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 JacquesCousteau
Being.
 
Registered: 06/10/03
Posts: 7,825
Loc: Everywhere, Everytime.
Last seen: 1 year, 11 months
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 Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people  [Re: Buckthorn]
#12786970 - 06/22/10 07:49 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Touche.
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akira_akuma
Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι ὕψιστος φιλεῖ
Registered: 08/28/09
Posts: 82,455
Loc: Onypeirophóros
Last seen: 4 years, 3 months
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: Anonymous #2]
#12788017 - 06/22/10 11:17 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Anonymous said:
its pretty simple, but you anti-social/anxious freaks are making a bigger deal out of it than it is. making eye contact with someone forges a deeper connection with that person and its easier to communicate in general with eye contact. grow the fuck up children, seriously, you guys have the maturity of teenagers.
do you know how you work? i doubt it. teenagers = anti-social freaks?
where is your logic coming from, your dick? cause that is what it sounds like.
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Frinkz
Strange
Registered: 02/25/10
Posts: 580
Loc: Yorkshire 
Last seen: 13 years, 4 months
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: akira_akuma]
#12788748 - 06/23/10 03:57 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Eye contact isn't difficult, or stressful. I just, don't do it 
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uk grow logs
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twighead
mͯó
Registered: 08/27/08
Posts: 30,442
Loc: Glenn Gould's Fuck Windmill 
Last seen: 20 hours, 48 seconds
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: Frinkz] 1
#12788766 - 06/23/10 04:18 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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I find it enjoyable. It shows someone is giving you their full attention (as best as can be shown). It betrays emotion, deceit, and brings a stronger understanding between two people. Small eye movements can communicate huge amounts, and to simply ignore it is to not receive the full spectrum of non-verbal communication - which often says much more than the words from their mouth.
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 Mufungo
Coming at ya
Registered: 04/03/07
Posts: 2,743
Loc: Knowhere
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: Frinkz]
#12788977 - 06/23/10 06:32 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Frinkz said:
Don't judge, asshole.
 really leading by example eh? 
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sun_spots
Good boob day
Registered: 02/27/10
Posts: 14,306
Loc: Nirvana
Last seen: 7 years, 1 month
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: Anonymous #1]
#12791919 - 06/23/10 05:28 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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I don't like people looking into my eyes. I feel like they can see my perverse thoughts.
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ShiVersblood said:
shut ur fucking mouth. before a penis is are be enters
LordSenate said:
Cheese poop... Who gives a fuck gotta eat lots of cheese.
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Anonymous #1
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: sun_spots]
#12793137 - 06/23/10 08:47 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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and i also dont like seeing others perverse thots, id rather not no that abowt them
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golden1
Registered: 06/18/08
Posts: 1,707
Loc: north korea
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: Anonymous #1]
#12793308 - 06/23/10 09:11 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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daytripper23
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Registered: 06/22/05
Posts: 3,595
Loc:
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: Anonymous #1] 1
#12793386 - 06/23/10 09:22 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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If you are not comfortable with looking others in the eyes, you should follow your instinct.
But by saying this, know that I am by no means indicating what is appropriate. This is not an answer to the problem that you present, from the perspective of doing what is appropriate.
So this might be frustrating, because the situation seems to "naturally" demand what is appropriate in this case. I mean, you are probably thinking "what possible social situation doesn't demand that I return someone's gaze? Therefore, isn't this nature?
I would say that your instinct points beyond (or rather, precedes) social appropriation.
What your instinct is basically telling you, is that you need to do introspective work, which is a fundamental withdrawal from society's appropriations. What you actually need to do, has nothing to do with what is appropriate. In the meantime, you might very well be inappropriate.
Over or above what you are basically doing, what is socially appropriate is a superimposition, or a construct. But apparently, you never entirely lose your instincts, even from there.
So, to reiterate the situation - What the gaze of the other seems to circumstantially demand, is your own gaze. But what is that actually - without social superimpositions - what is looking "in itself"?
Focus is the faculty of looking, without any necessary implication of intellectual or analytical perspective. 1
In comparison, looking is also your own faculty too - how could it not be? It is your faculty to fjust ocus on an object, in the same way you that you look into the eyes of another. Both focusing and looking are faculties.
But to understand the faculty of looking - what you are doing - you need to just do it. You need to practice, just focusing. Eventually you can see how that becomes the imperative, the Nike impulse, of just doing it. I suppose that this is one way to work to being "appropriate" in our culture.
But what you may have forgotten from within socio-economic imperative, is that to "just doing it" it is possible to work on what you are supposed to do, without feeling obligated.
By introspection it is possible to distinguish focusing in such a manner that it is strictly limited to your faculty. You are in control of this. It is just what you are doing. It is always what you do, but what you actually need to do, is just cultivate focus.
So first, follow your instinct toward introspection. Then refer to the sources or texts, or even find a guru who will teach you to focus. If you have done the introspective work, when it comes time to do what you need to, you can just do it.
