Should I just sit and walk around smiling?

Post Reply New Topic

So it has to be at a person? I dont sit and walk around smiling? Nobody is answering my question...

I just look at the ground naturally when I walk.

No you don't sit and walk around smiling. It doesn't matter what others think about your expression.

When I was 12 years old and my voice started to change, I randomly decided to try to look taller by standing straight, slightly smile, and narrow my eyes a little when I was in school. Girls started approaching me and complimenting me, one girl was actually really aggressive but she wasn't my type. I stopped doing it, and it never happened again. Maybe I should try doing it again. I don't know. I don't understand non-verbal language. I hate having to force it.

No, you should not walk around smiling all the time. A brief smile when you see the face of someone you know, to aknowledge their friendly presence, is sufficient. What you DON'T want to do is walk around frowning with your eyebrows drawn together--a lot of us make this face when we are concentrating on our thoughts, but it looks like anger and sadness to outside observers.

Yeah, actually I heard that faking a smile will just make you look really bad to people.
I don't know what the heck I was doing right back then.

The thing about smiling, for me, is the fact I enjoy the world and walking around in it. It just naturally brings a smile to my face. I don't see many others doing this so I suppose they're walking about wrapped up in their own world with their own problems most of the time.

When I speak with others I believe most people think I "over smile." I think this is caused by my (un-dying I'm afraid) belief I'm going to have a very pleasurable engagement with the other person (although it may not turn out that way...Hope can cause pain.). I don't think this is most people's approach.

Maybe the people giving you this advise are just suggesting you open your eyes and get out of your head a while?

I get the same from people. It's an awkward thought and there are some who seem to be saying I look unhappy when I might not be. I don't frown too much, so I'm not certain on the angle.

Not sure what people expect from others sometimes

I hope against hope.
I want to be 100% hopeless, and not 99.999999999% hopeless.

I'm sorry, I wasn't online yesterday. No you shouldn't smile all the time. It would look like what Fluffyfluff posted, which is nightmare anxious kind of smile, that looks like someone is about to attack or scream.

My husband is an aspie and he has this problem. He has a natural smile when he's smiling at an animal or our son, and if he's joking around the few people who don't make him anxious. Our Christmas photos were hilarious because he looked either constipated or like he was going to cry in each one.

If you feel self conscious about your smile but have to for like a picture or something, I recommend looking at something funny on your phone or getting an animal or little kid to be around for you to look at. For walking or sitting around, frankly I just wouldn't try. Being a young female, people are going to bother you because there's social pressure for young females to be pretty flowers for other people to enjoy. You can smile back if someone smiles at you, like someone else said, but if it stresses you out I wouldn't bother.

Now that I'm on my teenage years I eventually learned to smile when interacting with my friends or other people that comes my way to greet them. But oftentimes I'd wear excessibly wide smile even when I talk that it's almost seen as an elastic band getting stretch down to a frown making it look like a stuttering smile as of being awkward or anxious. That would be my often reaction in normal situations when greeting or talking to a person. Part of it because I don't exactly know the comfort of my facial expression that should be displayed when interacting. I tried a few times talking to my dear self pretending I was lecturing on a certain topic while video recording it with my phone, then after I'd review it and see how I might look and speak out from my own notice. I don't know how it come that way but to find my gestures that odd astonished me. Not being aware on it, I saw how I unconsiously turn my eyeballs up when thinking which in my odd features made me look even more idk, funny. From that I also realized how my voice sounds monotonous no matter how I try to jump in to varying tones. Quite often sub-/unconsciously I would speak in very soft voice that all the people I'd spoken to would beg my pardon and oftentimes friends would confront me how I speak too softly. 'Though there are times that I tried to speak loud but such loudness was out of my control which made me seem a person of extremes.

Can I ask you an unrelated question? I need an NT perspective. So I have some issues making friends. Whenever I ask people for advice they will say "just talk to people". However I Actually talk to people all the time! It just doesn't lead to friendships. Why do NT's act like just "talking to people" will lead to making friends??

Oftentimes I look pensive, I guess. At times, strangers have me "are you okay?" when I am in fact perfectly totally content. Seems staring with fascination at something (yes, I do that ) can be disconcerting for neurotypicals in ways that I just don't understand.

Don't sweat it. You don't have to smile to appease anybody. Okay, do smile at people when they engage you....that's just being nice.

Edit: fluffyfluff, oh geez...that image is hilariously scary!

"Never give up ... Never surrender!"

The following is what I said in another forum recently:

"In order to help seekers find a way to eliminate suffering we must offer, if not concrete solutions (which disappoints so many), then hope. And, yes, I've found hope can cause pain, but when understood the pain is a sweet understanding that it is part of a spectacular journey."

It took a while before I understood this, but it's what I believe in now.

I just don't know where I'm supposed to go, or what I'm supposed to do to get a woman's attention.
Outside is for food and exercise, and the women out there have no link with me for these objectives.
I feel like I need a legitimate reason other than wanting a relationship in order to talk to somebody.

Several days ago, I asked a woman for the time because it was getting late.
A few days ago I asked a woman if she could spare me some water because I needed it, and she did.
They both seemed very friendly, but I could not come up with anything else to say.

I can't just walk up to a woman who is smiling at me, say hello, tell her she looks nice, and ask for her number.
I'll do it wrong somehow through my non-verbal language, or even my verbal language.
If they approach me, and if they are persistent, I could see that working out, maybe.

In my opinion, I am good looking, and I've had women tell me I am very good looking before.
That was years ago, before I became uninterested in the outside world and rarely left the house for about 12 years.
There were also women online that thought I was attractive, about 6 years ago.
In my opinion, I look even better now than I ever did because I started exercising about a year ago.

I understand that this painful isolation is like saving up happiness for later when I'm no longer alone,
but it seems like that time will never come unless the right buttons are pushed, and I can't find the right buttons.

No one will give me any useful advice. I've been talking with therapists for most of my life, and they never help me.
Medication makes me far worse, and I've been on more than twenty different ones.

I don't know what to do, and I'm extremely scared of trial and error.
Better to just try to ignore reality by playing video games.

It seems "trial and error" is what human interaction is all about. It's a bummer when you keep getting NO (or no definite indication either way), but you just have to consider that experience just one more step and move on to the next opportunity and consider this part of your learning experience.

Have you hung out in the "Love and Dating" forum to pickup any tips? It's been about two generations and no doubt two "Sexual Revolutions" since I've been where you are now but there seem to be experienced people there with good ideas. I just poked my nose over there and read a post by Fnord which reminded me you need to take a reasoned approach to meeting women. His approach was to make yourself visible (he talked about a skating rink) and frequent it often enough to be recognized (a major tenet in any kind of advertising) so interested women can approach you. I guess I'm saying: If at first you don't succeed, try and try again, using different approaches until one matches your personae.

Sorry I can't be more practically helpful. Just remember you are on the most incredible journey of your life....how exciting it will be for you.