is body language enough to make people hate you?

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I noticed that people always seem to hate me, even when I'm not talking. Is body language enough to make people hate you?

Oh yes, more than enough.

It depends what judgments and associations they make and believe in. People are different of course, and one sign may be perceived in many different ways by others. I think where we can be particularly vulnerable to be misjudged is a tendency ASD people seem to have of smiling less much less often and less fully, and being superficially misjudged in all sorts of distorted ways because of this - eg arrogant or bored or aloof or uninterested or superior.

I never really understood that power of a smile until I saw a man who had not a lot going for him physically or in the handsome stakes suddenly dazzle with a smile that irradiated the whole room, and suddenly I understood that he was the most vibrant and interesting man there; and he was..

That particular encounter, which happened years ago, taught me what it was that I needed to train myself to be mindful of in order to maximise social interactions. It made a huge difference. People take smiles as approval, and lack of them as disapproval. They respond to this visual information with feelings, one way or the other.

I learned this: people may forget what you wore, or what you said, or what you looked like, but they never, ever forget how you made them feel (even if you weren't aware of how they felt or had no intention to make them feel uncomfortable). Body language is perhaps the easiest change to make in terms of self-presentation.

Very true indeed. It took me a long time to learn that and I still don't practice it enough.

if you look miserable all the time, people will hate you, because you are carrying this negative energy around you , everyone wants to be around happy and vibrant people , nobody wants to be surrounded by miserable depressed people , ...

i find it difficult to smile and look happy , this does not mean that im not happy, i just find it difficult to show inner emotions and believe me this little problem is causing big problems in my life.

its not society that has to change either, it's me that has to change ,

Smiling in social situations never came naturally to me, because I am by nature a serious person, an observer of the human condition, rather than a natural participant in it. I had to practice smiling, just as a I once had to practice the piano (even though I had the advantage of a natural talent for music to begin with; though natural talent will only take most of us so far). I had to learn a lot of things that never came naturally to me and which I didn't much like (such as advanced statistics, yuk), because these were not ends in themselves but steps on a path I wanted to take.

I had to make not liking things that I wasn't natural at into doorways rather than walls. It helped me to use reminders, like wearing a particular ring that I used for that purpose. Don't be too ambitious to start with, start small, rather than trying to change your whole body language - that can just set you up to fail. Just start small (for example with the aim of smiling just once at everyone you encounter throughout day) and notice how it feels and how people react. It may feel strange at first; but it will only feel strange to you, not to the recipients; change happens over time with continued mindful practice, and it is an interesting process to see the impacts even small changes can have on interaction with and responses from others. Try it and see?

I've always wondered how important putting a smile on your face is. No matter how hard I try. I could never put a fake smile on my face. Anybody who looks at me will tell me that it looks fake. Besides, trying to do it just feel dirty and wrong. If I'm gonna put a real smile on my face. I need to be feeling real joy or happiness in my heart. Otherwise, Never gonna happen.

Yes, if you exude "otherness" then that is sufficient to make people wary or even hate you, based on body language alone.

Must be. The other evening my uncle was talking about men's hormones and how testosterone makes them automatically look at (mostly) slim women and even teenage girls, and that it's just naturally something in men. I'm slim and actually have that "sexy" figure what a lot of movie stars have, but often when I'm walking along in the summer wearing short shorts, thin t-shirt, sandals, and a trendy handbag, with tanned legs and nicely groomed hair (long and blonde), and I smile and walk up straight, I still don't notice any men look at me.

Must be something in my body language, no matter how good I am at masking oddness, and looking really good in my clothes. If men can look at schoolgirls walking to school, then why don't they look at me?

I hate body language.

I can explain the way I do it. I find dogs to very amusing. Their facial expressions are easy and they will look back at you. I practiced on dogs. It is fun and it works for me. When I need to smile, I think of a funny dog face.

My fake smile looks fake

Definitely. I've read up on this, because I used to wonder why people disliked me even though I am a quiet person. First, people hate social awkwardness. So if you do things such as join in at the wrong times during conversations, have an awkward body posture or tone of voice people will dislike you. Neurotypicals also seem to dislike people that are too quiet. Do you remain quiet even when people are mistreating you? This makes you come across as timid and neurotypicals dislike this too. Is your eye contact poor? They dislike this, too. Nonverbal communication is more important than verbal. Socializing is hard work for those of us on the spectrum. There are so many subtleties and "rules" that we miss. I had to read about this stuff and I still have a hard time implementing all of this.

Also, do you fit society's standard of beauty? This is important for women and girls. People have disliked me for being "ugly". Being physically "unattractive" plus having social awkwardness is a big double whammy. I've seen physically "unattractive" people that weren't bullied like me because they had great people skills and weren't socially awkward.

I can relate to you. Isn't it strange when people whom you've never even conversed with and don't even know their name seem to dislike you?

Heh my fake smile makes me look like an animal baring it's teeth at you.

I perfected my "neutral face" when I was in first grade and trying to hide my depressed face because my father had died several months earlier and we were making Father's Day cards in class and I was gutted.

I found out at 40 that my "neutral face" was actually "resting b!tch face" to other people, and that my default face tells people "leave me alone! go the other way!"

I had no idea. I thought of it as a pleasantly blank canvas.

Now that I'm in my 40s I have scowl lines between my eyes both from age and from squinting in bright sunlight before being diagnosed with glaucoma so I look like I'm angry and aggressive by default.

Sometimes I will walk up to someone and ask something perfectly harmless and their reply will begin with something like "Don't take it out on me!" or "Don't be so angry about it!" and I'll be like "wait, what??"

Same here. I've noticed a strange phenomenon, being bipolar. When I'm depressed and 'faking' a smile, strangers tend to frown at me. When I'm happy and it's a genuine smile, people smile back.

I'm not great at reading facial expressions - basically I can only tell the difference between 'smiling' and 'not smiling' - so I don't know if the 'frown' people give me is disapproving, or concerned, or what - but I definitely notice this happening.

*middle finger left* *middle finger right*
...
I rest my case.

Dreamsea, true . I've heard "she's a really nice girl, but she doesn't TALK!" This person was very direct, most of them just scowl at me and look weird. I also never understood the need to smile unless there's actually a reason for it. I think many of those rules are exaggerated and sometimes unnecessary. No-one should be excluded because of superficial stuff. Also they don't like your honesty (Truthtelling really), but seem to have no trouble being brutally honest themselves. That one is always puzzling.