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Neurodivergent icon
Neurodivergent 1d
blurry ass text but this genuinely made me laugh bc like how is stuff not “normal” and socially universal for everyone? my bad for only making eye contact very intensely when im genuinely trying to pay attention and show im listening
252 upvotes, 10 comments. Sidechat image post by Anonymous in Neurodivergent. "blurry ass text but this genuinely made me laugh bc like how is stuff not “normal” and socially universal for everyone? my bad for only making eye contact very intensely when im genuinely trying to pay attention and show im listening"
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10
upvote 252 downvote
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Anonymous 1d

i love when autistics are the normal ones in regard to NT communication. most of NT communication is just misunderstanding each other but somehow it’s working

upvote 57 downvote
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Anonymous 1d

i do it when i need to, but holding eye contact is like genuinely physically uncomfortable about 95% of the time

upvote 36 downvote
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Anonymous 20h

I love finding reasonable excuses to not make eye contact so that it doesn’t seem weird I’m not looking at them. Like with work, I work with kids in the classroom so while talking to teachers, I watch the classroom. If no kids around, I have notes that I check or take during conversations. No one suspects a thing, probably, maybe. I don’t actually know BUT NO ONES SAID ANYTHING so I take it as a win

upvote 18 downvote
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Anonymous 1d

no but seriously how much eye contact do they want because no amount i’ve tried has seemed correct 💔

upvote 13 downvote
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Anonymous replying to -> #2 1d

literally handed in a job application a few weeks ago but never got a call back and i’m confident it’s because i wasn’t prepared for a mini interview in that moment and was struggling to maintain eye contact (for a serving job in a restaurant). but i kept becoming aware of that during the conversation and would intentionally make effort to make eye contact again but then immediately looked away again bc it felt very bad

upvote 9 downvote
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Anonymous replying to -> #1 1d

and for the expecting others to infer what i’m thinking but, i literally refuse to abide by that social rule because i’m normally not able to be read well enough for it to work and have my actual experience conveyed. so if i’m talking to someone in a casual and sexual context, my directness is often “too intense” because it’s casual and not emotionally intimate??

upvote 19 downvote
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Anonymous replying to -> OP 23h

I don't think it's literally literally amount of eye contact but your ability to seem relaxed (ie trustworthy) regardless

upvote 9 downvote
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Anonymous replying to -> #2 21h

ime they play a game of making and breaking eye contact but they time it so they’re only looking when the other person’s also looking. so it’s like a weird game of timing or using your peripheral vision when you’re listening… I don’t bother with trying anymore because that shit’s annoying 😭

upvote 15 downvote
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Anonymous replying to -> #4 21h

what the fuck 😭 i don’t understand how they just do things like that. how are you not so focused on eye contact that you forget to listen to the other person??

upvote 8 downvote
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Anonymous replying to -> #5 18h

I just apologize and usually the other person understands

upvote 6 downvote