"for someone who has trouble reading body language..."

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Once, my sister told me that for someone who has trouble reading body language I express it very well.

Often, when I am in a contemplative mood I will think about this statement and wondered about it. I might wonder what might be the reason for this. Could it because I can only pick up on the really ‘loud’ body language, that is what I express? Maybe I subconsciously want to make sure I’m understood the way I can’t understand others. It also makes me wonder how other people might view me as a result. Is it a good or bad thing? What if it makes me come off as rude? How can I be more aware of when I do this?

So, I was having one of these thoughtful moments today was curious if anyone else ever had a similar experience. If so, what was it about and what type of thoughts did it inspire for you?

Are you aware of how you are communicating through body language, RubyWings91?
If so, what's your secret?

I learned some body language way back when I was in a club for professional magicians.
Some of them would come to meetings as guest speakers and teach things like
showmanship.
So maybe I don't know how to act in real life,
but I do know how to act on stage ...

This likely intimidates people sometimes ...
Because to be a successful magician,
you have to come across as powerful.

Anyways, cool topic you raised.
Can you explain a bit more about your experiences?
Are you viewed as an effective communicator?

...

I don't think it's impossible to have appropriate body language and have troubles reading others. I don't know why anyone thinks it's has to be both ways instead of only one and not the other.

I think people can read me pretty well because I don't get any false accusations or any misunderstandings. But I have gotten accused of laughing when I wasn't or being asked what was wrong when I felt fine but that was a long time ago so maybe I have gotten better and must be doing something right. But then again how would anyone know they don't have the right body language and how would you know you are having misunderstandings or being misread? I know my shyness has been mistaken for rejection by guys which was why no one would ask me out in the real world so I had to look online for guys because there is no body language. All we can do is assume and speculate we are being misread when things go wrong. Like when I was eight I was accused of laughing at another kid who was giving me a hard time but I don't know if I may have been displaying inappropriate body language or if the other kids were just trying to get me into trouble so they were lying. That will always be a mystery to me. Also I don't even know when someone says you have troubles with non verbal communication if it means you have troubles reading it or expressing it because that is what I read about myself from childhood before my AS diagnoses.

The_Pheonix:

I'm not consciously aware of when I do use my but I wish I was. Apparently, it's something I do often and my body language is extremely 'loud' to people who know how to read it. From what I understand, there is no subtlety to it. As a result it's hard for me to hide what I'm feeling and it is next to impossible for me to lie to someone face to face.

Usually I am considered an effective communicator but that's because I've always been obsessed with communication barriers. I was a little late learning talk but once I got started, I loved to talk. But, I also always had to think about how I talked. I naturally have a booming voice, that to this day can become overwhelming to everyone around me if I get excited and forget to modulate. Well, putting effort into thinking about talking, I try to get it right in every way I can. How I structure the information I'm conveying, trying to relate my interests to other peoples conversation topics, so on and so forth. Not only did I want to talk to other people but I want them to be interested in what I talk about. I always felt like if I fail to properly hold that interest and be aware of what they are talking about, I've wasted my time trying to have a failed conversation and it bothers me. It's an interest that has continued to evolve for me, stretching beyond my daily routine and into my other fields of interest.

League_Girl

I don't think being able to one or the other when it comes to reading or expressing is necessarily a bad thing either. Neither did my sister, it just confused and frustrated her that I could express myself so well non-verbally but miss all the signals everyone else was sending out. It is annoying though, especially when my family tells me later that other people were trying to communicate with me in some way and I missed it completely. How many conversations have I missed in this way? Have I unintentionally hurt peoples feelings? Stuff like this runs through my head and it's usually too late do anything about it.

A resource on understanding nonverbal movements:
http://www.nonverbal-dictionary.org/#

thanks for the link

Body language is hard-wired, and AFAIK, independent of AS. When people who have been blind from birth win a game, they raise their arms just like anybody else.

Wow, that's pretty neat. It makes a lot of sense too that expressing body language could be hardwired as important as it is. Thanks for sharing.

