A lot of autistic people find eye contact during an interaction to be extremely uncomfortable - from feeling too 'intimate' somehow, to being too 'intense' and even painful. However, eye contact remains one of the most important expectations that neurotypical people have. #autism

From schools to job interviews, the primacy of eye contact is extremely common, especially in Western cultures. No one appears willing to actually challenge this and ask how necessary it is. This puts #autistic people at a huge disadvantage. #autism

So a great many autistic people teach themselves (actually, 'force themselves' would be more accurate) to maintain eye contact during interactions with neurotypical people. This is often part of masking. #autism

This has a variety of fun after-effects. One is that autistic people who mask eventually burn out, much like anyone would who forces themselves to keep doing something legitimately harmful over and over. Two is they are then told they can't be autistic as they made eye contact.

The latter is such a common anecdote told by both diagnosed and non-diagnosed autistic people that it makes me want to scream. The fact it's so often *doctors* who say this make me want to throw tables. #autism

So let's recap. We #autistic people hate eye contact, usually. We do it anyway because we don't want to be at a tremendous disadvantage in an ableist world. In doing so we often remove any chance of getting a dx and support we deserve.

Great, isn't it? #autism

But we shout about this a lot. I've got like a small town's worth of followers yet we're barely making a dent. We *need* neurotypicals to understand our issues with eye contact but it feels impossible. We need help. #autism

I feel I've explained it reasonably well - it's not hard is it? It's not an impossible to grasp subtlety. It's easy. It should be easy to get the word out, but it's not working.

- - - #autistic people hurt themselves maintainkng eye contact in order to not be disadvantaged - - -

I always get my #autistic followers retweeting my stuff which is great but it just stays in the bubble. If you're neurotypical *please please please* share this sort of thing to *your networks*.

Your bubbles.

Then people might start to get it.

This is hard work, if you can it's appreciated. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UfTVnRY 

Put two #autistic people in a room and they probably won't look at each others eyes at all, but they'll still get on well and it won't even matter to them - they'll be happy. They'll probably eventually do it as a sign they really feel comfortable.