this post was submitted on 17 May 2026
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me_irl
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Not always making direct eye contact is something I was told once as a strategy for seeming confident when you're nervous; other than that they all come to me naturally via mirroring. It's actually pretty hard for me to think and talk about this kinda stuff because I do it all intuitively, and it's hard for me to divert enough attention to notice precisely what I'm doing during conversations because I'm too busy focusing on the other person and our conversation to think about how I'm emoting.
Feels like you're getting at the crux of why this is difficult. It's something NTs "just do" without thinking anything of it - like breathing. It's not like they can explain the "rules of eye contact" but, also, they certainly will notice you not doing it and they might not be able to put their finger on why that interaction feels off to them.