Note:
1. It is not not (-,-) intellectual or analytical perspective. To cultivate single pointed focus, you don't try to clear your mind or otherwise negate your thoughts. Practicing focus is a positive faculty, or just what you do
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Frinkz
Strange
Registered: 02/25/10
Posts: 580
Loc: Yorkshire
Last seen: 13 years, 4 months
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: Mufungo]
#12794586 - 06/24/10 12:59 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mufungo said:
Quote:
Frinkz said:
Don't judge, asshole.
really leading by example eh?
A little irony doesn't hurt 
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uk grow logs
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Great Scott
Trigger Lover
Registered: 05/05/03
Posts: 19,797
Loc: Control Grid
Last seen: 4 years, 8 months
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: Anonymous #1] 1
#12794915 - 06/24/10 03:09 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Anonymous said:
I feel like too much eye contact is inappropriate, and it makes me feel uncomfortable most of the time. I think asian cultures have it right, they don't really look at each other that much, they understand. Only in America to people stare each other down for seconds at a time like it's normal, no other animal on the planet does this. Fuckin wierdos.
Simple. Just stare at the spot on their forehead, right between the eyes.
Or if you're feeling adventurous, stare at one eye at a time. Keep switching from one to the other. It will make you look cool and mysterious in their eyes.
Of course, if you have OCD like me, be sure to look at each eye an equal number of times. Never end on an odd number. Bad juju.
Good luck, soldier.
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PowerTrip
Polypharmaceutical Shaman
Registered: 03/07/05
Posts: 1,148
Loc: The void
Last seen: 11 years, 6 months
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: Anonymous #1]
#12795670 - 06/24/10 09:53 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Eye contact is a cultural thing, and even in a given country it changes depending on where you are. People who grow up in tougher, urban areas tend to not stare each other in the eyes when talking because it's taken as aggression. Especially if they don't know each other well.
In most settings, eye contact is expected and makes people more comfortable and trusting of you. If you find it excessively uncomfortable then you have either spent a great deal of time in relative social isolation or there is some underlying factor making it difficult for you to make eye contact.
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I spit reality, instead of what you usually learn
and I refuse to be concerned with condescending advice
cause I'm the only motherfucker that can change my life
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NastyDHL
Registered: 04/04/08
Posts: 3,586
Loc: New England
Last seen: 1 year, 2 months
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: PowerTrip] 1
#12795891 - 06/24/10 10:47 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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I have dwelled on the subjected of eye contact for a while now and feel like its a very interesting and mysterious act.
They say the eyes are a gateway to the soul...I feel like people who can't make eye contact, people who are afraid of making eye contact, or who feel anxious while making eye contact are scared of showing their whole selves to others and thus live with shame. I believe that if you resist eye contact you have something to hide from others.
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JacquesCousteau
Being.
Registered: 06/10/03
Posts: 7,825
Loc: Everywhere, Everytime.
Last seen: 1 year, 11 months
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: NastyDHL]
#12795915 - 06/24/10 10:54 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
NastyDHL said:
I have dwelled on the subjected of eye contact for a while now and feel like its a very interesting and mysterious act.
They say the eyes are a gateway to the soul...I feel like people who can't make eye contact, people who are afraid of making eye contact, or who feel anxious while making eye contact are scared of showing their whole selves to others and thus live with shame. I believe that if you resist eye contact you have something to hide from others.
Agreed. Well said.
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Anonymous #2
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: NastyDHL]
#12795923 - 06/24/10 10:58 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
NastyDHL said:
I have dwelled on the subjected of eye contact for a while now and feel like its a very interesting and mysterious act.
They say the eyes are a gateway to the soul...I feel like people who can't make eye contact, people who are afraid of making eye contact, or who feel anxious while making eye contact are scared of showing their whole selves to others and thus live with shame. I believe that if you resist eye contact you have something to hide from others.
i agree, some people just cant stop staring at the ground, defiantly self-esteem/image issues
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daytripper23
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Registered: 06/22/05
Posts: 3,595
Loc:
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: Anonymous #2]
#12796882 - 06/24/10 01:49 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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I would like to propose a counter-argument.
I don't think the only possibility for this person is one that demands egotism. I think perceiving the situation as one of self-esteem, or self assertion, is limiting the possibilities of addressing this poster's issue. In fact, it seems pretty clear that the issue itself is the OP's perceiving a situation that demands individual self assertion. I suspect that he has recognized the imposition and perhaps outright violence of making the individual will out to be a necessary commodity.
There is no doubt that the American way of "just doing it" can work. I certainly wouldn't deny this.
But I would raise the possibility of understanding the situation - the need to focus awareness on some point - as a basic sense faculty without social aura. It is possible to focus, without being pulled into self-perspective or relative social perspective. Even in this case, focusing does not need to be described in terms of social imaginings.
It is possible to just do it, but not necessarily as an imperative connotative of nihilism, as it has been made out to be in Nike brand culture. It is possible to understand what you are just doing; what you are only doing, in terms of sense faculty.
So before this situation is constructed as one between an individual self and society, I would argue that just doing it can be addressed as basic sense faculty.
What this person needs to practice is not egotism or self-confidence of the ascribed power of will, but just to understand and be meditatively aware of what he is doing.
