People unable to look you in the eyes

[Owledge]

I've had a peculiar encounter a while ago and am wondering what might have been going on and whether it was something about me, the other person, or both, and what.

So imagine this:

There's a public speaker. She's answering questions by the audience, talking to people directly, all very natural. Then you approach her and ask her a (normal, harmless, on-topic) question. She apparently doesn't properly focus on the question and gives an answer based on misunderstanding it. Her eyes and head are wandering/jerking all around the place. It's like her eyes are drawing a jaggy circle around you. At no moment is she able/willing to look at you directly. It is borderline comedical.
Afterwards, when talking to other people, she's back to normal again.

[ThisLife]

.

I don't know if this will be helpful or not, but I put it to you with hopefully the same motivation that several people replied to Rara in one of the current popular threads regarding a Christmas disagreement that he had with his mother. Basically, they were suggesting that it's fruitless to set up and then try to resolve a question revolving around apportioning 'the degree of responsibility' after an unpleasant exchange with another person. The only person whose actions we can possibly hope to have any effect on is our own. So it's better to leave the other person's responsibility out of the equation and treat it as an impersonal event, like we would a squall of rain that disrupts what we had planned to be a perfect picnic.

In the case you raised in this thread, if looked at in this way, perhaps what happened could offer you an insight into something unusual that you're doing, (which is invisible to you because it's always been there, and thus seems perfectly natural).

As an illustration, I read through many threads on this forum and have become familiar with the style and way-of-thinking of scores of different poster here. But up till now, I've never been able to read through a single post of yours because the, (to my eyes), utter triviality and distraction of a pink bouncing horse endlessly flipping into my consciousness every single second - brings up an instant, unconscious reflex reaction of "I'm outa here ! This is like talking with a hyperactive two-year old !"

Of course I know nothing whatsoever about you, so this statement has no possibility of being accurate. I'm just telling you my instant reaction to the cartwheeling horse. If I was to meet a person in the street who tried to engage me in conversation, all the time flipping a pink stuffed toy up in the air while we talked .. probably I wouldn't be able to look them in the eye either, and my eyes too would be making a 'jaggy circle' around them - looking desperately around for an escape route.

I say this simply with the hopes that it might possibly be that an unattached, external view could notice something which would otherwise pass un-noticed through familiarity. If not, please feel free to dump my reply as being simply the meaningless remarks of someone who doesn't have a clue what you're like, or what the situation you're writing about was like.

.

Edited December 30, 2014 by ThisLife

[kio]

Sounds to me like she thought you were cute

 

It could be lots of reasons though.

 

I agree with ThisLife.

Edited December 30, 2014 by kio

[Silent Answers]

You probably just caught an already nervous speaker off guard with a question she didn't know how to answer... So words came out to cover up any embarrassment and a quick move on. She felt like a bit of a douche in front of you because she knew you weren't satisfied.

[Owledge]

@ThisLife

I'm aware of the things you mention. I'm still curious. No harm in that. I'm not trying to guilt-trip myself or see evils out there or anything like that. I'm on the search for wisdom, and regardless of what caused the peculiar situation, there might be wisdom to be gained. I made some immediate decisions after the event to not let it affect me in a negative emotional way, despite having been kind of a downer.

Again: Experiences that strike our attention, that fall out of the norm, seem worth examining.

[Owledge]

You probably just caught an already nervous speaker off guard with a question she didn't know how to answer... So words came out to cover up any embarrassment and a quick move on. She felt like a bit of a douche in front of you because she knew you weren't satisfied.

If it was just that, it wouldn't be a puzzling situation. As I said, my question didn't have the potential to startle her. It was like any other she got, and she even verbally responded to it in a healthy way. (Misunderstanding the point, but still a normal answer.) She was cheerful as before and after, but it looked like a part of her that she didn't have control over, because not fully conscious maybe, was inhibiting her.

It was an at least relatively rare anomaly for both her and me.

 

The only time I can remember having met someone who couldn't look me in the eyes was long ago at a job interview at a university, but I assumed that there it might have been the academic guy's social anxiety, because his whole demenor matched that way more than in said case with the public speaker.

Was funny, too, though, having a guy who is doing job interviews who can't look the applicant in the eyes.

Universities. LOL.

Edited December 30, 2014 by Owledge

[soaring crane]

ok, so, you in fact were not wearing your pink My Little Pony costume at the time of this encounter, is that correct? Other than that, I dunnno.

[BaguaKicksAss]

I personally avoid eye contact to that extreme with people I don't wish to talk with, and hoping they will move along quickly.

 

Which is likely anyone after putting every single last ounce of your energy and effort into giving a good talk.

