• The Dark Side 💕 Welcome Guest 💕
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Notable Threads Urgent Hotlines
    Bereavement Mindfulness
    Suicide Support Anger Management
  • TDS Moderators: AlphaMethylPhenyl | paranoid android

Eye contact

theartofwar

theartofwar

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 29, 2009
Messages
3,263
Location
Boston
I know this sounds random , it's pretty humiliating honestly. But, here we go ... since quitting opies I've found it immensely difficult to maintain eye contact during a conversation - I feel like everyone notices it - makes me squirm and I've found it incredibly difficult and embarassing. Anyone else deal with this / dealt with this - if so what did you do ? Even if you haven't , but you know about the subject , any input on ways to deal w it would be appreciated . ty
 
I have the same problem. And being blind in one eye (which is also a lazy eye that is 100% of the time in a different direction to the other) makes it much harder to maintain, and then i start getting anxiety about not making anxiety which makes my eye contact worse! :( Sometimes i find it easy to make eye contact, its just wether or not im getting good vibes from the person. Sorry i can't help you out here just thought i'd give my input on it. But obviously i can say that MDMA has always helped me with it.. haha :) Good luck
 
lol, ya i don't have much anxiety on mdma myself ;). Wish I could just go around rollin tits 24/7 haha...
I start to think about it, notice how long i've gone, start to get nervous sweats - then i think about THOSE - start to get racy heart etc...all of it makes me think about it ALL over again an again - anxiety obsesses over itself making it ten fold worse, fuckin UGH..
 
I find that avoiding eye contact can decrease the emotional intensity of certain situations. So in a way it can be a defense mechanism. That just happened to me yesterday actually where I was having an uncomfortable conversation with somebody who was trying to give me some advice and he was telling me to look him in the eye, which I found to be quite uncomfortable.
 
Nobody tells me that due to the fact I'm significantly taller / bigger than most people - I wouldn't respond well to being told, "look me in the eye" - thems fightin words :-P
 
Well it was a good friend...and smaller than me if that were a concern ;)
 
Generally like to make eye contact with someone, unless a conversation dwindles/conversation is awkward or situation is awkwardie they are feeling nervous too/angry/whatever.

When Im not feeling great about myself /am angry/insecure/ashamed, eye contact is awkward to establish and maintain. Also if I feel I cant express myself freely, around someone I get agitated and want to hide it. Or if someone is attractive. lol

I usually just get into my head and try to focus on visualising the words that I am thinking/hearing, try and focus away from feeling nervous to something more visually concrete in my minds eye and just make sporadic eye contact.
Also, I sometimes look at the persons features in an 'artistic way', try and take in their aesthetic as a work of art and focus on that at the time, rather than feel their presence as a social/psychic threat -if that makes sense?
 
Last edited:
So you view people more along the lines of like a sculpture ? Sorry if that sounds stupid I'm just trying to understand.
 
Yeah pretty much... I know its weird but if I focus on the visual aesthetic temporarily, it takes away my attention from focusing on any of my own anxieties, temporarily.
IF your feeling mad it helps to come up with mad solutions I find! ;) You usually see kids that are able to freely express themselves use their imaginations alot, so if it works for them...!
 
Yes, I use to talk to people w/o using eye contact several years ago & w/o using any drugs at the time. It was a kind of thing where I didnt feel as confident with myself at the time. When I started dating my gf & my confidence level went up, I would look people directly in their eyes while speaking to them. I think its a self confidence thing when you dont look someone in the eyes while speaking to them, jmo of course.
 
Eye contact is incredibly intimate, which is something that I think is really downplayed in society. It's basically the closest that you can get to seeing into someone's brain, and (IMO) because of that they are truly windows into the mind/soul/whatever. For many years I had a huge problem maintaining eye contact with people for just that reason: it felt too personal, and made me feel vulnerable or naked. At the same time, I've been told that I have an 'intense gaze', which made me feel even more self-conscious.

That said, eye contact is vital for maintaining a connection to someone while speaking face-to-face, and the ability to hold, or even just avoid shying away from eye contact is a huge indicator of confidence and comfort in the situation in which one would find oneself. For me, it was a practise thing-- when I was walking around I would make a point of never looking to the ground. In time, I got comfortable enough doing this that I could make fleeting eye contact with strangers, which progressed to solid eye contact, which could even progress to the occasional random smile. Great fun!

While that progression was happening, I found that my eye contact with those with whom I was speaking became more relaxed, natural-feeling and longer-lasting. Now, I love eye contact, to the point where I have to remind myself to be careful to break it off in certain situations.

tl;dr-- it is normal to feel uncomfortable with eye contact, especially if you're in an uncomfortable situation. With time and practise, this can be overcome, and can help with overcoming the underlying anxiety as well.
 
When I notice someone breaking/ avoiding eye-contact with me, I like move my body and my head down and to whatever direction they are looking so I can keep looking them in the eye. I am sure many other type-A people do this, too, so your best bet is to probably just look people in the eye. I really hope you figure this out.
 
muvolution said:
When I notice someone breaking/ avoiding eye-contact with me, I like move my body and my head down and to whatever direction they are looking so I can keep looking them in the eye. I am sure many other type-A people do this, too, so your best bet is to probably just look people in the eye. I really hope you figure this out.
Click to expand...




My gf is like you.......when we first met at work, I wouldnt look her in her eyes while speaking with her. After working with her for about a month, she asked me one day, what color are her eyes. I gave her the wrong answer but she wasnt mad.

I started wearing a baseball hat at work & would wear it low where it was hard for people to see my eyes & she would bend down & look under the hat to try & capture a glimpe of my eyes, LoL!

Eye contact during sex is awesome because its so intimate & its like you are reading into the girls soul.
 
I take eye contact as a threat like wild animals do and viciously attack anyone who does it.
 
exactly. and making and holding eye contact is a way to show that you are comfortable with and trust the person you are talking to which is why it is so important, especially in people you don't know.
 
if i am making eye contact listening to some-one speak, i am usually only listening to them - or feel i should out of general respect, and it is shocking to me how strongly people honestly feel this is where the substance of a conversation is. i dont see how this should bare any difference of the perception of the response given, or be a strong indicator of confidence... ordinarily i hear the tone of voice, and look at body language etc. - maybe too much. when i get into a good conversation with some one, i and often any-one will look away in thought for the majority of a conversation.

its fairly established that if some-one is looking away, and up to the left they are ' looking for answers ' - staring down at the ground and speaking is usually an indicator of ' looking deep for answers ' etc.

the eyes are not too intimate for me, i :-\ can easily stare some one in the eye and lie - my problem? yes it sure can be, but, well i suppose truth comes from the actions of the beheld eventually.


TAoW, my best advice would be to not start thinking about how you are not making eye contact, if you do notice that you happen not to be. you are still the same person you have been, and your sense of genuineness is clear from here.
 
Last edited:
Dave said:
Eye contact is incredibly intimate, which is something that I think is really downplayed in society. It's basically the closest that you can get to seeing into someone's brain, and (IMO) because of that they are truly windows into the mind/soul/whatever.
Click to expand...

Yeap.

I use to struggle a great deal with making eye-contact in conversations, looking into the another persons eyes felt as though i was peering into their soul and watching everything been reflected back, you can usually tell when someone is nervous or has a lot of self-doubt because they won't make eye contact, its like looking into a mirror.. you don't want to see yourself as the lie.

These days, i enjoy making eye contact and holding it during conversations.. most people tend to look away from me, it's not that i have an intense stare but im usually paying complete attention to what there saying, and funnily enough this makes people nervous because they sometimes doubt there own voice.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top