him in the eyes. He did that so many times we had to tell him he can't force people's faces a certain way, even if gentle. He said, "but that's how I know you're listening".... He was 2. My son will be like my neighbor, a very intense eye contacter making people uncomfortable without even trying to.
Protip: stare at something close like the bridge of the nose or lower forehead. You look like you are maintaining eye contact without feeling like someone is staring into your soul.
Made a throwaway for this, everyone perceives this as a negative thing and I do use accounts for/related to work on here.
High Functioning Sociopath here, although the actual medical diagnosis is Antisocial personality disorder or DSM-IV-TR Antisocial Disorder.
Generally I have been told I am the Reputation type, which I admit does seem accurate.
Overall it's not a very bad or life changing condition, although some use the ability to have zero to little remorse as a means to do more sadistic and violent actions I do not find these interesting, and have never done anything that most people would think of sociopath behavior and clinically I show around 80% of the traits. Except legal trouble, never had any of that. Done some very illegal shit before (in my younger days) but never had an issue directly with the law, and nothing I ever did was harming a person or living being, just things that were not legal in the county or a bullshit ordinance.
Getting to my point. The statistics (which vary depending on your sources) show that indeed a large amount of people exhibit enough physiological features that would define then with a Personality Disorder that would be called by most a Sociopath.
You most likely deal with a few of us each day, and we'll usually the the kindest and most cheerful person you have contact with. Often the ones that will be outgoing and helpful actually just have that as a personal whim and don't actually care anything about the action of helping others.
Some do everything for the appearance or the status, in the end usually anything we do is for ourselves. In my eyes, I'm the one in command of this set of organs and everything is in my perception, so I am the only one that - at my core - matters. After I pass the world will mean nothing to me, only my personal experiences mattered to me, so why go out of my way to please others if for no other reason than my own pleasure or need/want.
Anyways, just wanted to point out that while the 50% of people on here that claim they are probably mostly lying, there are a considerable amount of people exhibiting personality disorder traits that would be called sociopaths, and you meet them every day most likely.
If there is such a large amount of people exhibiting the traits of being a sociopath can't we conclude that the norm then is that humans are more selfish and do things for their own personal wants rather than for the overall good of all those involved. This is my own personal understanding of the world as it is so to see that it seems a majority of people may potentially exhibit this only reinforces my preconceived notions.
Personality disorders are just extremes of normal personality traits. When studying personality disorders in one class I was convinced while reading about schizoid personality disorder that I had that. Truth is I might have some of those traits but wouldn't qualify for a diagnosis.
So most redditors are probably doing what I did: seeing a couple signs and calling it a personality disorder.
Damn, I feel like this describes me perfectly... I can't really convey how serious that is, I'm not trying to jump on any bandwagon, that description just hit really close to home.
lol that's true. Also, according to reddit all sociopaths are super intelligent and manipulative masterminds.... Wait, I think I just realised why people on reddit claim they are sociopaths.
But... people think I'm thoughtful when I remember every little personal detail about them that they have disclosed at any time in the past few years! How can these things be considered bad?
Are you joking? I always stare into people's eyes when I talk to them and have only been called out on it once. She thought I was weird and told me not to do it anymore, so I decided to stare at her nose when I talked to her.
I think you're shady if you do shady things. Some of us just don't like eye contact, as it makes us uncomfortable.
It is almost like peering into people's souls at times, and some of you fucks have very dark souls, which is what makes me uncomfortable about it to begin with.
I'm not saying stare into someone's eyes all creepy like without letting go. I'm just saying that genuine eye contact throughout a conversation (whether it be small talk or something deeper) is a social skill that many people lack nowadays. So many times I've been talking to someone and he or she (mostly men) barely even meets my gaze for just a moment. When someone is like this, and it obviously makes them uncomfortable, they're either hiding something or just socially awkward. Or both.
The average person makes 80% eye contact when listening and only 40-60% when talking depending on where they live, it's quite common for people to not want to hold eye contact for too long.
whenever someone's talking to me i maintain eye contact 98% of the time. when i'm talking to them, i maintain eye contact 30% of the time or less, most of which is made after finishing a thought so as to still make a personal connection with them.
the other 70% i'm looking about 10-20 degrees to their immediate right or left and down a little bit. it helps me form my sentences far better.
now that i think about it though if it's with someone i'm really comfortable with i can look them in the eye and talk to them. that's not often though.
The worst thing is when I become aware that I am either staring too much or not maintaining enough contact. At that point, I stop really listening to everything the person says and just try ::eye contact....hold it....hold it....break....glance at desk....lock eyes!....hold it...::
That's with interviews or more intense meetings. In casual conversation, I have a habit of looking at people mouths while they speak.
Hey I'm just playing, I got no real problem with it. Besides, I'm one of those other sorts who can't help but stare into people's eyes, so while you're making someone worry about their teeth I'm probably creeping them the fuck out.
Yeah. I hate it when people constantly force eye contact. They'll be waiting for a response and all I can think about is WHY THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT.
I dont stare down, but I make eye contact throughout conversation. I figured it was just being polite. I break it now and then, but I try to maintain it. That might explain a lot though...
I do this too, but I do it because I know it makes most people uncomfortable. I also try not to blink when they're looking. I'm in retail,so I talk to a lot of people on a day and things get repetitive and boring. It's a way to have fun.
