Eye contact: behaviours

A few weeks ago, I wrote some of my thoughts about eye contact, what it means and the impact on blind people of not being able to do it.  I’ve since posted once or twice highlighting some of the negative attitudes and judgements that are levelled at people who can’t or don’t use it. Here, I wanted to describe a particular set of behaviours and barriers that I often encounter as a result of not seeing enough to be able to make eye contact or clearly direct my gaze.

 

I realise that the directing of vision (looking in someone’s direction) may be technically different from making eye contact with them, however, not having the experience of doing either, and often experiencing the consequences of it, I’m not sure that it matters too much for my purposes here.

 

In a closely clustered group of people standing, or sitting  around a table, or with a large group sitting around a table perhaps at a meal or meeting, sighted people rely on their ability to direct their gaze or make eye contact with the person who they want to address in order to indicate who they are talking to. While I can usually see each person’s individual forms, or at least generally know where they are, I can’t see enough to be able to pick any one person out with a look in order to indicate that I am speaking to them. I guess I appear to be looking in a general direction, or, without knowing it, might inadvertently make eye contact with someone other than the person I intended to speak to. 

 

Generally, this is overcome by using the person’s name who I want to address to make them aware that I’m speaking to them. However, it can be difficult to talk directly to a stranger whose name I don’t know in a group. I have to use something of their conversation, perhaps repeating their words or the essence of something they have said so that they know I am addressing them. If they have so far not spoken, I have nothing with which to go on to direct my conversation towards them.

 

I am still often surprised though how some people get this straight away and respond to acknowledge me even though I might be imprecisely directing my gaze. They will use a mixture of common sense and sensitivity to work out that I’m speaking to them.  Others though seem totally fixated on the absolute co-ordinates of where I’m looking, completely ignoring that I’ve clearly referenced (or even named) them and pointedly don’t answer me. I then find myself caught up in an uncomfortable dance where, because I have only been looking in the general direction of the person I was speaking to, the person who I was apparently looking at might start to run a whole over-dramatic number of pointedly looking left and right to  show they don’t know who I’m talking to – often saying ‘who’s he talking to?’. Whether their intention or not, this nonetheless serves to embarrass and disorientate me.

 

While I know (if not understand) that, having not met blind people before, some people  seem unable to behave around us in any kind of normal fashion, I also know how much most sighted people absolutely rely on their eyesight. But, what is most interesting is why some people seem to manage to work it out and respond to me, while others, no matter what I say, no matter how obvious it is (or should be) who I’m talking to, ignore what I say and entirely go with where my eyes are looking.