The Eye Contact Plot Twist: Who Really Feels the Pressure?
The conversation around eye contact has always been framed as a one-way street. The narrative is simple and, for many of us, deeply ingrained: autistic people struggle with eye contact. We find it overwhelming, intense, and anxiety-inducing. The responsibility, the problem, has always been placed squarely on our shoulders. It is presented as our deficit to manage.
We are told to practice, to push through the discomfort, to perform a version of social connection that feels unnatural to our wiring, all for the comfort of the person across from us. But what if that narrative has it backwards? What if the source of the anxiety isn't just internal, but is part of a dynamic, a relational dance where we are not the only ones feeling the pressure?
A fascinating study published in 2023 by Elise Clin and Mikhail Kissine flipped the script on this old story. In a live, face-to-face setting, they measured the physiological stress responses of both autistic and neurotypical adults during conversation. The assumption has always been that autistic individuals would show more stress when direct eye contact was made.
The results were a plot twist.
The study found that it was the neurotypical adults who showed more significant physiological signs of stress when their attempts at eye contact were not reciprocated. When the person they were speaking to looked away, their own bodies reacted with distress.
This is the Double Empathy Problem in its purest form. Coined by Dr. Damian Milton, this theory suggests that the communication gap between neurotypical and autistic people isn't a one-sided deficit, but a mutual breakdown of understanding. This study provides a powerful, data-driven example.
Consider the cycle this creates:
A neurotypical person, conditioned to see eye contact as a sign of respect and engagement, seeks it out.
An autistic person, for whom eye contact can be distracting or simply not a priority for connection, looks away.
The neurotypical person, as the study suggests, feels a physiological stress response to this averted gaze. Their attempt at connection has been rejected.
This discomfort may cause them to become more insistent, to try harder to "catch" the other person's eye, creating an unspoken pressure.
The autistic person now feels this pressure. The interaction becomes tense. The discomfort is no longer just about their own wiring; it's about navigating the other person's palpable need. This is where the intense anxiety often comes from.
This reframes everything. It shifts the responsibility from being solely on the autistic individual to being a shared, relational dynamic. The problem isn't that we can't do eye contact "correctly." The problem is the pressure to conform to a single, neurotypical standard of connection, and the anxiety that is created when that standard isn't met.
So, where do we go from here? We move forward with a new question. Instead of asking, "Why won't you look at me?", we can ask, "How can we connect in a way that feels authentic and comfortable for both of us?"
Connection is not a performance. It is about mutual respect, understanding, and the beautiful, divergent ways we all exist in the world. If you are ready to explore your own communication style and build strategies that honor your neurotype, I invite you to book a Free Discovery Session. Let’s find what works for you, together.
