People staring at you in public places due to your Autism

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When I went to Disneyland last year or year before there were rude neuro-typical people staring at me presumably because of my Autism

It happened again at the 99 Cent Only Store yesterday

Anybody else experience this?

Sometimes I hate being Autistic...

I think it depends on the person whether autism is visible, or not? For some people it is, and for others, not so much.

People who stare at other people who have disabilities are rude! Just ignore them.

there is no "look" of autism, how would anybody know if you were autistic or not? People stare for many many reasons.

How do you know they were staring because of your autism? Were you stimming?

People have stared at me for no known reason (I was just there, not talking, maybe just waiting in line or whatever), and also because I was talking loudly. I've also been stared at when getting verbally aggressive with incompetent business service.

There've been times when I've caught someone staring and stared right back at them. They either smile or promptly look away.

Next time someone stares because I think I'm talking too loud, I'm gonna ask them, "What are you staring at?"

They may say, "You're talking too loud."

I'll say, "Then put in your earplugs."

This sets them up for responding, "What? I don't have any earplugs."

I then will say, "Well that's not MY problem!"

Or, I might just look back at them and ask, "Is there something on your mind?"

They'll invariably say, "No."

I'll then say, "That's what I thought." (If you don't get this...think about it for a moment...)

People stare at me, I stare back or wave at them. They quickly jerk away.

They might not have been neurotypical. You don't know their psychiatric diagnoses.

They don't know you are autistic

They might have been staring for any reason. Autism is just one reason

What is "staring" is subjective

It happens to me too.

It depends on various factors.

How we look, how we don't look, how we move, what we do, how we interact... and so on.


True: in a post it was written that we don't know their diagnoses.

We need to stay calm and I would suggest not interacting.

I often feel like asking, then I avoid doing it.

*How we behave is different than neurotypicals.

That's all.

True: they don't understand us.

That's why they find our actions different.

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A funny thing.

A super model in a group of beautiful girls at the end of the Milan fashion shows was on the Metro.

Usually no one looks towards others, because no one knows who might be nearby (it could be dangerous).

I didn't look at them.

Among other things, this is a normal situation.
Imagine the most beautiful models in the world after a Valentino fashion show.

Or Armani.

And you don't look at them.


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One of them started looking at me.


Because many don't look except to quickly understand where to position themselves.

I looked at it for a tenth of a second, but a person close to me (a friend) told me that a beautiful girl was staring at me.

I looked at them and she smiled kindly.

There is generally no reason other than being out of context

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Regarding my autism the problem is that I look identical to neurotypical ones.

But the behavior is very different compared to them.

Among other things, we need to realize that people can look at you for a thousand reasons.
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If it becomes annoying, then I replicate the same interactional modality, for example if they look at their faces, I implement a strategy.

I stare at their shoes.

This in psychology is a mental mechanism that makes them feel uncomfortable.

And it almost always stops them from looking.

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In this city where I am now, people tend not to look you in the face.

They're a bit like us autistics.

Or they move aside when the other person passes.

More out of a sense of education than anything else.

Verbal contact is minimal.
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A good strategy is to look at your smartphone, or at things nearby.

It diverts attention a lot.

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They also look at us because we are like "out of time" and we don't have facial expressions that change often.

For example, I learned to smile, but this only after interactions, and therefore never before.

I try to avoid staring, but I do tend to look more than once at people with visible disabilities. Not necessarily on purpose, but because our eyes tend to naturally be drawn to odd movement or stuff that's different

Now I don't care, whether they stare or not. Sometimes I do, especially when women stare at me.

When I was much younger, girls and young women stare at me, although I am way older than they are. Men don't stare at me, I think. But I don't pay attention to men.

Somehow there is a reason why women stare. I can't find out. I have ruled out many reasons why they would stare. By the way, I can't tell whether a woman is interested in me. It may be: trying to get as many information as possible by staring, observing, sometimes by talking to me. They use that information for their own interests.

^I tend not to stare at anyone if I can.

In the afternoon I took a long walk in a park.

