Eye Contact

I can't stand eye contact.

When I was little, and had misbehaved and Dad had to scold me, he invariably came to the point where he would demand that I look at him when he talks to me.
But I just couldn't. And the worse I felt, the harder it was to have eye contact.

Over the years I have learned that people expect eye contact, and I have learned to look at a spot  between their brows.
But I am not comfortable with that.

But that is what every Aspie will tell, as well as we really don't know what makes it so hard.
What I can say is, that eye contact isn't only just uncomfortable, but I also have trouble listening, and understanding things I get told, when I have to maintain eye contact.

All through my life I have listened to people telling me things, and then when I get asked about that a minute later, I never was able to tell what I just had been told.
I realize that now big time, since I'm not trying to maintain whatever kind of eye contact, proper or faux. Now I look at whatever I feel comfortable with, which can mean that I actually turn my back on whom I am talking to. And that way I can keep things in my mind.

There are more weird things connected to my seeing.
When I'm driving, and get for whatever reason stressed, I have to turn down, or shut off my music altogether, because I cannot see properly.
That doesn't mean that all things go black or something, or maybe fade out into white. The things are still there, but I cannot asses them properly.
It's the same like in my graphics programs.
Usually I have a very good feeling for proportions when I do pictures or graphics.
Without any aides I can place objects pretty much exactly in centers, both what is the real center, and what is visually pleasing.
For my graphic designs I rarely use guides and rulers, because like I said, I can do that visually just fine.
But when I work in InDesign, a layout program in my Adobe Creative Suite, which displays every object inside a layout with a thin bounding box, I just cannot see properly. It is just impossible for me to see past the many bounding boxes if the layout is any good, if the objects are placed in a pleasing or proper fashion.
In Photoshop the brush tip changes to a little cross hairs when it is too tiny for a proper display.
And even though the cross hairs should make it real easy to place the brush properly, I just can't.
In those cases I have to work with the zoom, so I am able to see what is going on on my canvas.