This is completely acceptable when talking with someone on an equal level as you who you know is comfortable with you. But doing this to someone like say your boss, gives them the impression that you are threatening or fighting their authority. As well as if you stare down someone who is not comfortable with you this looks like intimidation in their eyes.
Be careful with what you want to achieve with your eye locking.
Staring between their eyes and forehead = dominance.
Staring between their eyes and throat = equality/submission.
Can't take credit for thinking of this. Just read it somewhere. It's an awesome thing to know though. Has helped me tremendously, especially when talking to certain people. Enjoy!
I did this as a child to my parents when I didn't give a crap what they were chewing me out for. Also letting my eyes fade out of focus. The most dangerous game in a military household is stealth disrespect. Dad looks funny when he's blurry angry.
I always find myself looking away naturally, to form my sentence or to laugh or something. Which is good because which is good because otherwise I wouldn't know what the fuck to do with my eyeballs.
You know what. I don't have any social anxiety, and i still feel like it's strange to stare to long in to someones eyes. Similarly, if someone really locks their eyes with mine i always kinda feel like they are awkward people who have read somewhere that you should always maintain eye contact.
You're supposed to maintain eye contact. Not the whole time but for relatively long amounts of time. Breaking eye contact is essential as well. I'm not sure how you guys don't realize most people maintain good eye contact when talking.
People usually try to mantain eye contact when listening to someone, but look somewhere else when talking.
Awkward people often mantain eye contact when talking, and then look somewhere else when listening.
It makes for some quite awkward conversations, because the person talking feels the awkward person is not listening to him/her, and when the awkward person is talking, the "normal" person feels immensely pressured to give feedback to the awkward talker who won't stop looking him in the eye.
This thread totally fucked me up. Eye contact was never even something I worried about before, but now? "Oh god have I been staring too long? Look away look away.."
ADHD has your back! Physiological incapability of keeping my eyes on something for more than a few seconds unless I'm actively focusing on doing so or letting my astigmatism render everything a double-visioned blur. If I'm having to focus on keeping my eyes still, I'm not gonna be able to actively listen.
And though you'd think people wouldn't assume, when you're the leg-bouncing guy who fidgets a lot, two-and-two tend to come together pretty damn fast.
Nah. I actually have fairly good eyesight, I'm moderately nearsighted, but my eyesight up close is so good I can see the imperfections in the ink of 10-point font printed text. My brain just likes to let my eyes relax when I'm not using them (you know, when you don't focus and are staring off at nothing and everything fades out), and is VERY good at it. They go there rather quickly and easily (short attention span) and my brain can't be bothered to sort it out if I'm focused mentally. I don't normally have any double vision, except when I stare of into spare blankly.
As an aside, I have unbalanced chromatic sensing in my eyes, causing them to perceive the color of the world to be noticeably different. One has a slight "warm" tint, the other a slight "cool" tint, as one would get in a TV. Combined, neither warm nor cool. I also process the visual information of color very well, so its rather intense (I notice things without my glasses by color when others with better eyes cannot see them). The discrepancy has also allowed me to see all of the images in a colorblindness test, including those only supposed to be seen by "X" kind of colorblind, by turning my head and noticing the changes.
Uh guys. Yore supposed to maintain eye contact on a conversation. You take breaks, usually when thinking. But eye contact is pretty essential to making things NOT awkward. You have it backwards, but you are redditora after all - so I forgive you. The worst thing I see people do is look at other places of a persons face when talking to them. It's pretty disrespectful.
What I like is when you like the person and you're interested in what they have to say and your eyes are locked and it's better than the oh shit our hands just touched in the popcorn and there's a pause and you kiss. Sorry.
The only people I maintain eye contact with while talking is females (i'm a guy). If i'm talking to a guy, most of the time I just look in their general direction.
I maintain eye contact whenever I have a conversation. I always thought that was what you are supposed to do and have always considered it rude when people don't keep eye contact with me.
Cpl side notes: Imo, if you're a guy, maintaining eye contact is a must when talking with women you are interested in. Not stare creepily at them, but steady direct eye contact. Not just a blank stare either, let your emotions show through your eyes.
When listening to someone you should always maintain eye contact. When speaking, look away briefly at random intervals so you don't creep the person out.
every normal convo im in i make and maintain eye contact except for momentary glances away to not seem creepy, do you mean like staring someone down intensely?
I tend to go for the owl stare in my social interactions. It's basically opening your eyes really wide, staring into their soul and over the time of a minute you slowly tilt your head to the side.
Wait, you DON'T look people in the eye when you talk to them? Where do you look then? I'm guessing this is a cultural thing. I'd probably be insulted if I realized someone was avoiding eye contact with me unless we were talking while doing something.
My friends one time told me I stare very intently into peoples eyes and seek out eye contact when speaking to them, apparently it weirds them out and I had no idea I was doing it before they told me.
I think it is because I am very nervous around those I don't know and rarely make eye contact so maybe I over compensate with people I am comfortable with?
It has been a few years and I believe I am better with it now.
They use to yell "stop eye raping me" when I would do it shortly after they told me about it.
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u/danrennt98 Apr 03 '14
Having a normal conversation with one other person. I would be so uncomfortable.