Fear of Eye Contact..

by **MenacingHeart** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 11:06 pm

Hey. I know how you feel.
For about 10 years now I have been terrified of looking other people in the eye.
Although I cannot pinpoint the cause of your fear, I can tell you a little bit about the cause of mine.
I hope that this may help you a little bit in understanding your problem.

I believe my fear sparks from an experience when I was younger. In this experience I was terribly shown up over and over by a very intimidating person in public. Ever since then I have been scared of people and of looking directly at people, in case they want to start a commotion.
In addition, I find that sometimes I manage to forget about it and I look at someone. But then when the fear does kick in it's even worse because I know I look anxious, so I therefore avoid watching other people seeing me look anxious in their eyes.
There's nothing worse than the 'sympathy' look in someones eyes when you can feel your face burning up.

I never make eye contact. Except with my mother. I've always been like this. When my nan was alive I barely looked at her eyes either. With my step father over the years I have grown to be comfortable to look him in the eyes, but it is hardly ever. To look anyone in the eyes is so freaking hard. I just can't do it. It fills me with such strong fear (do usually if they look away). I wish it would stop. I hate it. The last time I was able to do it was two years ago after my Psychologist complimented me, and after that I met someone and somehow was able to maintain constant eye contact with her. (was really hard but had strength). It's even worse when I'm in a room with more than one person. This happened once with many councellors in one room with me. I couldn't even raise my head!!
I guess it does come from living a lonely life from an early age with my mother and experiencing fear at a young age and just things like that and bullying.

by **iamweird** » Sun Apr 07, 2013 9:12 pm

I don't make eye contact with people 'cause my eyes are always darting all over the place like the Cookie Monster's. LOL...my wife thinks it's funny. One time she got all serious and told me out of the blue to look her in the eyes. I thought she had something serious to tell me. So I looked into her eyes and then she she started doing the Cookie Monster eyes to me and we both fell on the floor laughing our heads off.

by **aika19** » Tue Apr 16, 2013 11:25 pm

this fear sucks

by **fearoffears** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:57 am

I can make eye contact and talk most the time, but sometimes I don't without knowing. I can be more like myself when I don't. I think it's that I don't want to show interest, and then have people thinking I'm strange for showing interest given the situation and how much we don't know each other. Or there's a sense of them knowing things about me which you can't actually know from mere eye contact. It does seem like it's either good or bad with either making or not making eye contact, it's like a left or right sort of dilemma.

A couple weeks ago there was this girl that waited a table I was at that I knew from high school and had an interest in but nothing happened. She was flirting it seemed, I knew this and yet I think I only looked her in the eyes once or twice, stayed with my shoulder toward her most the time, but was definitely interested. She was really nice and talkative but I'm pretty sure she thought I was being cold, wish I could have redone that one. About my worst experience with that.

Moral of the story: they want the eye contact!

by **Jaysafer** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 10:15 pm

I'm not a sociologist, but I use to have this problem, but not to the extreme. Eye contact in a way is visualizing power. If you make eye contact with a guy, and hold it for more than about 5 seconds, then it's somewhat like challenging them. Make eye contact, look at their noise, look back at their eyes, look around and generally mix it up, not always on their eyes, but let them know you're paying attention.

As for women, holding eye contact can express dominance. Hold eye contact with them until they look away, break contact and do it again. I will admit some women are really good at this to the point where I'm too focuses on making eye contact that it's as if I get lost in their eyes haha. I have to give my head a shake and ask them to repeat what they said haha.

Try doing this with friends and family and see how they react, as odds are the men in your family won't kick your ass, but get comfortable with it

by **TestSubject** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 11:11 pm

Well, I, too, tend to avoid eye contact. For me it's because it feels too intimate to look people in the eyes and thus I can't let just anyone look me in the eyes. Also, other people can see the mistakes I make this way, too, so I'm not very relaxed in these situations. :roll:

Oh yeah, and since I'm not very good at it, if I do manage to keep eye contact even partially, I can't concentrate on what they are saying.

by **Ditoros** » Thu Apr 25, 2013 11:01 pm

Mr.Anxiety wrote:Hey guys,

So I believe the biggest issue with my social anxiety/phobia is not making eye contact with people. If I go into a public place such as a restaurant, bar, gym, etc..I avoid making eye contact with people. This has severely affected my relationships with people because I have been told that avoiding eye contact can make people uncomfortable because a person cannot "read" your emotions.

I do not know WHY I have always been so afraid to make eye contact with people. With guys I am afraid if I make eye contact with them they will think I am challenging them to a fight. When I was younger I was told by a lot of woman that I was a "creeper" so this makes me not want to make eye contact with woman because I am afraid I will creep them out. It often causes people to think I am shady, arrogant, and/or untrustworthy but nothing could be further from the truth!

My advice is how do I get over this phobia?? How long do I hold eye contact for 3-5 seconds?? When I make eye contact with people my anxiety sky rockets and I get incredibly anxious. Any advice on how to kick this ridiculous phobia?

same thing. Eyes are the window to the soul, so why look people in the eye if you don't want them to see you? I also got the creeper comments. society is training people to say it a lot more nowadays.

by **weirdone** » Sun Apr 28, 2013 2:23 pm

Something just came to me. This fear doesn't really come to me all the time. I can look at people in the eye briefly if I'm waiting in the car or at the supermarket etc. But in situations when they are in power, like going to Counceling or a business or restaurant/eatery I can't do it at all. Not even look up ONCE, unless they look away. I guess it's a self esteem issue. I've always had a problem with people in power of me as I feel so belittled and small and I've felt they do take advantage of this.

by **Prem** » Fri May 17, 2013 4:58 am

Before, I used to suffer from this but later on, I've changed. I lacked confidence before. Now, it's good with me. Change yourself. Gain confidence. you can easily overcome the fear of eye contact.

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