Vacant stare

Acinorev wrote:Staring outwards straight in front of you is freaky. Generally when people sit and stare who are lost in thought will be looking downwards and they will also have other body and head movements as they will generally pay attention to things going on around them periodically. But I'm not sure how you can notice people giving you weird looks if you are actually just sitting and staring. You could not have simply just been paying attention to the door or else you would not have noticed. Given this, I question if people were actually giving you weird looks or your imagination was playing a large role. I suppose you could have been paying a lot of attention to your periphery or the door was far enough away that your focus included a lot of space, but if that's the case, if you're noticing things you're not looking at, why aren't you looking at those things? If you are forcing yourself to not look at things by staring straight forward, yeah, that's unnatural behavior, behavior that you'd be consciously controlling, in which case, you were actively making yourself sit and stare instead of allowing your attention to wander where it was actually going. Why would you do that?

If someone is bothering you by giving you weird looks, glare back at them for being rude.

There were only 4 people on the room at that time: My mom + dad + me + a representative of the institution. I could tell that they were bothered because i was sitting next to a wall on the left side of the room, while they were on the right side (close to the door).

Guess that's why I act normal in public. Acting abnormal gives all sorts of unwanted attention. Fitting in is the name of the game. It's why privacy is so nice.

Probably why most people act normal in public, come to think.

I tend to do this a lot, and it actually elicited a few remarks from my family whenever it happened, but eventually they got used to it. It helps that my sister also tends to do the same, though not as frequently. However, my truly vacant stare happens only when no one is giving me any attention whatsoever. Basically, whenever everyone around me is minding their own business. However, if I have someone try to talk to me, for instance, I am also capable of zoning out, but I have learned to just repeatedly nod until they are done, so they are less likely to notice that I'm not really paying attention. When they stop talking, I often realize that I don't remember a single thing they said, but I do remember everything that was going through my mind at that moment.

The few times someone's asked me what exactly I'm looking at when I've been staring into space, I just reply with "Just thinking" and they drop the topic. As for strangers, the worst I've noticed is that if I'm sitting somewhere, like a bus or a waiting room, people tend to be less likely to want to sit beside me when I have been staring into nothingness. Not like I don't think that's a good thing anyway. I guess that kind of stare does tend to make people feel a bit intimidated even if it's not directed at anyone.

Vink wrote:However, if I have someone try to talk to me, for instance, I am also capable of zoning out, but I have learned to just repeatedly nod until they are done, so they are less likely to notice that I'm not really paying attention. When they stop talking, I often realize that I don't remember a single thing they said, but I do remember everything that was going through my mind at that moment.

This is so recognizable. It also happens during therapy sessions, in which I occasionally need to ask my therapist to repeat what she just said. She seems to notice quite well when I zone out, which is interesting.

The opposite happens to me as well. When I'm thinking hard while interacting with someone, and I realize I'm zoning out, I sometimes try to redirect my attention to the person who is talking, but this often results in immediate loss of my thoughts.

What also happens is that I'm moving back and forth between my own thinking and the person with whom I'm interacting. So I'm thinking until I start to focus on the other which will make me lose my thoughts. While focussing on the other now, I will soon redirect my focus to my thoughts, trying to recall what I was thinking about while forgetting what the other person is talking about now. Then I will focus on the other again, which again results in me losing my thoughts, but now I don't have any idea anymore about what the other is talking about. So what often happens when I communicate with people is that I get completely blank while having no idea what the other is talking about either. This can get really confusing at times.

Back in high school a classmate told me I looked "stoned" all the time... Which is weird considering I've always been nervous in social situations. I was also told that I have dead eyes, and asked why I wouldn't "open them up" a bit more in high school still... I still don't get it, for me it was simply my "neutral" standard face and my eyes were open all right. I don't want to imagine how they would see me now, they'd compare me to that tex avery dog I guess.