Do you think your AS attracts negative people or give off...

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I get honked/shouted at at least every other time I go jogging. I always thought it was a typical experience. How could it be personal? Do all these people recognize me in a split second and react that quickly? I'm curious what the OP looks like and how he behaves. I'd like to hang out with him, and see what's really happening.

I've always attracted a lot of negative energy, even when I have gone out of my way to be really friendly and nice to people Confound it, I have no idea why that is. It just is.

Being singled out doesn't mean it's personal. If a man wearing a skirt goes waking down the street (and looks like a "man in a skirt"), he'll get honked at and have things thrown at him, and etc. It's not personal, but he will still be singled out. If some guy yells at me "hey beaner, go to back to Mexico," I'm being single out even though it isn't personal (and even though I'm not hispanic).

On a lesser scale, the way one moves, speaks, is dressed, and a bunch of other things that people are minutely sensitive to can also get you singled out. The old line that everyone gets exactly the same amount of random crap is simply untrue.

Yeah. I actually (as an illustration of what I looked like for some blog thing I almost forgot about) have a video of my walk, and I know that attracts attention even after I got rid of the "holes":

[YouTube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPmFzPGJFDU[/YouTube]

I use a powerchair now so very few people see my walk (which is now over ridiculously short distances). But when they could, combined with my facial expression... wow. (At least I assume it was my body language, don't know what else it would be.) Pretty much whenever I walked anywhere or just sat anywhere in public I would get at least one of:

* People calling me "ree-tard", sometimes shouted out of cars even.
* Teens trying to convince me to do weird things (like "gimme your hat, no, cmon, I won't do anything, just gimme your hat". With lots of laughter. This would be groups of teens.
* Homeless people wanting to talk. Sometimes about injustice but mostly conspiracy theories or incoherence.
* People trying to lure me into dangerous situations. I'll give the two creepiest below.
* People wanting to know if I was okay. They never took yes for an answer. But the worst was if I had no language recognition or speech or typing ability at the time, that never ended well.
* Police. Always under the assumption that I got out of a special school or a group home/ICFMR/etc.. (Okay once I had bolted out of a day program but aside from that.) Usually called by one of those people who wondered if I was okay. They ranged from treating me with a condescending version of respect, to treating me as if I was not sentient and/or as if I was scum. Sometimes even cops used words like ree-tard. Sometimes they made cruel jokes. Note that except for two or three times (two meltdowns and one trespassing, both of which I don't count much in my "why on earth are the cops approaching me" list because the reasons were obvious) I was doing nothing against the law or conspicuously weird, just sitting or walking. Often they would talk to each other like I wasn't even there. They always said I "wandered off from somewhere" or something like that when I was just walking. Once they even came when I was sitting in front of my apartment building waiting for a staff person. Once they said they were unsure if I was alive or not despite obvious breathing. Usually though instead of dead they would just assume that there was "nobody really in there" in my head. (Similar to a remark I once got as an adult from a medical professional who didn't know me but insisted I had "the cognitive functioning of an infant".)

As for the two scariest sleazy people situations.

Situation one. A man approached me and kept trying to convince me to let him hire me for a job that was very transparently nonexistent. I don't remember the details but one choice part involved "You'll be able to drive these special cars! They're just like regular cars except they have computers that see the road and drive for you so even if you were blind and paralyzed you could drive it!" He kept harassing me with wilder and wilder stories about all the cool things this job would let me do. He eventually left after a tirade at me about how stupid I was for not coming with him and that if I really wanted to better myself I would go with him.

Situation two. A man and woman approached me. They started touching me and talking about sex. The man saw my kiosk ball I was stimming on and told me he had one in the car with him and that I should go see it. I managed to type that I was waiting for friends and they said in ultra patronizing tones "we will be your friends!" (threw an arm around me). I was petrified of them not because I knew the danger I was in but because the two just emanated sleaze and on a sensory level I wanted to get away. But I couldn't initiate movement so I was just stick there with them until they realized I was not going with them. It was hours to a day later when I realized the meaning of the "toy" trick and they were probably the people who had been abducting and raping developmentally disabled women in the area. I was about 23 at the time and had no idea the real danger I was in.

