I'm HOH, and I find myself occasionally avoiding eye contact with hearing people I know. Looking at it, I think this is in for 3 reasons. One, that you can only lip read so long before your eyes just hurt and your mind starts to wander. Two, if I am hearing better in one ear at the moment, turning that ear towards the speaker can help (if I'm not actively lip reading). And three, because most hearies I know get very uncomfortable with eye contact as mentioned by others in this thread (on the other hand, at least women seem to realize that I'm staring at their lips, not lower ... doesn't keep it from weirding them out, but it helps a bit, heh). So turning my head away when I'm not lip reading sometimes makes them more comfortable.
