By Theo To non-autistics, sustained eye contact during conversation can show good manners or politeness; you look at the person who is talking to show that you are listening, that you are engaged. Not only is it expected that eye contact be consistently held throughout conversation, it is also agreed upon that eye contact denotes certain emotions or additional meanings. For example, if you do not make eye contact with a non-autistic person while they are speaking, they may feel that you do not care about what they are saying. However, if you make prolonged eye contact with them when they are not speaking, they may interpret this as anger or disbelief. As autistic people, our social “rules” generally gravitate less around the idea of politeness as a specific set of customs or actions because we prefer to do things for more tangible or practical reasons. It does not make sense for us to uphold the same rigid customs non-autistics associate with politeness as they are based on this concept of social nicety. And, as autistic people, the concept of social “nicety” does not make sense because for us, eye contact is not “nice”. In fact it can be quite distressing.
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