Misdiagnosed and selfdiagnosed

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@Nightingale121 Ambulante Pflege? I never liked that. Going from one place to another and going to peoplemayerschelat. I never felt comfortable with it. I had to tag along as part of the nursing course.
Most of the time I don't know what to answer. I found a trick to bypass things. You could say a "hmm" of approval. That works until now. When a surgeon starts small talk to everyone in the room I'd sometimes just say Hmm. It's usually difficult for me cos of the many machine sounds and it would look doofus if I ask more than twice or if I dontbget the point of what he's saying. Mostly, i don't care for their private life so yea, hmm. Or I'd just smile.
Librarian must be a good job. Silence, space, not a lot of people. Heaven!! I'm thinking of applying at mayersche bookstores. Do you know it? Surrounded by books, that would be great!

"Hmm" combined with a smile is my favourite answer, too at the moment if I don´t care much about what they are saying or if I don´t know what to say. It works but I guess it´s just a bit too boring for them. I think this because people often stop talking after a while when I do it for a long time. But other persons said I would be a good listener after conversations I was rarley interested in and just did this "hmm" and smile thing. So I guess it depends on the situation if people like it or not.
I don´t know mayersche bookstores. Is it a special bookstore or why do you especially like those? I mean there are many different bookstores where you could apply and I wonder why you prefer it.

Mayersche is the biggest here in NRW. I think they also have other stores outside NRW I just don't know which states. I always see Mayersche as a sort of haven. They've made their bookstore comfortable, esp. the one in Dortmund. I'll try to take a photo when I visit Dortmund. They even have a piano where anyone can play if they want to. They also have a small cafe but I don't go there. I'd be sitting too close to other people, that makes me feel conscious and restless.
Hmm, smile and add a bit of nodding to it. That should work too.
I had an experience yesterday. Went to the body shop, asked about their new member's card. The woman explained it to me. Now I have to do proper eye contact. Difficult, so I looked at her nose, her mouth. Got conscious cos I know it's not good so I looked at the wall behind her.
She searched my gaze. I looked at her eye, felt really bad. Totally awkward situation. I was glad when she finished talking.

Aha, thank you for your answer.
It sounds interesting but I probably would find it uncomfortable if someone plays the piano while I want to look for books and read a bit to see if I like them. Music makes it hard for me to concentrate. What I like most about bookstores is the silence in opposite to clothes stores for example, where they always play music.
I also have problems with proper eye contact, especially with strangers. Like you I often look at the mouth or the nose. I know that´s not good but why do you look at the wall later after realizing that´s not good? I thought looking somewhere at the person´s face is better than looking at the wall, even if you should look in the eyes instead of looking at the mouth. Or were you a bit nervous because you know you are not doing well? If I get nervous I rather look somewhere else. I do it too when I have to concentrate on what the person is saying. That means that I often look less interested if I am very interested and really try to understand them but most people consider looking away as being uninterested.
I hate it when people force eye contact with searching my glaze. I feel very uncomfortable with it and look away as early as I can again.
So I know this kind of awkward situations, have something like this almost every time with the cashier at the supermarket. But after a many times of feeling uncomfortable with it I now think: "The cashier doesn´t know you, there are so many people who come here every day, he will forget you soon, so why is it important to do proper eye contact with him? Even if he thinks you are awkward, why should I care about it?" But on the other hand those situations frustrate me because I have to think so much about situations which are totally normal to most other people, they just don´t have to think about such things and can do it intuitive.

Hiya Nightingale121!
Nono, i didn't mean that they're playing the piano all the time. It's just there and it's quite seldom that someone would play it. I think it also adds up to the atmosphere. The bookstore has many floors and that piano is mostly at the top. My floor would be the first as it's where they have the English books.
Umm I looked at the wall cos I got totally conscious. It gets difficult once you get conscious of what you're doing.
Cashiers? Oh I'd look at the hand handing me the change everytime. When I put my things on the till I'd mostly look at the things that I'd bought or at the prices that appear when the cashier types them so there's seldom eye contact.
Yea, NT's are so complicated sometimes. One of my colleague and friend would always say "look at me when I'm talking to you". I'd say in defence "I might not be looking but I'm listening" but now I discovered that with aspergers so she stopped complaining. Many also say that I often look spaced out or absent minded even though I'm really listening. I don't know what kind of face I'm making but it's bothersome cos they think I'm not interested.