Anyway that list sums up most interactions I've had. Some kinds lessened as I begun plugging those holes but others seem to have to do with the way I look and move, not my past history.

Oh another one happened when I was out with a staff person and a friend. We were talking to each other. My friend and I both typed to communicate. The man zeroed in on just ms though. He asked Deb (my staff person) how my keyboard worked. I answered that I use it to communicate and that when I type into the machine it speaks what I type. He did a sort of "shyeah right" noise. We were in front of a moving museum exhibit. He pointed to it and (with smug oozing out of his voice -- I was more tuned in to tone than meaning so I got the meaning much later) "Oh yeah? Well can she [me] describe what we just saw then?"

I was too furious to type. My friend was hiding behind Deb. And he did a nasty little laugh and said "Guess she can't!" and walked off. My friend later told me it was like the guy was giving me a Turing test. So rather than admitting he had misjudged my mind, my answer made him just decide I hadn't really answered and try to prove how my ability to type was just some kind of trick. It gave me a chance to explain to Deb that sometimes autistic people are too furious and insulted to answer questions that would (in some people's eyes) prove our intelligence.

That guy wasn't creepy though. He was just mean and smug and arrogant. (There are other words but they're against WP rules.)

I also got a lot of drive-by insults. Not always from cars, sometimes from people just walking past who say something nasty then speed up. Usually the things like "ree-tard". Sometimes it's people in groups who mimic my walk to each other and laugh. Or just little comments they think are witty.

The do-gooders are almost worse because they don't leave me alone, they get it in their head that I'm lost or a "wanderer" and won't get it out of their head even when I'm capable of responding.

Oddly enough some of the times I've truly needed help nobody has been there, but when I don't you can bet people will show up.

Oh and I wasn't entirely joking about everyone and their dog. I once somehow at night ended up cornered by a pack of wild dogs. They growled and barked. I avoided eye contact and talked myself out of fear and waited an hour or more for them to get away from me. They had me backed up against a wall.

Also there are the people who randomly walked up to me and told me what seemed to be their life stories or something. I remember this one lady who told me all about her being on SSI and living in an apartment taking care of her mother in substandard housing.

Another guy told me how he had worked in an institution with people like me, and how he used to stand over the cribs of some of the inmates and ask them why they were alive.

At some point I decided to try to avoid going out alone and that helped a lot. In a powerchair now I get better results because more often people take the same visual traits they kept thinking meant nobody home, and now they instead attribute it to a more physical thing. Not 100% but things are better than they were.

I have other stories but I don't remember all of them at once. Suffice to say I've been approached by a whole lot of people. They were creepier back when I had all those "holes", but the stuff based on my appearance didn't go away obviously. Some people tell me that people who look like me shouldn't expect even in a less ableist societyto be able to walk alone without people hassling me, but I beg to differ.

Thanks for the post. I wish more people could do this, so we'd see what people are talking about, and maybe help them.

I believe so. I've always been somewhat naive in ways; so I need to be careful of who I speak to, paying attention to who each character is and what they are about, because of this. I also seem to give people the wrong impression. I've been told that I attract these types of people because I'm, 'too sweet' or nice to them.

I tend to attract these kinds of people, but they leave me alone when they realize I don't share in their negativity.

Definately, Asperger Syndrome attracts negative people and the condition does give vibes off the wrong way.

Asperger Syndrome also attracts people so they can look at this mysterious and largely unknown and misunderstood condition.

Not so much now becuase my enviorment is more open and its easier to blend in with other people. When I was going to speacil needs school, on the other hand, we could smell each other, which meant you couldn't run or hide from those you didn't like. HFAS attract the LFAS and it makes everything extremely ackward.

