happy happy hand flapping

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I don't think I do that, at least not since I was pretty young. Up until now, I had thought hand flapping was just flapping the palm of your hand against the thumb, or against a desk or something. I do that sometimes.

Heh, I'm trying it now, and it does feel kind of good actually. Not sure I'd want to pick up on it, though.

It seems to me like an aspie equivalent of knuckle-cracking. I crack my knuckles to signify either annoyance or satisfaction. I "flap" my hands violently and then stiffen them into fists when I am angry. When I am blissfully contented, I'll go through a gentler version of the motion. Though the motion sounds ridiculous when it's described, it would only look as such if it were affected unnaturally. I think that what is happening is that a nerve in there is being stimulated as a stress release. We do it for approximately the same reason that a lot of people thump their legs during tests. All the way through. Without stopping. It looks so funny, and I always get poisonous glares from the instructor when I giggle.

My husband and I were driving along next to the Thames earlier today, and as the Houses of Parliament and Westminster abbey came into view, i flapped my hands!! ! i love these buildings you see and they make me very excited!!

Egads, what's with you people's self-consciousness over expressing an emotion? In the end, it's hardly different from knuckle-cracking, clapping, toe-tapping, leg-thumping, finger-drumming, and any of hundreds of millions of common stims that have always been considered perfectly socially acceptable. If you just get over your shyness over it, people won't think twice about what your particular thing happens to be.

Bull. It's less acceptable than thumb sucking, and only slightly more so than masturbating in public.

Nope. You just have to learn how to pull it off. Period.

I have to disagree too with you, Griff. Unlike knuckle-cracking or leg bouncing which a lot of people (Aspie or not) do, hand flapping is, I'm sure, by 99% of people considered as weird and ret*d and will always earn you stares. Even though I agree that basically it is probably not different from knuckle cracking or whatever, but as the majority doesn't stim this way it will never be considered socially acceptable (at least not until Aspies rule the world )

Agreed, people will assume you are mentally ret*d if you hand-flap in public. I can usually get away with rocking very subtly though.

Yeah, but rocking is not NEARLY as foreign. I rock, my Project Manager sways, and I have a coworker I have caught doing BOTH! Interestingly, NOBODY has said anything against any of it.

I saw that kid with the basketball, flapping, etc... It looked kind of cute, and he seemed to be enjoying himself, and then I realized something. And NO OFFENSE IS MEANT HERE! You are obviously all aware of it and yourselves, etc.... But I analyzed WHY I felt as I did, and I think I found out why. I felt that way, and his mother treated him that way, because he evoked feelings of almost a playful puppy. That isn't exactly the way you want to be viewed.

HE definitely seemed LFA.

Steve

I'd rather see quiet hand flapping than hear loud, irritating, knuckle cracking.

Oh yes, hearing knuckle-cracking always gives me the same kind of feeling as when chalk squeaks on the blackboard

I agree!

I showed my NT friends that video and they said he looked like a "cute flapping ducky". I tried to explain the point of it, but they couldn't seem to get past the ducky thing. *sigh* Sometimes you can't convince NTs that another point of view exists.

Although I rarely flap, it is when I am the most excited. It's like, "Oh, GOODY, GOODY, GOODY!! !! !! !" Flapping my hands is an extension of it.

Have they seen YOU flap? If not, maybe you should continue to keep it under wraps. Unfortunately, some things are just thought of as stupid and indicating a problem. That flapping is one of them. Again, I'm not trying to insult or offend.

If I was there with that kid, I would have tried to communicate, and find out what was going on. Oh well, some things I guess I'll just NEVER know. If he started to seem normal, and communicated well, I would not hold the flapping against him.

Steve

Same here.

And I have to agree- unless you're a small child, when you flap people assume you're "ret*d". I'm lucky; my husband thinks it's cute, but then again he just generally thinks I'm cute anyway. He's my husband and he loves me.

When I was in school, though, people flapped their hands momentarily to wordlessly indicate retardation. Like, they might point at someone behind his back and flap their hand for a second to say "he's such a ret*d."