Wondering what you appear like to others?

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Same here. I wasn't aware for a long time that people might be observing me and perceiving me to be any which way. Nor am I really able to form those perceptions of others.

For me, having AS feels like being the only naked person in the room (figuratively, obv). Everyone else can see me and see that I am naked. Meanwhile, to me it seems that everyone else has a costume on, including a mask, through which I'm not able to perceive or understand them or their character at all.

Contradicting isn't it? I think it just depends on each person and how they look at us. It also depends on how they think too. If they think you are stupid based on how you function and process things, then they are not very good people. If someone thinks you are very smart, then they are very open minded people. But of course they can then expect you to be NT because they think very smart people would understand things. They don't realize there are disabilities out there that make things harder for some people and they can still be very smart.


People might think you are a terrible mother because you are not meeting their standards on how you should be dealing with your kids or raising them. Some might think you are a good mother just because you are paying attention to your child and are not beating him. I am sure people have thought my mother was a terrible mother because she wouldn't let my brothers and I be rude disrespectful brats and be unsupervised or because she didn't make rooms off limits in the house for her kids like some parents did in our neighborhood for their children.

I could probably write that myself, since both hubby and my brother were bullied unmercifully in school for not fitting in. But that's more of a specific, sporadic pressure than the constant low-level pressure women face. And most NT guys (and some AS guys) escape it once they get out of high school, because adult males are allowed more ways of demonstrating conformity than women. If an adult male has a job and is financially independent, then most people quit hassling him; an adult woman can be self-supporting and still not be "sufficiently female," so still has a lot of pressure to conform.

Guys who fight back could also escape that school-age social pressure; the aggression thing works whatever your sex. Tougher now than when I was a kid, I think, since so many schools have "anti-bullying" rules in place that end up encouraging bullies and condemning the victimized. I know I could get in big trouble now with the local school system pulling some of the stuff I did, just in terms of fighting back when attacked. Teaching kids to tolerate differences is the best way to curtail bullying, but it's so much easier just to punish anyone who throws a punch.

I don't wonder at all what I appear like to others, unless people explicitly ask me how I think I appear to others. I really can't understand wondering about that regularly.

Actually, you would know people like that because all people are like that. It's a process that's intrinsic to human nature though the degree to which each person interprets and by that projects their perception back on what they perceive seems to be unique.

Are you reading too much into this by any chance?

Beyond the knowledge that expectations exist (books tell you as much as does accompanying analytical reasoning) it's a whole different thing to be constantly aware of that this is how people work and even harder than that is it to figure out people's expectations. Knowing that about people, it's still likely to accidentally or intentionally oversee/forget that others have such expectations. That's one of the really tough parts.

Anyway, a recommendation: read lots (lots!) of books on social sciences and psychology if you can make yourself interested in how the minds of all kinds of people (and animals) supposedly function.

Because people care what others think and what others think can effect you because of how they treat you.

I know this on some intellectual, abstract level. People have brains, brains have thoughts, those thoughts include thoughts of other people, ergo some thoughts may be about me. But this is not what is going on during real time interactions. I don't intuit another's thinking towards me. If the weather is the topic of discussion, I think "weather". No other considerations enter the stream of thought.

Because I won't fake who I am and act differently around others, they'll treat me the the same regardless. Why do I need to know what they're thinking about me?

That's well put. That's exactly what I meant with "just knowing it" doesn't achieve much and doesn't help with keeping it in mind.

Do you know of this intuitively or did you read it in books? I mean, yes, I'm aware that most people have certain expectations of others and they'll judge them accordingly if they fail to conform to those expectations, but I definitely don't feel/sense the "pressure" to conform to whatever expectations other people have and I'm most certainly not aware of what those expectations are in real time unless they make some kind of disapproving statement. (And then, like you say, figuring it out is a guessing game that I'm not usually interested in playing.)

Yep, this is well put. That's like me in most conversations.

I don't wonder what someone is thinking while I am talking to them. I relate to the "weather" statement I am just thinking about the topic at hand.

It's just a random musing that occurs when I'm alone reflecting on whatever comes to mind OR when the subject comes up on TV etc or when someone specifically says something about me. When I think about conversations I've had in the past I will wonder if the other person thought I was mean or stupid or whatever but it usually doesn't occur to me until a while afterward.

I constantly worry about this, and it's ruining my life. I feel like I appear to others as an awkward, dopey twat, with no feelings and a mug for anybody to come along and use, or take their insecurity out on. That's what I see people as.

I might be wrong. It might just be irrational thinking. People might see me in a completely different light. They might really like me. But I've had plenty of evidence in the past and in the present actually, of how I appear as said in the above paragraph. Can't seem to change myself though. If I stand up for myself, people just laugh even more.

Maybe tomorrow I will put on a clown custome and dance around like crazy, juggling bananas. Then people would have something better to laugh at.

Yes.

I can look at 'me' through their eyes. I start by my reading their body language and look at myself in a reflection or mirror, say I'm in a conversation in a store with mirrors. I will quickly look how I appear in this dynamic, and I get an objective impression.

Add in certain comments about yourself and you get how you fully come across.

You find out just how your beautiful self is just another self, a mere speck in the stream of time. The great weight of our experience is reduced down to an average, as we (I) can look at myself from a reverse angle/ or observation.

It aids in perspective and helps in our dealings with others-- humility.

People generally think I'm angry, upset, or "lost". xD Which, I guess, would be pretty accurate, cause that's basically how I feel in social situations. I'm just not aware I'm letting it show all over my face.

Spot on. I used to say to a friend "you look really tired" all the time. In fact I still do because he always does and is. For tired I sometimes substitute pensive, melancholic, sad. If it's any consolation you will only come across as a creep to thoughtless people and you don't want to waste any time on thoughtless people's views. By fellow thinkers (NT or otherwise) who also spend a lot of time in the cinema inside their heads you will be recognised as a kindred spirit.