I suspected this a couple times when I worked retail jobs. Two of my managers strongly disliked me. Both "Type-A" personalities, new managers, and women. I don't think they were well-liked or liked anyone very much (coworkers used to call one a psycho whenever she wasn't around), but they seemed to especially dislike me.

I always thought it was because I didn't really "play the game" and they took it as a slight to their management, personality, etc. I can be polite, but complex social politics are beyond me.

I was going to start a thread called something like "Are We Easier To Mess With?" But this is close enough so I'll just post here.
In school me and my friends were sometimes picked on but not that bad. Even back then I could somewhat fake being a more typical guy (not looking as geeky as I probably am, plus I've been 6ft tall since I was about 16 and most bullies are cowards deep down).
So for me the constant trouble I've run into my whole life is people being more psychologically overbearing. The thought of getting in a fight or even beaten up honestly doesn't scare me as much as those spineless manipulative scumbags who love messing with someone for their own entertainment. So I'm not talking about strangers passing by. More like the people you get stuck with (family/work).
I think these people are out there affecting everyone but we are less equipped to deal with them.

I have mixed bags of the good and the bad. More than half the time the good ones for some weird reason.

And I don't even try to blend in or go friendly on people -- I'm just random based on my mood.
I'd be their friendly passerby stranger on a whim, a stranger whose sign is 'go away I'm pissed off and dangerous', some lost and confused little girl with a target painted on my back, or some forgettable woman on a glance.
My 'vibes' are random and too variable, not with high odds of 'awkward' or 'wrong'.
It could just be my walking gait for all I know -- most of them stands out for different reasons, good and bad.

Even my own reactions are random.
Say, someone tries to creep me out -- either I'd react the usual disgust, flat out ignore them, give them a stupid answer, threaten them, or out creep them back for trying to pick on me.
Or let's just say someone tried to have a chat with me -- I could entertain this person for the rest of the trip, shrug off and say nothing, or flat out walk away.


In the end, whether I do have some sort of natural charm, the opposite of it, not -- I'm still as clueless as any aspie.

I think because, I'm not as extroverted as some people, or appear in that manner most persons tend to avert their attention elsewhere. As well, I'm not angry nor upset, but some people whom tend to come across me think I appear that way from a facial mannerism notion. Rather I tend to sometimes take things in a more serious tone than others, not saying I neither laugh nor decipher humor just, approach things in a more stoic manner, unless I'm in my philosophical form..

I think we come off as naive and too trusting and many of us have a tendency to get really fond of someone we let into our lives making it easy for them to take us for granted and use us. If there's anything i've learned it is that a lot of NTs will shamelessly take advantage of anyone they can for any reason they can think of because people aren't as good as i'm sure we'd like to believe.

I've also been told that if you have a negative mindset about yourself, others and the world you automatically attract negative people of different degree - something i've tested myself and seen that it's true. As humans we pick up on things subconciously all the time and we will feel very attracted to anyone who share a similar mindset as us and vice versa, unfortunately many people don't just have negative thoughts as in being sad a lot but negative mindset in the way that they like to use people or take advantage of them... This is another reason why mindset is so important. You will never attract good people if you stay in a negative mindset because you will never "click" with those nice, positive people even if you were to cross paths with them sometimes.

I've had negative thoughts for a long time. My first partner was a narcissist who used me for a number of reasons and my second partner was much nicer but his mental illness would often not just hurt him but me until it was almost breaking me down completely. Since i've started trying to accept myself more the negative people have distanced themselves from me on their own as they've claimed we no longer get along as well and the new people in my life are much more positive, supporting, happy and healthy and never make me feel bad. It's an interesting thing...

Long ago, when I didn't drive, I used to walk regularly. I had a nagging suspicion people thought I was mentally handicapped, because the only adults who didn't drive were, in fact, handicapped. It was nothing anyone else did to make me feel that way, just the fact that I was an adult who didn't do many things adult people do.

I know what you mean.

People think I'm weird when I walk in Nassau County in New York State. Everybody over the age of about 16 drive.

I didn't get my license until I was very old.