Always trying to gauge what people are thinking or feeling

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I have a lot of social anxiety. For now the only people I visit are my parents. A lot of the time I'm there I'm looking at their face for reactions. Are they happy or sad? Can I see aggression or anger? How are they reacting to what I've said?

Anyone do that in social situations?

Yes I do that in social situations. This is what I think when I am talking with people:

-What do they see in my face?
-I must look them in the eyes if I can, but I feel so vulnerable when I do.
-Are they afraid of me?
-Do I look foolish?
-Am I acting weird?
-Am I making them uncomfortable with my mannerisms?
-How do I end this conversation quickly?
-What do they want from me?
-I WANT TO BE FREAKIN NORMAL!! !! !!
-I am so uncomfortable just having attention focused on me, but at the same time, I want to be understood.
-I'm too anxious to even understand what they are saying.


Do you sometimes spend so much time trying to evaluate their face that you don't know what they are talking about?

I really do understand your confusion, I'm 36 and I have still only learned how to spot the most basic of facial expressions.. smile = happy, tears = sad, frown = angry. Even with these there are so many different variations and meaning that i feel like banging my head against the wall

It is frustrating, not to mention something i find exhausting trying to work out.

I follow what they're saying ok at the time but don't really absorb it. When I go home all I remember is their expressions and sometimes I run through them again in my mind still trying to figure them out.

i get that too sometimes

Yes. Unfortunately it works both ways too. Sometimes people think I'm upset or angry when I'm just tired, or they think I'm just tired when I'm upset or angry. My facial expressions don't always correspond with my emotions, which makes me incredibly hard to read.

I like to think I'm quite good at reading facial expressions.....however I think that's because I over think/guess what people might be thinking....and I get it wrong quite often. I should just learn to listen more effectively and stop reading between the lines.

It's governed my behaviour up until recently....however I've decided not to censor myself anymore (it's too exhausting)........just say what I want to say.....and people will just have to accept me for who I am.

I'm not a fan of telephone calls because you can't see facial expressions, which means I can misunderstand the conversation......does anyone else feel like this ?

hate the sound of my own voice and its the main focus with a phone call so don't enjoy them.

I'm not that interested in guessing at what others are thinking or feeling

Right. I do feel like this more when I am on the phone. Reading between the lines is difficult when people expect us to know what they are thinking instinctively. NTs seem to have a sort of mind reading ability when it comes to communication with each other. Aspies depend much on the words that are spoken and less on NT native language that is easy for NTs to understand. My wife implies meanings in her speach all the time that go right over my head, and then she becomes frustrated when I don't understand. She often thinks that I don't care what she has to say to me. And often I speak very literally, or I try to, but she takes different meanings from my words.

Know what I mean?

I feel that people are usually angry at me, in social situations, like that, because they just talk over me, anyways. They must be very angry, or they must really hate me.

I'm reading a book about social thinking, so i find your thread title interesting.


one of the main things it is trying to teach, essentially the ultimate necessary step 1, is that people are always having thoughts about the other people sharing the same space. you cannot avoid it, and you cannot be your best self without being aware of it and being willing to look for signals that help you gauge what others might be thinking or feeling about you, and then modify your behavior if necessary.


i recommend this topic for anyone, it's highly fascinating to me because of the novelty of the way the social rules and expectations are described. the one i'm reading is called "socially curious and curiously social" but I'm sure there are many offered by the great folks at socialthinking.com

This happens often with my parents. I'm always looking, anxious, to see if it's all right to talk to them, or if they're in a bad mood to avoid them.

no. i do get something out of tone of voice, but much less from actual physical expression (body language, facial expressions). phone lets me focus on just the words, and tone of voice.

but that's with family, for instance, and a few other people i know well. any information gathering via phone is very difficult for me. i get frustrated easily, even asking a plain question like (of a store or restaurant) "what are your hours?" it's difficult to ask a question and be interpreted correctly, get an answer and understand it or be satisfied by it.

i've determined i can read someone's general mood compared to how they are usually, but not so (unless bombastic) interactive expression such as how someone is responding in conversation. and unlike others mention, i can't take it with me and analyze it later. i just fail at seeing the nuances. i simply read a person's overall mood. or maybe something that amuses them greatly.

i think it was Tony Attwood who said there are some fifty or so facial expressions, and those with Asperger's see about five. i think this sounds right.

Yes I spend a lot of time wondering what people are feeling. But it's nearly always a case of insufficient data. Only the other night I was simultaneously worrying that a friend of mine might be feeling:

a) invaded by my unsolicited phone call (she seemed keen to end the call after only a few minutes), and

b) shunned because I hadn't offered to go to a music club with her (she'd apparently dropped a couple of hints that she'd like us to go there together).

I still don't know which is the correct interpretation, so I'm going for option b), because I suspect option a) could easily be due to my deep rooted inferiority feelings. So now I'm going to have to risk invading her further and being told to back off, which would be quite hurtful and embarrassing for me, but I reckon it's better than just dropping the whole thing and risking losing her when that might well be the last thing either of us wants.

It would be lovely to just know what people feel. This black-box thing is so precarious. I used to think that it should just be a matter of asking how people feel, but in my experience, they either don't answer, or they answer falsely because they don't know how they feel or they don't want me to know. Indeed, when I've detected strong feelings, I've found that people usually don't like me to tell them what I've picked up....people seem rather shy about having their innermost feelings bandied about. They'll not necessarily deny it, but nor will they admit it. Even if I say "shall I take that as a yes then?" they'll say nothing back. The more I try to pin them down, the more uncomfortable and tight-lipped they become. For some reason I can't quite accept that I'm right unless they explicitly acknowledge my assertions, and that doesn't seem to be the way the world works. So I have to live in a world of uncertainty, in order to spare their irrational blushes. And they don't even thank me for doing so.

QFT! (There's three sentences that pretty much sum-up my life.)