I talk to my eyelids.

It’s my natural inclination. To look at a person when speaking, particularly to look into someone’s eyes, takes a LOT of work and energy.

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A simple social interaction is in fact a complicated exchange of swathes of information, and not all of it is conveyed through words alone.

A facial expression carries a lot of data. The furrow of a person’s brow could mean they are concentrating, sad or perhaps in pain. Their smile could mean happiness, kindness or maybe something entirely different depending on their motive. There is a lot to be gleaned from the position and angle of a person’s features on their face. A complex Mr Potato Head, if you like, and it just keeps on changing throughout your conversation, depending on how it is going and what is being discussed.

Then there’s tone of voice. Is the person being sincere or sarcastic? Are they angry or ecstatic? Does that upwards inflection mean uncertainty, or are they an aspiring Australian?

Body language - are they folding their arms or letting them fall at the sides? Are they fidgeting about in a so-called ‘shifty’ manner or are they stood confidently, forming an A with their legs like a Tory at party conference? (There’s nothing shifty about fidgeting, it’s just neurotypical nonsense. There’s a whole other essay to be written about how ND body language is often misconstrued.)

Finally, the actual words someone chooses. Do they say what they mean and mean what they say, or is there the dreaded subtext? Are they genuine or are they withholding something from you?

There is a lot to take in and process in the most basic of social interactions.

I’m autistic. I can’t cope with this much information at any one time. The details I do want are the words, obviously. How else will I know what a person is trying to tell me?

I try my best to use my limited on-the-spot processing power to concentrate on the words alone. By virtue of me trying to listen to the words a person is saying, I am also processing their tone of voice.

This means I have very little capacity to read facial expressions, body language, or make eye contact.

I must note that I find it a lot easier to look a person in the eye when they are talking to me, rather than the other way round. It’s as if trying to string words together in my head and utter them in a coherent manner is far too much for my brain to cope with, and shutting down the visual stimuli of a person’s face makes it a million times easier to make words come out of my mouth in an orderly fashion.

Nearly four years into knowing that I am autistic, I finally feel somewhat comfortable with my tendency to avoid eye contact, at least with people I know. For strangers, I still try really hard to make the effort, because I understand that a lack of eye contact is seen by allistics as a sign of rudeness and I want to make a good impression on people (I wish I could be unbothered about it but I just can’t!) More often than not, I’ll be looking at the person’s face generally, maybe their forehead, or their mouth, using the hacks us autistics have developed over the years to give the appearance of eye contact.

What is lovely is, as the saying goes, the people that mind don’t matter, and the people that matter don’t mind. With friends, family and others who know me well, I’m talking to the ceiling, I’m talking with my eyes closed, and I’m not caring anymore. This is me, this is how my brain works best, this is how it is.

It wasn’t always how it was though.

Some of my earliest memories include teachers and other authority figures saying that awful, loaded phrase: “Look at me when I am talking to you.” The phrase implied that I was being deliberately insolent or rude. It was said to me many, many times and it always felt humiliating. It kind of haunts me in a way.

If I want to get my words out properly and communicate effectively, this is what I need to do. I am trying my best to own this. This is part of my big unmasking experiment. Let’s create and own the accommodations we need to exist and thrive in this world.

Thanks for reading.

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PS If you liked this article, check out my others here:

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