Apparently I'm intimidating?

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I got suspended from school by the board for "Intimidating and aggressive body language and posture."
Now I thought this was a little odd, as I don't see myself as intimidating, but I've been asking a few of my friends and they said they see people intimidated by me all the time, especially teachers, but they themselves are not intimidated by me. A few girls even said that they see guys intimidated by me all the time, but they don't find me intimidating to them.
Has anyone else ever been accused of being intimidating, like is this an Aspie thing? Or am I just a beast? hahah

ive had teachers think i was gonna throw a chair/table at them before when all i did was get up and walk out of the room
lol
i still dont know why?

Oh yes. They can't read our body language and they dislike our intense eye contact so they can't figure out what we are up to. This is apparently threatening. One of the most maddening things about being an adult with autism is how people are afraid and weirded out and creeped out by us, when in fact we wouldn't hurt a fly. The slick NT guy in a suit and tie, with good social skills? He's the one to stay away from because he wants something. But no, he can get close to people while we can't. We don't want anything from anyone, and we would never hurt anyone. It is backwards.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

-To a Louse, by Robert Burns


It can be very surprising sometimes to hear how the rest of the world perceives us.

I've been told that I'm intimidating. It's mystifying to me, as well. In my case, it has to do with the fact that I don't do a lot of chatting and so when people at work hear from me, I've always got something that needs their attention.

my brother recently asked me if i hate his girlfriend. he said that she thought that i disliked her. i have no clue where she got that idea from and i think she's good for him actually. i barely ever see her!

Intimidating? I still hear that one once in a while. People tend to see me as being about a foot taller and made of stone rather than flesh. Comes in handy sometimes. Other times I've learned to slouch some, limit gestures and fiddling with things like twirling pencils or rulers, interjecting yawns and smiles, adjusting eye contact to a momentary thing when first speaking, then drifting it off to the side into a "distracted stare".

Now I am just aloof, apathetic, and distracted

You just can't win this battle, there is more than just a signal difference but a whole world view difference at play. The NT can't imagine how you could possibly not get it, and you can't possibly imagine what you're not getting. Things that are simple to you require a long convoluted alien emotional logic for them, and things that are emotionally intuitive to them require a long convoluted alien mental logic for you.

The real kicker is we need the clear communication in words and ideas, they summarize it in emotional facial, body, and tonal cues and the words only make up a fraction of the content they put out, but we take the words at face value. We also give our words at face value, and they just can't seem to take them that way.

Good luck. I was once written up by an employer for my "threatening demeanor" that "intimidated others". Basically I was just bored and fiddling with office supplies with a level of concentration beyond that of the norm, and looking up at each new speaker when they began speaking with expectation of perhaps hearing something interesting.

The bottom line is there are more of them than there are us, and they will ALWAYS put ANY communication difficulties or misinterpretations back on us because of it. They can't read us any more than we can read them, and being the majority they usually can't be bothered to make the effort, and since we don't "act natural" to their frame, many have a fear or anger reaction in the places we would have puzzled reactions.

I heard that once before. I worked out at this gym and the guy at the desk told me one day that I was intimidating. He said it was because I come in, don't talk to anyone and always have a pissed off look on my face. I get that I always look mad a lot. That was the only time I was ever told I'm intimidating.

I once had a guy who was dating my roommate tell me that he was surprised at how nice I was. When I asked why, he said that he had felt threatened by me, as though I would kick his ass if he dared talk to me. Since I'm a small and somewhat fragile-looking person, I was startled that I'd give that impression. I asked him about it, and we finally figured it's the face I get when I'm not remembering to smile. Apparently I look arrogant and really, really angry. I guess that could be threatening. I try to remember to smile but it doesn't come naturally.

I'm one of the Asperger's people who err on the side of staring as opposed to avoiding eye contact. I'm a big muscular guy with a shaved head. I rarely smile or laugh. My inherent traits make me intimidating visually, but within a minute of talking with me, people relax and realize that I'm a big teddy bear. Not that I'm a pushover by any means but my look is discordant with my personality. There have been times when on an elevator women would push the button to get off on the next floor to get away from me. Ironically, if a real bad guy were to appear and try to take advantage of them in my presence I'd fight to the death to protect them. Although that would be unlikely as I'd creep the potential rapists out, too. Since my diagnosis, I try to maintain more of a neutral vibe. I monitor my eye contact all the time to appear more NT.

I don't quite get it though, I'm an extremely talkative person, and tend to smile a lot, so I don't quite understand what is intimidating about me...

One thing that my therapist mentioned that might be helpful was that with people like me who don't give a great deal of feedback tend to be on the receiving end of a lot of projection. Basically, in the absence of other input from me, people tend to project their own negative emotions onto me and see me as being intimidating, unfriendly, angry, etc. It's an interesting observation, but I'm still not sure what to do about it.

Yep! Someone once wrote in an email, commenting on something I had mentioned previous, that "you can be quite intimidating ", I was so stunned that I didn't reply to ask why she thought this...... on relating this odd description of myself to another person I was toldf" yeah! I can understand that , like you know a lot of stuff, have travelled a lot and speak other languages"......I still don't know what would be intimidating about that stuff, especially seeing that I don't really talk much and they only found these things out over the course of years.


Maybe I'm a bit aloof.... then at other times I can be quite talkative (on a subject of interest).

I guess that they might just SENSE that we are different and that in itself could be considered as intimidating......fear of the unknown quantity!