Trying to read body langauge is making me feel frustrated.

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I feel defeated almost. I feel like I'm missing out on everything by failing to read non-verbal ques, like body and tone of voice and emotions in the eyes. I know I'd rather this than be actually blind visually, but I can sort of empathize with blind people in the sense I can imagine how frustrating it must be to not be able to "see" something.

And so often this makes me paranoid about peoples motives and "mental states". It makes it hard for me to trust anyone because I'm not picking up on "tells" or signals.

It's like stumbling through the social world completely blind.

I know some people on the Autism spectrum can read body language via rote memorization. I have this down for some things, like frowns, smiles, maybe upward brows can indicate something. Tone of voice is still very difficult for me to precisely tune in on. I even struggle to use my own tone of voice properly. It's like I almost know what I'm supposed to do but it never comes out right.

This has turned into a rant but I felt like venting that out. I want to know if other people here have had a similar experience and can maybe offer me and others some advice.

I like your rant. I have never thought about blindness. Is a good metafor. I often fail in sosial situations because I do not follow the "rules". They are not automatic for me. I tell what I think. It is wrong. I feel others angry in voice, and sometimes I see it in their face when they really nok are angry. I just see wrong. It is confusing.

People tend to feel angry to me, too, because of how their faces look and because their voices seem loud to me.

Agree! They say they are not, but they don´t smile either. I understand smiles.

For me, it is more like color blindness. Something's are quite obvious and others are truly confusing.

One trick that does work is to calm your mind. High levels of anxiety interfere with emotional processing.

Another trick is to influence the encounter by sending the social response that you want. For example, when I dump into someone, I give them an I am sorry look and apologize.

Spend some time watching interviews on television. Study the back and forth with voice, eyes and face.

And practice, practice and practice.

Note: most people wear a poker face in public.

I sometimes believe that somebody is flirting with me....when they are not.

That can get me into trouble.

I don't know how good I am at reading people. I sense a lot of things but I always have this feeling that I could have made a thousand mistakes. I tend to cope by playing it very safe, assuming that people don't particularly like me unless they give me clear evidence to the contrary........I'm very careful what I say in case I offend people, so although I don't cause much trouble, I also tend to be rather quiet and I therefore tend to get ignored. Mostly I try to keep my interactions with people to a minimum, and stick to one-on-one with people who seem to be on my wavelength. It probably explains why I'm so non-proactive with people - I've no idea whether I'm wanted or not, so I prefer not to risk anything by presuming too much.

But I do a lot of work "offline" - I try to ponder what the people in my life might be feeling about me and about their lives in general. I've also become fairly good at playing the guitar and singing, and that's become a good way of getting people interested in me, and it gives me something to focus on. And I do a lot of my communicating through the written word - mainly emails - where there's no body language to put me at a disadvantage. I still have to be very careful about what I write and how I react to what people write to me, but at least I have more time to get it right, and I'm probably better at reading between the lines of what people write to me than I am at reading their real-life social cues. I find that when I've "won them over" a bit with the written word, they're easier to deal with in real life, I know more about what makes them tick, and some of that awkward social ice has been already broken.

I saw the title to this topic, and I wanted to just come in and encourage you, and say that you and others are not alone in this struggle. I do understand because of my blindness how to feels to miss nonverbal q's, even though I am not on the spectrum, and then I read the post. You are right. For us blind people it is quite the same. We miss those non verbal q's and justures that even people on the spectrum might give off. I wish I could see my boyfriend's at times, to know whether he is feeling tense, nervous, or upset, because sometimes, he doesn't always tell me. If I'm close to him, I can read this movements, but if not, I'm lost. I understand the frustrations y'all have with not being able to decipher people's emotions through their fatial expressions, body movements, or other tell tails, and wish I had some great advice to impart to you. I just wanted you to know that I understand and feel your frustrations!

I have trouble when people show their teeth. To me, it looks extremely aggressive. So I shy away from smiles and grins. In fact, most body language is lost on me. I especially hate it when someone sticks out their tongue in my direction. I've tried experimenting on the internet with it a couple of times, but it still just really bothers me.

I tell you, I can't handle it if someone gets angry at me. Their body language becomes very nerve racking and all I want to do is end the confrontation.

I'm paranoid very often that other people are angry at me. I can't distinguishes the emotions and because of my upbringing and being bullied all my life I just assume I've always done something wrong.

So are you really visually impaired? I'm sorry to hear, but I guess you don't want pity.

It makes me feel something good knowing we can both relate to each other on some level.

I often think that people are angry and trying to start a fight when they're not. That gets me into trouble more than anything.

Well, once a person gets above a certain level of anger, it's unlikely that they'll be willing or able to communicate in the constructive, conciliatory way that's important for conflict resolution, so to some extent it's probably valid to withdraw from the confrontation until the angry person has had time to calm down and compose themselves. Personally, if I become angry with a friend, I'll usually try to keep a lid on it until I'm feeling more objective. If I'm angry with an opponent or enemy (such as a telemarketer or a service provider who's trying to fob me off with nothing), then if I'm feeling confident enough I might vent my negativity, perhaps quite carefully, because to my mind that's a situation where it's appropriate to try and push them around.

But mild anger from others can be a different thing. I often still get too bothered by it, and tend to treat it as over-the-top anger, when in reality it's often nothing to worry about. I've had some success in dealing with people who are angry not at me but at the situation they're in with me - if they make that fairly clear. If they so much as call me one bad name, it's unlikely that they'll get anywhere with me. But I can cope with a certain amount of sarcasm and bluntness. It's often rather tricky to work out exactly what kind of anger I'm dealing with, in the grey area between mild and extreme. I think that bosses and authority figures have a special responsibility to keep their tempers well under control, because they often have a disproportionate amount of power, so they're more scary when they get angry, rather like physically muscular people. Both those types of people are harder for me to deal with than people who are on my level.

Has anybody ever noticed a strange kind of smile that some people have when they're actually getting angry? I hate that. I don't know whether it's a natural threat expression (baring the teeth like an animal might) or whether they're trying and failing to conceal their real mood with a fake social smile.

I cant read body language but i can read a few facial expressions.

I dont try to read body language, i dont believe there is any information that i can get from it, nor can i be certain that the information is reliable. I try sometimes, if someone asks me "what do you think they're feeling emily?" And them i try my best to interpret it. Too me, body language is fake, it doesn't exists, i cant see it therefore it does not exists, and i dont care about it.

I feel the same way, and if I can help in some way to encourage anyone, I want to do my best. I hate the crap the world heaps on all of you, and I see what my boyfriend goes through, and it frustrates me, so I want to see a change! Y'all shouldn't have to change who you are to fit in so much. It's not fair. I totally get it.

If people seem too kind, and never appear to be angry, I get very scared of them. I don't know if they are acutually not angry, or are and are pretending not to be, or are and I just can't tell. If I have seen people become obviously upset (angry, mostly, or annoyed) I have more confidence that I can tell if they are angry and feel more comfortable around them. Perhaps it is unfair, but people who I have never observed to be annoyed/angry scare me and I don't like to be around them. They could be genuinly kind and easy-going, but I don't know.

I also have trouble telling if my friends are sad or worried etc. I have not discussed my suspicions about ASD with any of them, but I have cried before them a few times because I worried that I was being a bad friend because I was unable to see their distress. They were kind about it, and I feel lucky to have them.