Using high-speed photography to catch micro facial expressions is probably the best lie-detector known.

Wow, I thought body language was learned from observing other humans starting at birth. While newborns aren't doing anything, their brains are already being active because they are observing people around them and you.

Most musicians can't help dancing as they play, even if it makes the job technically much more difficult, as in moving shoulders while playing keyboards. The hand motions between slow notes are graceful arcs. Sometimes it seems that a foot is being used as a timing circuit because everything else is busy. The body is an extension of the brain. A few young people who can accurately copy a guitar solo, OTOH, are dead looking, fully absorbed in their fingering.

I have almost zero natural body language, which is viewed as strange because I come from a part of the world where people "speak with their hands" a lot.

I know this, so I have attempted to learn body language by rote and using it when the time is right. I gave up when I thought I was pretty good at passing for a NT after years of "training" and someone described my attempts as "theatrical" and "forced". In other words I had been looking a bit stupid for years but nobody ever told me.

They can always tell when it's not natural, doesn't matter what it is. I had a boss once who had me called to her desk because I didn't say "good morning" in a "natural" way. Nearly got written up as if I were disrespecting her. Since I can't fool them I decided I'd stop trying. I think our situation is similar to a black guy who'd try to bleach his skin white to fit in a WASP country club. There will always be something off and they're always going to be able to tell and it's never going to change your situation so you might as well do what feels natural for you and let the government browbeat the NTs into giving you your fair bit of the cake.

So instead of looking like a gesticulating idiot I just keep my hands in my pockets or something. Allows me to stim without getting caught too (I stim a lot with my fingers), which is neat.

That being said, when I say "almost zero", I do mean what I say. Obviously I can do things like smile or frown, but beyond expressing either happiness or frustration it gets confusing. Apparently NTs express contempt by tightening one corner of the mouth. Even though I've felt contempt towards a lot of people, I'm sure I've never used this facial expression before. I would be hard-pressed to imagine a neuroatypical person with the body language that NTs have over here, but I suppose everything is possible.

My body movements and facial reactions are usually more pronounced when I'm feeling really good. And to be honest, I hate it. I wish I had the ability to keep myself from doing it but I just don't even realize it in that moment. Sometimes I realize afterwards that my entire body was flapping around in ways that I don't normally see other people do when talking, but whatever. I never actually realized this about myself until I tried modeling once when I was about eighteen years old. The photographer told me to give him a specific look on my face. Of course I had no idea what to do, and I told him I'm not very expressive, to which he laughed and told me that I very much was. It's true. My facial reactions to hearing various things are pretty unintentionally dramatic. But if you tell me to give a specific facial reaction, I'm totally lost. Sexy and seductive? Nah, apparently I'm going for the look of a serial killer contemplating who my next victim will be. I'm also not the best at reading body language from others unless it's something that I see people do all the time.

I don't spend enough time with people offline to have my body language dissected. I honestly wouldn't even know.

Excluding facial expressions, I don't think I have too much trouble reading other people's postures or words these days, though others in my life think I am very easily offended. I feel I have a legitimate reason to work hard at my own body language, as it has always played a dominant role in accentuating my loneliness and was previously a nightmare.
For almost a decade I would walk in a disjointed, hunched fashion, tripping up frequently, which was extremely visible to others. To this day I don't believe I've ever met anyone in therapy or beyond who has described something similar to this in their physical behaviour either. Overall it used to really make me think: 'what the hell is wrong with me?!' The looks I used to receive caused me to feel absolute, total shame. I truanted for months at a time from highschool because I had to walk a gauntlet of absolute misery to and from, every week. The walking issue began to lessen after leaving adolescence, but I still feel the weakness/stiffness come back into my legs if I see a large crowd of people walking towards me when out, but there is an exception: if I'm completely engrossed in something specific, e.g. moving to pick up/ look at an interesting item, I walk just fine. This was pointed out to me at an old CBT group I was forced to attend, and one reason why I adore museums and art galleries.