The concept of individual is a social construct, from "soul" to "self".
This particularly American ideal of "being open with yourself", or "being open" as tantamount to "self-actualization" is just a blunt application of will. That will is described as a faculty too, but it is based on the illusionary self construct: It works from a slate of self or self structure to begin with, and describes that we must impose it on the world.
But this is clearly a social illusion. Its ideal attitude of conformity is directed towards a situation where it is impossible to truly conform in the manner that these so called freedoms are laid out. Society is not built for the openness it maintains as an ideal. Do we walk around naked? Are we even allowed to?
No, we don't yet the same contemporary society maintains an illusion of absolute openness. As it is in any society, the absolute referent, or the static conception of openness as being, is pointed out as this supposed self.
In short the self is the illusion that a person has realized the possibilities and actualized his "individual rights" somehow in a positive manner. But rights were only written to delimit the activities of mankind. Thus, one either runs into the barriers and limitations of being, or is forced to plow through them, when the social ideals are considered to be real. In no sense are they actually manifested.
Since here the focus seems to be on someone oppressed by cultural illusions, rather than on some social deviant who needs to be delimited, I think it would suffice to say that one doesn't have to fall into limitations of self construction.
Clearly, we are open and closed, and it is simply a matter of survival to be closed off at times. People should not be ashamed to maintain introspection whenever their natural instinct tells them this. This isn't necessarily an indication that this person is some kind of maniac, or that he himself is untrustworthy. Understanding that society isn't close to perfect, this relative absolute of individual doesn't necessarily follow.
This person's instinct is reasonable in my opinion. Many people who have this turn, are not maniacs, but artists or intellectuals, activities that require introspective turn.
I would raise the possibility that whatever is going on is beyond words, and does not need to be imagined as "self", "soul", or anything else along those lines.
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daytripper23
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Registered: 06/22/05
Posts: 3,595
Loc:
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: daytripper23] 1
#12796883 - 06/24/10 01:49 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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WhiskeyClone
Not here
Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 16,509
Loc: Longitudinal Center of Canada ...
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: Anonymous #1]
#12806276 - 06/26/10 03:32 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Anonymous said:
I feel like too much eye contact is inappropriate, and it makes me feel uncomfortable most of the time. I think asian cultures have it right, they don't really look at each other that much, they understand. Only in America to people stare each other down for seconds at a time like it's normal, no other animal on the planet does this. Fuckin wierdos.
I know what you mean, it is weird.
But there is something you can do about it. I changed the way I make eye contact, and it's totally different now, there's nothing uncomfortable about it.
I don't stare at their eyes. I mean, I still look in their eyes, but I'm kind of just looking at the whole scene -- the person and their background, like it's a little stage they're on, and I'm letting them say their piece.
The difference is that I don't think about myself at all -- what my eyes are doing, where I'm looking, because I'm only concerned with them and what they do and say.
It's almost like I'm not there at all, and they're just speaking into a camera. My whole world becomes the person I'm talking to, and I forget myself. Hard to explain but you'll know it when you experience it.
I learned that all of the problems of weirdness with eye contact stem from what I'm thinking about myself while the other person is speaking. So I kind of remove myself from the picture. It's easier than it sounds, because when you're talking to somebody else, you literally can't see yourself at all -- you're absent from the scene. So it's like the other person is speaking into a void, and suddenly there's no awkwardness or discomfort.
It's the ego that causes all tension and awkwardness between people, and if you can regard the speaker like I describe, your ego fucks off for a minute or two, and discomfort and weirdness become impossible.
The (easy) experiments on this page might help you understand what I mean: http://headless.org
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Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.
~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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rezen
Time Traveler
Registered: 05/21/10
Posts: 1,031
Loc:
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: WhiskeyClone]
#12816468 - 06/28/10 04:40 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Making eye contact is nothing more than a social program...who says that this is the way it has to be?? Just because you don't look someone in the eye dosent mean your not paying attention or trying to be rude to them. If you have to look someone in the eye just to read them than you know very little of the space we live in.
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golden1
Registered: 06/18/08
Posts: 1,707
Loc: north korea
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Re: I don't really like makin eye contact with people [Re: rezen]
#12816648 - 06/28/10 06:51 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
rezen said:
Making eye contact is nothing more than a social program...who says that this is the way it has to be?? Just because you don't look someone in the eye dosent mean your not paying attention or trying to be rude to them. If you have to look someone in the eye just to read them than you know very little of the space we live in.
who says it has to be a bad thing, you? because if no one made eye contact that would such a shame.
"Just because you don't look someone in the eye dosent mean your not paying attention or trying to be rude to them."
Obviously, but when you make eye contact you are both giving a mutual sign of respect and letting the other know you are listening. Why avoid their eyes? DO you not feel the connection that eye contact brings? Man.. I can communicate thought eye contact with friends, once you have eye contact you are both looking at each other's face and the face can express many things even making words are not needed... It's not a social program, it's something that clearly works with our capabilities to make social contact fuller.
I don't get it.. really, even when I avoided most eye contact because of anxiety I didn't pretend the whole thing was useless.
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