As someone who also struggles a lot with eye contact, heavy avoidance, and social anxiety due to my stutter, I relate so hard to this. I’m okay with eye contact but the second I hit a block I either shut my eyes or look away. Anxiety is particularly hellacious because your brain tries to convince you that you’re a magical mind reader. It’s important to understand that you are not. It was only within the last year that I started to talk about my stutter with my closest friend. She was the one to initiate the conversation when she asked me if it was helpful if she finished my sentences for me. We ended up having a pretty lengthy chat about stuttering and my other good friend kind of hopped into the conversation and started asking questions, too. I also got to ask them some questions. And I learned very quickly that I was just assuming the worst case scenario when it came to things that brought me a lot of shame. With eye contact, they explained that they looked away because I did first, and they thought it was alleviating the pressure on me. When they finished certain words for me they said that they were just trying to be helpful. All this is to say that at the end of the day, you don’t know what other people are thinking. She kept the conversation going, that’s huge! Maybe the reason she didn’t stop to talk to you was because she didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable. Maybe she was in the middle of telling them about some crazy dream she had and got caught up in the moment. Maybe she didn’t know how her friends would react to your stutter and didn’t want to put you in an uncomfortable situation. Always try to assume positive intent! Btw, these are things that I have to constantly remind myself of. Anxiety kind of takes over my brain but it’s important to tap into your logical side every now and then.