Not being looked in the eye when talking with someone

My husband now says what I have long thought; namely that he suspects that he is on the autistic spectrum. He does make eye contact with me, but did not for the first eight or so years of our marriage. He does not make eye contact with others outside our immediate family

Mine

My daughters friend who is a policewoman said she knows when someone is lying as they look to the left...Now when I'm speaking to someone if they look to the left I want to giggle..

Well that's terrifying - are many of the police making judgments based on what amounts to an urban myth, and in this case a misremembered myth?

"A glance up and to the left supposedly means a person is telling the truth, whereas a glance to the upper right signals deceit. However, new research thoroughly debunks these notions. As it turns out, you can't smell a liar by where he looks."
www.livescience.com/34068-eye-movements-lying.html#:~:text=A%20glance%20up%20and%20to,liar%20by%20where%20he%20looks.

LovelyLady

Kartush, it’s very different to stare at someone. We’re talking about looking them in the eyes. Very different to a stare.
If a person has not been raised to look in the eyes, it must be difficult.

Perhaps stare was not the correct choice of words, I do know that, personally, having a conversation with anyone that I do not know well who constantly tries to make eye contact is very uncomfortable for me.

If it's me, I'm turning my head so as to hear you better, aiming my ear at your mouth.

Or some people are just uncomfortable with direct eye contact. Dogs and cats are too. Don't read too much into it

Mine

My daughters friend who is a policewoman said she knows when someone is lying as they look to the left...Now when I'm speaking to someone if they look to the left I want to giggle..

not only is she wrong, she got it the wrong way round.... I despair of the police
www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/myth-busted-looking-left-or-right-doesnt-indicate-if-youre-lying-1922058/

Sod finding yourself I'm an interview room with some of these people!

I usually think they are looking for someone more interesting to talk to.

I imagine you were quite young and nervous at the time MissA. I'm surprised they didn't consider that. Anyone I interviewed was a graduate from a good university (most likely Oxbridge and probably ex public school - I really didn't like most of them, cocky so and so's) or an experienced solicitor. If they didn't look me in the eye I would not have wanted to employ them (they were mostly far too full of themselves anyway) but a youngish girl facing an interview is a very different kettle of fish.

I was 18, I think, and I really, really wanted to do it.

I was devastated to be told I hadn't passed, and the reason why.

That’s very harsh and I’m so sorry. It’s obvious that you would have been a very good nurse and have been much better off. However those you’ve cared for are very lucky that you took a different path. My Mum wanted to be a nurse too but I believe her parents weren’t in favour. She would have been a lovely nurse, as would you.

MissAdventure

I was 18, I think, and I really, really wanted to do it.

I was devastated to be told I hadn't passed, and the reason why.

That was the reason that you were told.

It might not have been the real reason.

It might be that the opportunity had been 'promised' to the daughter of a doctor or some friend of the interviewer, so they could find no lawful reason to not accept you, so you were told some rubbish as a cover.

For example, if the reason were true, and if they considered that eye contact is important for a nurse dealing with patients, then it could have been mentioned and they could have helped you learn to do that.

There are many things that a qualified nurse needs to know how to do that a young woman starting to train as a nurse would not know how to do.

You are always so cynical SD.

StarDreamer

MissAdventure

I was 18, I think, and I really, really wanted to do it.

I was devastated to be told I hadn't passed, and the reason why.

That was the reason that you were told.

It might not have been the real reason.

It might be that the opportunity had been 'promised' to the daughter of a doctor or some friend of the interviewer, so they could find no lawful reason to not accept you, so you were told some rubbish as a cover.

For example, if the reason were true, and if they considered that eye contact is important for a nurse dealing with patients, then it could have been mentioned and they could have helped you learn to do that.

There are many things that a qualified nurse needs to know how to do that a young woman starting to train as a nurse would not know how to do.

There would have been more than one place available.
Unlike a typical interview (1 vacancy, one place to fill), Nurse Training recruited in cohorts, often 30 per intake.
I think your examples are overhelpful.

I am sorry that MissA missed out on what was her dream. I would like to think that more help (and an opportunity to reapply) would be forthcoming post-interview these days.

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> Who is to know and why bring suggestions of bias or nepotism into the scenario.

Yes, who is to know.

But MissAdventure is perhaps still hurting about it and I was trying to offer comfort and suggest, entirely genuinely and knowing what sometimes goes on, that what she was told might not have been the truth. It may be that MissAdventure did not do eye contact so that was seized upon as a purported reason.

> Chip on the shoulder?

No, but I have heard people openly say that the job is to promote NAME but we have to advertise it in the newspaper.

Though one time I heard of that happening and a really outstanding candidate applied and they didn't want to miss having him, so NAME did not get the job.

No chip on my shoulder. Pointing out that unfairness and bias exists is reasonable. I don't have to accept it is "how it is" and go along with it, even if my attitude causes annoyance.

I take the view that what is relevant to me is how I treat other people, not how other people treat me.

So for me, what is important is the kindness and fairness of how MissAdventure treats other people, not what some interviewer did to her.

Like most people I am somewhere in the middle on success.

Spin a hundred pennies and some land heads and some land tails. Most people get some of each.

If people block, go round them so that their opinion does not matter later on.

It depends how long they loose eye contact. I engaged two men to remove an old garage plinth. One of the men was unable to look at my eyes or even my face. The other man did all the talking. The work was exceptionally inefficient. I had to suppose the man who did all the talking was a carer for an autistic colleague.

On the other hand, sometimes being stared at feels scary and as if the other is aggressive or disapproving.

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