Conversations
September 19, 2013 at 3:09 pm
(This post was last modified: September 19, 2013 at 3:11 pm by Walking Void.)
I have a question. It involves a specific practice in conversation. Eye contact. When You are speaking to someone, You might be staring them in the face during the entire conversation. This can be considered a norm and a peripheral of etiquette. My question to You is this:
Is eye contact necessary for holding a conversation? Is it despicable to refrain from eye contact?
The reason I ask this is because I recently went to the doctors and was confirmed for social anxiety disorder. When I am around people I am not used to, like "strangers", I am still friendly but I get nervous from reading their body language and extrapolating what I analyze (an eyebrow squint = you liar). I am completely honest but I am so desensitized to people wanting trust to be earned rather than granted that I feel like people sometimes do not trust me. When I get nervous in front of strangers, my conversational skills fall while I feel like shit about myself. Then I "think" I am making the conversation uncomfortable, which is true. But I can relate all of this back to the basis of my visual information reading. If I hold a conversation with my eyes closed, I can remain calm while avoiding the crippling of the remaining conversation. Now, time and again I can hold eye contact for moments of confirmation and laughter and such, but for extended durations it does claw on me.
I mean, chats are primarily vocal events, yes? So if I cut out sight on occasion it should not make a difference, would it?
Is eye contact necessary for holding a conversation? Is it despicable to refrain from eye contact?
The reason I ask this is because I recently went to the doctors and was confirmed for social anxiety disorder. When I am around people I am not used to, like "strangers", I am still friendly but I get nervous from reading their body language and extrapolating what I analyze (an eyebrow squint = you liar). I am completely honest but I am so desensitized to people wanting trust to be earned rather than granted that I feel like people sometimes do not trust me. When I get nervous in front of strangers, my conversational skills fall while I feel like shit about myself. Then I "think" I am making the conversation uncomfortable, which is true. But I can relate all of this back to the basis of my visual information reading. If I hold a conversation with my eyes closed, I can remain calm while avoiding the crippling of the remaining conversation. Now, time and again I can hold eye contact for moments of confirmation and laughter and such, but for extended durations it does claw on me.
I mean, chats are primarily vocal events, yes? So if I cut out sight on occasion it should not make a difference, would it?
