Issue at the mall- anyone else?

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I hate the mall, too! Yay!

The lights, the smells of plastic products, the bombardment of advertisments and the erfumed people...barff!

But I make myself go there a couple times a year, just to people watch. I live in a rather insular subculture that spans the world in little pockets of alternate reality, and it is helpful to remind me what "typical" humans are like. Apparently they wear loudly colored, very baggy shorts and have a cell phone glued to their face, last time I looked.

SuperTrouper, I am glad to hear you survived the mall experience. Blanking out in such an overstimulating environment doesn't seem weird to me at all. Personally, I'm continually surprised that the NTs can just blot all of that crap out.

I don't get fuzzy from bright lights - I suffer more with loud noises than anything else. Noise distracts me, and makes me feel uneasy, especially noise like toddlers screaming. (Sometimes it annoys me that the sound of one tiny person with very small lungs can make such a horrifying din what drowns out everything else!)

But anyway - I've had issues similar to you when standing at the check-outs when somebody I'm with is paying, but it's not because I zone out of anything. It's because I'm too awkward all the time, and I don't think I give off the right body language what shows that I'm with this person and not a seperate person (or maybe it's because people are too stupid and just assume I'm by myself all the time). But I do find that I'm always getting in the way, and I'm not sure if it's due to stupidity or what. Anyhoo, it makes me look stupid. I know everybody gets in eachother's way sometimes, but I seem to every time I set foot in any shop, and it drives me mad in the end.