AspieSaurus

When you first find out that you have (or may have) Asperger's or High Functioning Autism, you may find that you want to learn how to better blend into neurotypical society, as nothing could be worse than having people see you only as your "disability" rather than as the individual you are. One easy solution is eye contact.

Eye contact comes so naturally to most NTs that they don't even think about it, but for an aspie, making and maintaining eye contact can be difficult or extremely uncomfortable

Neurotypicals expect that the people they are trying to communicate with will maintain eye contact with them, and they tend to get upset or unsettled when there is no eye contact being made. They tend to see the lack of eye contact as a sign of dishonesty or disinterest.

While simply making eye contact won't make you appear completely "normal, it can make you seem a little less "strange" to NTs. If you make a conscious effort to make and maintain eye contact, you will be able to communicate a lot more effectively and you will be able to more easily be part of society as a whole. It might take some practice at first to become comfortable with eye contact, and you will need to learn how to look into someone's eyes without seeming like you're "staring" (too much or too intense eye contact can make NTs just as uneasy as too little. I know, it's confusing).

You may want to practice eye contact while talking with someone you are very comfortable with (if any such person exists), such as a parent, sibling, friend, or lover. This will be much less intimidating than trying to look a stranger in the eyes.

If actually making eye contact is too difficult or uncomfortable, one alternative that I've found to be useful is looking at the other person's nose. When I look at a person I'm speaking to, though I can usually make eye contact now (after starting to make a conscious effort to do so a few years ago), my natural inclination is to look at their mouth (that is, after all, the part of their fact that is doing the most movement) if I'm looking at their face at all. If I think about it, I simply move my gaze up about an inch to their nose if for some reason I don't feel comfortable actually looking at their eyes. They usually won't be able to tell that you aren't actually looking at their eyes.