Is there an "Aspie face"?

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Hate having this expression on my face. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I can't stand people staring at me all day long. It's starting to do my head in. It makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong all the time. I don't like it. It makes me cry every time I come home from being out. I get girls in clothes shop really staring at me, and women at tills in supermarkets keep looking up at me as though they hate me. I don't like it. It makes me feel like I don't want to socialise and mix around, because I'm too scared to show this f*****g face to people. I often have a fit of punching myself in the face because I hate it so much. I hate myself.

WHY CAN'T PEOPLE JUST LEAVE ME ALOOOOONNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE?! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !


Yes I am practically being bullied, emotionally. Staring at someone is a form of harrassment, I believe. And NTs have empathy/sympathy? Think again. Nobody likes being stared at - they should know that.

Last edited by Joe90 on 27 Oct 2011, 4:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This thread was fun to read. I do a lot of the different things mentioned here. The slack face. The overexpression. I was thinking, "Doesn't everyone walk around with a blunt affect when they're not interacting with others?" Then, I realized that I often walk around with either a blunt affect or a cartoon character creepy smile while talking to myself. It's always either too much one way or too much the other. Never anything in a medium state of normalcy. My greatest attempts to fake NT all had to do with jaywalking. Sometimes, I would jaywalk in front of slowly moving traffic, turn towards the oncoming vehicle, and give the driver two big thumbs-up with a huge smile and eyelash-batting cartoon eyes on my face. I just had this urge to do that when I jaywalked. I don't know what the drivers could possibly have thought.

I have bought some fabric paint, and I am going to write "I am not mad, sad, depressed, stoned or a serial killer, I'm autistic, now f**k off." on my shirts.
That should do the trick.

I do jaywalking, another stupid daft thing I do because I'm a twat once again. Once I was walking along with my iPod on, and there was a crowd of parents and little schoolkids, and they looked like they were cautiously waiting for a big van to pull into a small, narrow driveway, and I could see them clearing the way, but I didn't really take it in because I was so absorbed in the music. I think I knew that I should have stopped too, but I immediately forgot and walked straight through, oblivious to everything else, and I thought I heard the man in the van yell out something at me.

That's a thing - I'm always getting drivers yelling out the window at me, even at times when I'm not causing any hazards. They probably can just see how daft and slow-witted I look and so decide to humiliate me. That's what it is. Once again, I hate my stupid face.

Yeah, these sorts of threads what remind you how different you must look makes you feel like doing something like that. It's starting to make me feel like I'm going to become dangerous. I know, in a few years time, I'm going to explode in public, and I am scared about it. It's like all the hundreds of stares I get a day is actually damaging my state of mind inside, until one day something bad is going to happen to me, like lashing out in public, committing suicide, physically beating myself up so I end up in hospital, or punching people who stare at me in the face. I just can't go on like this much longer. It ain't just a few stares. It's EVERYBODY who walks by. I'm f*****g sick of it.

Oh. I've got a strange idea. What if people stare at you because they expect some kind of facial expression from you they're missing? Seriously.

Yer well I would have thought people had better things to worry about than waiting for a stupid girl to give a facial expression. I mean, come on - they say I worry about trivial things, but this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of in my life. I bet if a relative was dying and someone had to rush as fast as they could to save their life, they would still stop to stare at me and wait for me to give them a facial expression. Then if the relative had died, they would say, ''oops, my fault, I had to stop first to see if a nutty-looking girl gives me a face expression. It's just important to me as an NT.''

Dear oh dear oh dear. I'm starting to believe I'm not so crazy after all, compared to lots of other people.

Anyway, I don't care too much how people perceive me. I also have the feature that sometimes I show exaggerated facial expression, other times I have the usual flat effect. I've dropped some pretense after coming across AS, so I smile less, and sometimes rest my head knuckles at eyebrows (people keep asking me if I'm ok). The corners of my lips turn a little bit upwards even when my face is totally relaxed, but my eyes may have a revolting quality. I wonder if this is responsible for a devious but not-so-arrogant look...

Pronounced philtrum and chin. Eyes seem to look apart a little, maybe the epicanthic folds are closer while eye spacing is normal. Remember that article? A bit of flat effect.

Yeah I noticed that too. Just from vague observations, an aspie default face is flat when not interacting. The more skilled aspies can respond appropriately in social situations, actually interacting with people. When not interacting, we might still default to the flat face. I noticed that when Kristen on autism TV was giving an interview. When she was talking, she looked normal. When she was listening to the women talking, her face went flat. The aspie women had sunglasses on....pretty good idea.

I took observations to this girl whos super NT, I knew an acquaintance and when she wasn't interacting, her facial muscles were still working into having some facial expression. In comparisons to other NTs, she is still so much more expressive. I also noticed in my super NT coworker that she always has a very fresh, friendly, open appearance whether interacting or not.

And I remember back in elementary/middle school they used to tell us to look open and friendly. I think thats what NTs are kinda doing unless they they dont want to interact

The sunglasses thing reminds me of my idea to pretend to be blind. I haven't carried it out yet, because I think it might be kind of sleazy to pretend to be something I'm not. But the reason I wanted to pretend to be blind was to have other people know that I can't see them or their non-verbal cues, so they're going to have to say things to me in a straightforward manner, and also I can have whatever facial expression I want on my face and look wherever I want with my eyes behind my sunglasses and talk as long as I want because I can't see their cues for me to stop. But it's kind of sleazy, and I can't do this with people I'm going to see regularly, which would be its greatest use.

Recently, I figured out that my default blank expression = distracted and no longer of this Earth, and my annoyed or angry expression = friendly and wanting to play with others.

Jeez, sometimes I wish I felt comfortable posting pictures of my entire family. I don't though, so you're going to have to take my word for this.

If you saw the plethora of pictures of all my kids, me and my wife, among pictures of several non-Autistics, you'd be hard pressed to pick us out of the crowd.

It would only be easy if I picked out a set of the "right" ones, where we seem to "look" Autistic.

Probably why I have a hard time with the idea that there is an "Aspie face."

I bet if I had enough pictures of anyone non Autistic, I could find some where they looked like they are.

I think there might be a default autistic face that looks a bit sad to others. If you have a slack face, the corners of the mouth will drop down. It seems like I am often asked to cheer up or if something is wrong when I feel perfectly normal and think I look perfectly normal. It would not be surprising to me if it was found that NTs held their default faces according to a general pattern for social reasons, subconsciously and naturally. And autistics might have more slack default faces. Photos don't really show natural expressions that are on people's faces most of the time.

Thanks. ^_^




That's a good sign, lol.

People tend to ask if I'm high, or think I'm high for some reason, just upon looking at me.