Faking Body Language-A Possibility For Aspies?

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I keep reading on sites talking about body language that you can't "Fake" it because it will cause incongruencies as your body subconsciously tries to produce the other things.

But for Aspies the body isn't subconsciously trying to make body language, so does that make it possible for us to learn to fake body language, what ever body language we want even if it doesn't match our own feelings?

I also often come across these sites saying things like "just think about __" or "let yourself feel __" and the body language will follow.

Obviously that only works if your subconscious body language works. It's infuriating when they say this and then don't have anything about what to do to produce it (convincingly) consciously if you can't do it subconsciously.

I mimicked other peoples' body language and then trail-and-errored to refine it so it doesn't seen as fake or strange with the situation.

In my experience by imitating behaviour you can produce a corresponding feeling and thus link verbal and non-verbal.

Once I have this down could I just insert the body language where ever I feel like it like if I'm feeling down I could make people think I'm happy with the right body language. Would there still be a noticeable "tilt" effect(body language) or would there not be any because of the lack of any conflicting subconscious body language?

You can learn - it takes a lot of time to make it reflexive, and it'll never be instinctual, so you may find yourself very tired at the end of the day, but you can learn. I've found that mine strikes people as a little "off" - I hypothesize that since I had to learn to do this, in a fashion not unlike learning a verbal language, I "speak" it with a sort of "accent" that folks find odd. However, since I'm not giving off any natural conflicting signals, it doesn't come off as forced or false - just strange. (And when I'm tired, it doesn't happen at all, which can lead to people concluding that I'm angry - apparently, when they get mad, they start to shut down their body language, possibly in an effort to avoid giving away any signals of impending attack. It happens instinctively for them, so there's no actual reasoning behind it...)

Body language is a bit too difficult to mimic and show, for me all day.
In a conversation I learned to mirror the body language, that seems to work and gives good results in seeming less distant.
But the rest I just gave up.

But our conflicting body language can also be a good tool... I had a boss who always trusting on reading body language to determine when somebody was talking to him. And he was really annoyed and told me that I send no clear body language... he was really on edge from that and that gave me some advantage. Because I am used to work without body language.

This is one of those things that have a mixed answer.

As a rule, you can't "fake" body language. It's a subconscious thing.

However, depending on how "functional" you are, you might be able to learn certain reactions and having done them enough times when it's appropriate, you might start doing it automatically without giving it much thought.

On a superfiscial level you can let other people think you are happy while you are sad, this is what most people without autism do most of the time - showing what they are not. To put it in a positive light, you can gradualy feel more happy when you act out happy, same goes for other feelings.

On a deeper levels most people (mainly women) do sense when "something's wrong" or "not right" in someone's behaviour compared to their feelings in another person, in my experiences the ability to sense deeper is not on the same level for everybody (excluding those who have little to nothing in this ability).
Funny thing is most people I've encountered with this ability can only somewhat express what these feelings are, just that they are experiencing something in an advanced range of pleasant/unpleasant/unknown - does seem to improve with time and experience in a relative sense.
I must say magical thinking seems to go hand in hand with this ability .

One time when I was feeling really anxious (I think it was an impending dentist appointment) and I was watching MST3K with my family to keep my mind off of it I was able to practice slightly faking one form of body language: laughter. I usually appear to people who don't know me well that I think that their jokes are unfunny whether I think they are or not because I rarely even smile let alone laugh at something unless I find it really funny. It really helped that I find that show funny, so I was able to fake laughter to a lesser degree because the feeling was already there. What I had to do was try to magnify what I was doing to imitate myself when I am happy and/or amused enough to laugh naturally. This method might possibly eventually work in the long term and without using my own emotional cues as a guide.

Just a thought.

Are there ways they can do this besides reading if someone is "tilting" i.e. if there is a conflict in their body language showing two different emotions at once? If that's all it is then I can't see how anyone would be able to detect if we were faking an emotion since we would not "tilt", not having any subconscious body language in the first place. However, in first impressions we could look like we're lying since the body language wouldn't perfectly match NT body language.

Then again I find there are aspects of body language I do have, such as laughter which does seem to actually coincide with finding something funny.

I don't know if it'll work for you since I don't know you that well, I'm just saying it might work for some. But since you don't really want to anyway it's not an issue.

Besides noticing the "tilt" there isn't much really (as far as my knowledge and experience goes).
The only way to somewhat notice is in the fluency in transition from one pose to another (for example: from being happy to angry) or if you do that at all. As long it doesn't look robotic you're in the green. For help look into theater acting.
I disagree with the point of not having any subconscious body language when you have Aspergers, since all people with Aspergers I've spoken too seem to have a very high threshold before any emotion will get through or out, thus it almost always looks like I'm talking to a robot which gets input it doesn't recieve or when it does it doesn't understand unless it is familiar with the input.

I'm not saying that when you have Aspergers you don't have any expressions by nature, it's just more basic then the majority of people (no shame in being so!, you are who you are).

That reminds me of the quote:"If it walk like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be duck"
This basicly covers your faking body language, if you act on the outside like what you want to express you'll get the benefit of the doubt. Only problem is when you have to show deeper you're most likely exposed.

I found its good to practice in the mirror your facial expressions. I have a huge mirror in my room, I was curious at times to see what I look like. Aspies can also try to overexaggerate their facial expressions, to me thats what the faking body language would be. But that also can have potential flaws in it. Cause for me, I often have odd facial expressions which I do overexaggerate at times but Idk if that throws people off. Or I at least look odd in candid pics.

I can't see the subtleties in body language, so I never know if I'm doing it right or not. For some reason, people tend to think I'm angry a lot when I'm just tense. So I don't know if it's possible to fake it or not. You'd have to be able to properly interpret it before you could even try.

I fake eye contact.....that;s about all I can think of now