Why can't I look into your eyes when I speak

Many experts dedicated to identifying a person's body language point out that they are the eyes those that provide greater communication of information, as they are the most expressive focus of the face.

The intensity of the gaze, the duration of eye contact, the movement of the eyes can provide a great amount of information to the person who observes it, as well as helping the interlocutor to transmit messages with greater quality.

However, not everyone is able to maintain or even initiate that eye contact with the person they are talking to. Have you ever wondered why you can't look into my eyes when you speak? In Psychology-Online we intend to clarify a little more the reasons why the visual interaction between two people is often complicated.

Index

1. What does it mean not to look eye to eye in psychology
2. Why can't I look the person I like in the eye
3. How to look into your eyes without getting flustered

No study has really been found that can certainly explain the reasons why people do not have the ability to make a contact visual with those around them, however, it has been seen that this could have a certain relationship with the personality and intentionality of people.

According to the book written by Ferrari (2018), when two people have a conversation, the listener keeps his eyes on the interlocutor of her to show an interest in what He is narrating to him, while the other person, on the part of her, while speaking slightly deviates his gaze and does not give rise to a nervous situation by holding eye contact.

What does it mean to avoid eye contact? Many times the avoiding eye contact in psychology has been associated with people who are diagnosed with a social anxiety disorder. This has been tried to determine many times as Schneier (2011) did, since these people are afraid of the feeling of scrutiny, which can be developed by eye contact long lasting. With this social anxiety test You can tell if you have the typical symptoms of this disorder.

But nevertheless, not being able to look into someone's eyes It can be triggered by many other causes, such as:

1. The anxiety

Anxiety: Anxious people tend to avoid looking into the eyes of their interlocutor in order to look around him and thus seek a way to escape from the situation that is creating the anxiety. Here you will find more information about the Anxiety disorders.

2. Distraction

There are people who tend to be easily distracted, they just have a hard time maintaining full attention on the conversation that is taking place, so they cannot help but be distracted and direct their gaze towards those places that call it the attention.

3. Lies

Another reason why you don't look into each other's eyes when talking to a person may be trying to hide a lie. Those who lie do not want to look into the eyes of their interlocutor usually for two reasons. The first of them is so that they do not discover them and the second so as not to feel bad for telling the lie. With this information you can know if a person is lying because of her gestures.

4. Shyness

Shy people, due to a lack of self-confidence, may feel intimidated by their interlocutor. For this reason, they are unable to look the person in the eye when they speak. This tends to happen very frequently when they speak a dominant and outgoing personwith an introvert. In this article you will find How to overcome shyness and insecurity.

As I have said before, there is no scientific explanation that answers one hundred percent of this behavior. However, considering those factors that can develop it and lead to an avoidance of looking into the eyes of the other person, we could come to think that, if there is a feeling of attraction towards the other person, it can be created a embarrassing situation by the subject.

It is logical to imagine that if the person feels introverted and nervous In front of whoever he likes, he will tend not to look into his eyes, so as not to make him see how he is feeling in those moments.

It is not necessary to look directly into the other person's eyes to indicate that we are awaiting the conversation and to show our interest in what they are telling us. A little trick used by many people with problems when making eye contact, is look at the triangle formed between the eyes and the mouth. What they do is slowly move their gaze over that area, thus giving the interlocutor the impression that they are looking into his eyes, but without feeling intimidated.

In order to overcome this fear of looking into the eyes, it could be recommended to do it gradually and progressively. For example, you can get started and practice with someone you really trustIn this way, knowing that you are not being scrutinized by the other person, the possibility of developing anxiety about this situation will decrease.

If at any time you feel that anxiety increases as a result of eye contact, try doing a series of deep breaths so that you can calm yourself down and gain control of the situation again. We recommend you learn Relaxation and breathing techniques.

The development of this skill is obtained through continuous practice. There is no specific treatment to eliminate this fear and to achieve safe eye contact. So never stop practicing it and trust yourself.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Why can't I look into your eyes when I speak, we recommend that you enter our category of Personal growth and self-help.

1. Ferrari, L. (2018). How to know people by their body language. E-book: Your good books.
2. Schneier, F. R., Rodebaugh, T. L., Blanco, C., Lewin, H., & Liebowitz, M. R. (2011). Fear and avoidance of eye contact in social anxiety disorder. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 52(1), 81-87.