Yes, it gets sometimes even worse for me too if I am too conscious. So often try not to think about a situation when I am in it, even if I seem awkward because I forget something (like proper eye contact). But if I think too much about it, I often am more insecure. But if I have to make an important conversation I often think about what to do before I am in the situation. I do it especially before job interviews because I know that I normally stare somewhere else than the faces if I explain things in more than one sentence because it helps me to concentrate. But of course you shouldn´t do that in job interviews and so I try to look at the face. But I rather just pretend to look at their faces but I don´t really see them but look through them. I guess I would never recognize them later in another situation because I don´t concentrate at the faces although I look at them.

I look at the same things if I have to do with cashiers.

In elementary school a girl told me that I have to look at her when we are talking because otherwise she wouldn´t understand me. So I started to practice it very early because I wanted to know what you can understand more if you look at a person´s face when she is talking. But while I am talking myself I often look somewhere else until now and also do it while I am listening sometimes. I also was told that I look spaced out when I do it. Once I talked about it with my mother and said the same thing almost literally to explain that I am listening even if I don´t look at her. It also seems that my facial expression seems to be uninterested, too and this combination is often misunderstood by NTs in my opinion because they don´t expect that someone who looks somewhere else and has an uninterested facial expression is listening.

Hi Nightingale121!
Just had that problem with my mum hehe. She was talking to me and I was actually listening but I guess I was looking at out cat. All of a sudden she said, I know you're not listening at the moment. Umm... I am! Aah well...

Now that you've mentioned it I can't remember the one who interviewed me when I applied for my job! I'm also bad with names when that person isn't that important to me. I've forgotten more than half of my ex colleagues name (when I worked in Bavaria). Isn't that terrible? It is!

How's it going with your work? Still problems with your NT colleagues?

Hehe!
Oh no, names! I am also bad with them. It was hard for me at the beginning to remember the names of my colleagues and the patients. The meetings in my group of volunteers (we sometimes have it to learn how to communicate with patients, how to wash them and to hear other person´s views of their jobs) are difficult for me, too because I don´t know every name and one time we played a game at the beginning and I had to call someones name. I didn´t know it although I saw her so many times before. Of course I was the only one who had this problem after such a long time.
When I was at school and classes changed it was difficult for me for a long time to say what the name of the other pupils are and later when there were no more classes but courses mixed from all former classes I had to start again. I guess I didn´t know everyone till the end of my school time with name. But as you say it has to do with interest, too. If I am not interested it is hard for me to remember something, not only names but other things, too.
Another interesting thing is the following: Sometimes it happens to me that I see a person and think: She looks like a XXX (a name). Then I connect her with this name and even if I know her real name, in my head the person is called the name I gave her. If talk to her I always have to think that XXX is not her real name. Do you know this? I guess it´s a little bit weird.
I guess my colleagues now know that I am not a great talker and so they don´t talk so much anymore. But if we found a topic that is interesting for both of us, we have some nice talks. For example my colleague has seen the last episode of Quarks & Co like me and so we talked about it. One of them often talks to me about cooking. I like it and so we change ideas hat we could cook.

Hi!
Umm... I don't do that kind of connection with names. I rather give people other names, well just the ones I'm close to. I call my son Wutzi, he doesn't like it, obviously! Haha. I gave his dad the nickname Mondgesicht but I don't call him that now since we're not together anymore for ages.

I commute to work with one of the hospital's secretary and we talk mostly of Dr. Who or other science fiction stuff. We talk about work as well. She's into medieval stuff. She even invited me and my son this May. I'll probably attend together with my son.

Do you have friends or a relationship? You don't have to answer if it's too personal for you.

I wrote about the friendship issue in this thread: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt250655.html
If you like, you can read it., but here´s a short version: I don´t have friends but would like to have at least one because sometimes I just want to talk about my thoughts or something like this. But I am not sure if I will find a friend who also understands that I need time for me alone too and who accepts me how I am. The only socal contact I have in my freetime at the moment is when I go to sing in my choir every week. The people there are nice but I wouldn´t call anyone there a friend of mine, I just sing with them and we alk about the songs or ther related topics.
According to this I am not in a relationship.
I guess what you describe with names are nicknames. I give them to other people, too but like you only people who I know well.
The thing with the invitation is nice for you. I hope you will have fun.