I'm not alone.
I have a partner with me.

And at that moment we meet a beautiful girl who does sports by running.

I look at it for a tenth of a second (I think).

The person with me instead meets his gaze.
He tells me the other one did the same thing.

So one answer is reciprocity.

If I had been alone I wouldn't have noticed at all, I don't tend to stare at people.

I think it's just as annoying for them as it is for me.

Coming from a city where you almost don't look at the other person, because it's easy to feel uncomfortable, it's a great place for me.

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Regarding the human tendency to see as peculiar people who behave differently from their usual behavior, we autistic people attract attention.

The gaze is very intense and if I stared at people I might get smiles, or embarrassment.

We watch because we don't understand things about the nonverbal.
While NTs watch because they find some interactional modes strange.

Or they try to talk to you.

I happened to talk to a stranger.

Except that the attitude was as if we had known each other forever.

A Ukrainian lady was near us and asked us for information (for a library).

The girl gave her the information.

Then after several minutes he greeted me smiling, I repeated the gesture.

Mrs. Ukraine had moved a few meters away and told me something rather funny.

But aren't you going to your girlfriend?

I told him she was a nice person but she wasn't my girlfriend.

She insisted: then she is your friend.

No I answered her.

She took things for granted: for me it was just a nice interaction.

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There's a reason women stare at you.

But it may depend on your attitude.

It depends on the context.

I happen to ride a bike.
And not understanding the intentions of others I have to anticipate their movements and avoid them.

Sometimes I'm even forced to look at faces.

I find it embarrassing.

However invasive of privacy.

However, you wrote that they talk to you so they find your way of doing things interesting (Hypothesis)

^Yesterday I was about to answer the same thing.

Pay attention to one thing: when we discriminate between the sexes we tend to make a mistake.

People are divided into behaviors.

Behaviors are different because culturally we have immense disparities between men and women.

If I look at a boy or a girl I will be as curious as and exactly if they were to do it towards me.


Interest may vary.

Because it is not at all a given that you look to obtain advantages.

Or just out of curiosity.

We also tend to look to understand or try to do so.

That is, to understand who is your friend or enemy, who you may like or dislike.

Or to evaluate a situation: here the hypotheses are immense.


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So the Blitzkrieg quote is also interesting to read.

Because it underlines one thing.

Socially women are more intelligent.

So they usually understand and interact better with people.

Because they look at the person not only for the aesthetic side but also to seek information on how they are inside.

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It is clear that both sexes (I limit myself to two but I am already writing superficially the sexes are not just two, just as there are not just two psychological and sexual orientations)

They tend to want to understand things that are impossible to understand just by looking at the person, so interacting is already different.

In fact, this second phase is mentioned, therefore beyond the gaze, the staring (for example, it embarrasses me and I want to ask why, generally I desist from doing it, even if I would like to)

:

Staring at people is quite common in NDs.

Generally, wanting to achieve a goal has no different meaning than just wanting to understand something about the other person.

So it's a staring without ulterior motives.


But it is not understood in that way that I would define as pure, without malice.


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Not being able to understand what others think, I tend to avoid staring at people.

Sometimes I don't even look at them.

The case I described of the beautiful girl who ran.

One reason I didn't watch her was because I didn't want to embarrass her.

Letting her run without feeling observed seemed like the best choice to me.

In this I missed the interaction.

But honestly at that moment I wouldn't have known how to look at her.

And how she would have interpreted the look.

Instead, if I had had the opportunity and time for neutral visual interaction, I would have perhaps looked only after receiving feedback.

After that walk, we sat near a lake.

We were talking.

I noticed that a girl was looking at me, or maybe just in my direction (there was also the context and I can't know).

I looked too.

As if to mean: why are you looking at me?

Here is that interaction did not involve embarrassment in either of us.

I didn't stare: in our country, staring at a person is considered rude.

*Then it depends on the context: if it is for a different intention, perhaps the other person is in difficulty, things obviously change.

However, I think staring at people is not a good way to interact.

Then I don't understand anything.