"Fake" emotions

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Ever since I was a kid, I always had trouble on picture day. NOT because I am ugly or because I don't dress well, but because I can't smile.

I know how to form a smile with my mouth obviously, but mine always looks ... hollow I guess, (not creepy, just unphotogenic) As I got older I reallize the flip side of this is if I smile as hard as I possibly can and open my eyes the same way, I am apparently quite frightening. I had a lot of fun with that.

Also, while I do have trouble with eye contact, I have no trouble just staring at someone with a flat expression, eye contact or not. I had a lot of fun with that too.

By far the weirdest problem I have is that for most of my life, people have had problems with my laugh. sometimes I laugh way to loud, even if I think it reall IS that funny regaurdless of what anyone else thinks. Some people think my laugh sounds strange, and some people, (my family occasionaly included) have told me my laughter sounds fake. like I push it out when it isn't needed to draw attention to myself. I think my parents might just be a little nuts on this score though. After all they did tell me not to laugh to loudly the time we went to see Lewis Black preform live. Let me repeat that.

They took me to see a world class stand up comic live in a theatre with thousonds of other people, and told me not to laugh too loud.

I mean come on! I will admit, that I my laugh is very loud, and probably too loud by NT standards, but I've worked on that. But fake laughter? how do you fake laughter?

What gives?

Just laugh. If people complain, fix them with a stare and give them one of your creepy smiles.

That what I usually do with people who annoy me. But it doesn't work with my family (who are probably the only ones who have ever told me that stuff about fake laughter)

GamerNerd07901, I think you hit "New Topic" instead of "Post Reply" so I've moved your post here.
BTW, there's no need to fill in a "Subject" line when posting in a thread - that's only really needed when creating a new thread.

I'm very much the opposite. When I was a child, I smiled too widely, so my gums would be showing and often my smile was lopsided and weird looking. I've had to practise smiling in the mirror to get it correct.

You shouldn't open your eyes wide when you smile; that's disconcerting to other people. Natural smiles involve squinting the eyes, actually. So you should google images of people with true smiles, and see how they squint. Then try to imitate that in a mirror.

I laugh very quietly. Generally, the only sound you can hear is my epiglottis flapping. And I find that humorous, so I laugh simply because of how silly it is to hear ones epiglottis flapping.

Maybe you should try to tense up your chest when you start laughing in public areas; it might reduce the volume. Besides, everyone has a weird laugh. The only laughs that aren't weird are fake laughs. Also your parents are silly for trying to stop you from laughing. I thought it was common knowledge that trying to suppress a laugh only makes it stronger and louder in the end. c:

Your parents are just strange people. You should show them videos of people with laughs stranger than your own to give them perspective.

I have the same problem with smiling on cue, and to me the biggest problem socially is NTs not realizing how fake they are. They don't just want you to smile on cue, they want you to mean it. They have no sense of their own superficiality when they use social masks, so they are deeply offended when you don't use them, and tell themselves you could be a psychopath. It's really unfair. We're just more sincere and less fluent with nonverbal communication when we are responding emotionally.

I think part of what you're talking about could be the possibility that NTs really do feel things differently, or to different (perhaps more intense) degrees than people with AS do. Something that I've been thinking on for a long time is the idea that other people might just have feelings that I don't...it sounds weird, but it would explain a lot.