Do people stare at you? (Prolonged)

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This I slightly disagree with. There isn't wrong body language, just body language, it's what it is but it may make you feel comfortable or uncomfortable. And I would say that people definitely give off vibes.

Mostly just normal, boring,' just another person on he train vibes, so those vibes' I would not pay much attention to. But on a few occasions in my life, maybe just 4 or 5 times I have got up during a train journey and changed to a different carriage because a bloke sat down in my vicinity that to me gave off creepy vibes and who rightly or wrongly I perceived as potential threat to my personal safety. I would not say that they looked odd in any way, just felt odd. I too am NT, and tend to act on vibes of this kind.

Joe90, I've read loads of your posts on this subject and I don't know why people stare at you but perhaps you are just really attractive. Sounds like that's at least a possibility from your description!! And you are right: government cutbacks are ruining this country (sorry, off topic!).

I always get the same little Polish guy at work staring at me for ages whenever he sees me. I try to ignore him but he just stares, then when I look at him, he looks away quick, then stares at me again when I'm not looking directly at him but I can see it in my periphery. He is really obvious with it and it makes me very uncomfortable, and it's also made me take quite a dislike to him already and we haven't even ever spoken to eachother! Next time he does it I think I will just leave out all attempts at subtlety and tell him to stop staring at me all the time and that it makes me feel uncomfortable. I might ask him why he keeps staring too. Hopefully it will show him up a little bit.

Well when I was a child I always used to be scared of dogs, and I used to put on a cowering expression when a dog came near me, and other people used to tell me that dogs can sense fear and so will go after me more if I show true signs on fear, which I definately did. Once I got to about 14 or 15, I learned to not show fear. Now I just walk past without cowering at all, and I find it natural, and dogs don't even look at me at all. And I was just wondering if this worked the same with people, except that it's a bit harder with people because I'm not quite sure how to hide nervous body language, since I just walk past people the same as I do with a dog, I just walk by and give the ''I'm-going-about-my-business'' expression, by looking ahead and walking up straight and smiling very slightly just to look like I am comfortable. But it still doesn't seem to work, but there must be some way, if there is with dogs then there must be a way with humans. We can't all be perfect, right?

I was just trying to make some paranoid people here feel a bit better, especially those like joe90 who is very sensitive about her looks. If you make an effort with yourself and dont really do anything notable, you generally are fine and just blend in to the background. And you say you do make an effort with yourself and not do anything notable, so you are probably just classed as another stranger and just get the genuine stare. Some random woman stared at me today.
I live in essex too, and I know essex, you get all sorts of types here!
I don't think we could possibly stand out if we tried lol.

But joe90, if nobody look at anyone who passes then they wouldn't know who is coming. Eye contact with strangers means you are aware. If everybody just walked with there head down and made no eye contact with anybody, then they would end up walking into people, walking straight past family or friends, or possibly even have more chance of being attacked. If you looked at someone and saw they had a knife in their hand, you would be glad you looked up and saw them and you would have a better chance to run. But if you just kept your eyes away from everybody, people would know and a murderer might think ah theres an easy person to get because shes not even looking. I automatically look at everyone who passes me, and it doesn't mean they look weird just because I looked at them.

Do you see dogs checking eachother out when they pass? I do. Same goes with humans. I know you feel like its personal, but you mentioned somewhere else that you have social anxiety, so its quite typical to think thoughts like this but I know its a horrible feeling to walk down the street with all these paranoid thoughts going round in your head but just remember people just look at everyone. It's just the way you interpret the way they look. They look but theyre probably not thinking anything good or bad of you. People just look, for the sake of looking.

I'm not sure describing someone as paranoid is my idea of making them feel better although I know what you are trying to say.

Joe90, I have no idea whether people are staring at you or whether they are looking at you an average amount and it feels like staring to you, but in the absence of evidence to the contrary I'm inclined to think that there is an objective basis to what you are reporting. Perhaps the effort you are putting into making your "going about my business" face and posture are very obvious and results in people looking at you for longer than they otherwise would.

It seems that your "from the outside in" approach worked with dogs, after trying not to show fear you got on better and are now fine. But fearing dogs is fairly rational as dogs may attack you. Fearing the people you pass in the street (if that is what happening, I may have misunderstood this) is much less rational because mostly these people don't care about you one way or another.

So ideally you would not try to hide your fear but you would not feel this fear in the first place. And that is what you have looked for help with, and this has been turned down. I would kind of like to encourage you to try for more support again, but I'm worried you might get knocked back again, and that would be so frustrating. So I'm not sure what the answer is, other than focussing on the things you want to do, and remove some of your attention from what other people think.