[liminal_luke]

I want to echo what ThisLife said about the bouncing horse--very distracting. (Of course this is just my opinion and perhaps other people find it delightful.) If you want to be read, I suggest nixing the jumping horse, or at least making it hold still.

 

Of course, in the encounter you mentioned I take it you weren´t actually dressed up as a pink horse. Still perhaps something of the pink horse spirit came through in the interaction. Perhaps you presented your pink jumping horse metaphorically, if not literally. How we habitually present ourselves in a forum like taobums says lots about how we are as people out in the world (generally speaking, I think people know way more about us than we imagine they do in any case). So, you know, perhaps something of the pink horse came through.

 

Liminal

[Marblehead]

Well, you will have eye contact if you speak with me one on one. I have hearing problems (high frequencies all gone) so I always insist that people who talk to me look at my face so that I can see their lip movement and better understand what they are saying.

[idiot_stimpy]

The eyes divert away, lest you pierce their soul.

[Marblehead]

The eyes divert away, lest you pierce their soul.

I like looking into a person's soul. Especially a woman's. Many strange things to be found in there.

[soaring crane]

For the record, I generally don't look people in the eyes under normal circumstances. It's agressive and sensual. So, unless I want to start a war with you or, ahem, I'm looking at your forehead. Or your chin.

[Aetherous]

Eye contact is weird. Some cultures consider it highly disrespectful to look with more than a glance into a person's eyes...especially a stranger. Some like in Mongolia believe that if you stare into a shaman's eyes, bad things will happen to you. These people are sensitive to things regarding the soul, or the subjective aspects of a person.

I personally find it very rude if a person looks in my eyes longer than a few seconds...like 10 seconds is highly uncalled for, and in psychology they say that longer than 6 seconds, and it means the person either wants to kill you or fuck you (both of which I don't accept). At times I will purposefully stare longer into theirs, making sure that they look away first, in order to show that they aren't dominant over me. On a primal or even symbolic level, that I won't let them "kill" me. But that's only with people who are staring way too long and with the wrong attitude.

In a normal interaction with a person, eye contact isn't on your mind. It's only when things are abnormal, that we have a heightened awareness of what our eyes and their eyes are doing. All of this is not to comment on Owl's particular experience, but just speaking about strange eye contact in general.

[Owledge]

I want to echo what ThisLife said about the bouncing horse--very distracting. (Of course this is just my opinion and perhaps other people find it delightful.) If you want to be read, I suggest nixing the jumping horse, or at least making it hold still.

 

Of course, in the encounter you mentioned I take it you weren´t actually dressed up as a pink horse. Still perhaps something of the pink horse spirit came through in the interaction. Perhaps you presented your pink jumping horse metaphorically, if not literally. How we habitually present ourselves in a forum like taobums says lots about how we are as people out in the world (generally speaking, I think people know way more about us than we imagine they do in any case). So, you know, perhaps something of the pink horse came through.

 

Liminal

Joke's on you. It was during a brony convention, and the speaker, during the main event (as opposed to talks afterwards), specifically only invited people on the stage who were wearing some kind of costume.

[soaring crane]

Joke's on you. It was during a brony convention, and the speaker, during the main event (as opposed to talks afterwards), specifically only invited people on the stage who were wearing some kind of costume.

 

hahaha guess that answers my question! Not sure if I like the answer, but c'est la vie

[Owledge]

Could be one possible scenario.

If a beam of light is about to pierce a dark soul.

That which shies away is always fear.

[Aaron]

In my non-professional opinion, it sounds like you might have caused her to feel threatened and scared for her safety.

[Owledge]

In my non-professional opinion, it sounds like you might have caused her to feel threatened and scared for her safety.

Yeah, maybe my face reminded her of some early abuse trauma or something. Who knows. There's probably really no way to get closer to an insight than through direct inquiry, and it's not worth it just for curiosity's sake.

[mysterie]

OP pls change the gif in your sig to something less erratic / obtrusive

thx,

my eyes.

[Owledge]

OP pls change the gif in your sig to something less erratic / obtrusive

 

thx,

 

my eyes.

Please understand...

I love her too much to do that.

 

But if you didn't pay attention to my writings and instead just watched her for a while, it would be just as beneficial to the world.

Here's a meditation video in case you want more after that:

 

Edited December 31, 2014 by Owledge

[mysterie]

share your love of MLP with a really slick and nice still image like this


http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/322/1/c/pinkie_pie_takeover_banner_by_nsaiuvqart-d5lfm9x.png

[Owledge]

share your love of MLP with a really slick and nice still image like this

 

 

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/322/1/c/pinkie_pie_takeover_banner_by_nsaiuvqart-d5lfm9x.png

Pinkie Pie ... STILL image?!

Dude.

 

 

[Flolfolil]

...

Edited March 5, 2015 by Flolfolil

[mysterie]

i thought i was lazy!