Would it be terrible of me to...

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Pretend that I am blind and get some conspicuous sunglasses and a white cane?

The purpose would be to see if I get somewhat of a free pass with body language issues if other people think that I am blind and cannot see their body language. I wonder if people would be more accepting of me if I were "blind".

A medical alert pendant worn so it can be seen will probably be more helpful. If you were disguised as blind, people may find out that you are a pretender and ostracize you even more.

I had the exact same idea a while ago, but never carried it out because I'm far too self-conscious that people know what I'm thinking >_<

But your point stands - people only ever see the obvious things, like sight, that would seemingly allow us to notice things like body language, and it's a miserable world when someone who has lost one of their main senses actually has social similarities to someone with AS.

Maybe if it were percieved that AS is similar to being blind in terms of social skills, people might understand the difficulties a lot more, and realise that we have advantages too, such as how a blind person's other sense improve due to the loss of another sense (:

If it worked you would get a free pass on mising body language. But there is a catch. Since blind people rely on speech rather than body language, people would assume you are adept at NT speech. That means small talk, innuendos, sarcasm, double entendres, quips, hidden meanings of words etc. Since people could see you wouldn't get body language, they might lean more heavily on those things for communication. You could be just as lost as before. More so even, because you would have to keep up both the facade of being blind as well as the facade of understanding what they were talking about- a bit of multi-tasking that might be more trouble than it's worth.

I have vision problems myself & when I 1st read this I was a little offended for like a second but I chuckled & thought it was clever rite after I don't use a cane but most people who know me a bit offline; know I'm nearsighted so I guess I get a free pass with the body language but Janissy is rite about the NT speech issues. I say the wrong things & rub people the wrong way a lot sometimes. I'm very isolated offline & have few friends so pretending to be blind may not help you as much as you think. Also some people could be really ticked-off latter when they find out your not blind but if you want to try; go for it. I mite could give you some tips if you want. After high-school; I spent 6 months in a training center for blind & visually impaired people to learn life skills & I had to do the cane thing a bit.
Or you could tell people you are nearsighted & have vision problems instead of going the whole blind route. Say you have "Incomplete Achromatopsia". It's extremely rare; I only know about it cuz I have it so most people will only know what you tell em about it

How do you plan to deal with being both blind AND having AS at the same time? I wouldn't try it if I were you, you might be able to pull off the blind act fairly easily but your AS will stand out like a sore thumb.