Not looking at people have got me into trouble :(

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I don't mean ''trouble'' as in ''discrimination trouble'', I just mean it has made me out to be very unfriendly. Like yesterday morning I was walking to the bus stop, not feeling in the best of moods, and an elderly woman was standing in the bus stop and I felt she was staring at me so I kind of scuttled by without looking at her and just feeling angry and thinking, ''what's she looking at?!'' Then I went to stand behind her so that I wouldn't be in her firing line, but then I saw her turn round to look at me, so I pretended to be looking at the bus timetable so that I wouldn't be in her way. Then I saw my mum coming along on her way back from the local town, and she spoke to the woman in the bus stop then stood with me for a little while, and I asked her who the woman was, because sometimes I get annoyed when people say hi to strangers, but my mum said it was someone she knew. I asked, ''does she know me aswell?'' and my mum said, ''yes, of course, that's [name], she lives round the back of ours.'' I then felt very guilty for walking past quickly and not looking up to speak to her, and she was probably looking at me because she recognised me and wanted to say hello. I don't have faceblindness, it's just that I don't look at people, probably because of the advice people give me when I get upset about being looked at, people say, ''don't look at them then.'' But when I don't look at people, I then end up walking past and looking unfriendly. It's a catch-22 really.

So now I'm afraid this woman might think I'm unfriendly. By the time I had found out who she was, she had gotten on a bus that I wasn't getting. Now she probably thinks, ''[name]'s daughter isn't very friendly, I wonder why she would just walk straight past me like that.'' I suppose that's how I would feel if somebody who I knew just walked straight past me. But now I feel guilty, and so next time I see her I might feel awkward and she might feel awkward.

Has anyone else been in this situation?

The only thing you can do is say hello and be nice the next time you see her. then she will know that the problem was with you and not her. no explanation is needed. She will probably think that you were distracted and didn't see her or something like that.

Just say hello next time you see her.

OMG yes.

Like the other posters said, say hello the next time you see her.

I agree with everyone else, and it might be nice to apologize for not recognizing her at the bus stop. Not because you have to, just maybe it would be a nice gesture? I'm not sure, I'm not exactly the best person to ask for social advice...

As for "trouble", hooboy. I see-saw. I grew up doing things one way, and then having to hear about what I should have done differently. So now, for example, I will be either super friendly with people and say hello, or I will totally ignore them. With my luck, the people I ignore tried to say hello to me, and the people I greet ignore me. So the next time I'm in that situation, I try to do the opposite, and it just backfires. The cycle repeats.

I actually got let go from a place because they said I was disrespecting a co-worker. I told them I had aspergers (undiagnosed) and it's hard to connect with folks at first but the fact that I was undiagnosed was the thing for them because they went ahead and let me go.

It was an archival operation that was jobbing for a government office and were due to renew their contract. A competitor had more MLS people than them and I think they just hired me to get the contract then let me go once they got it.

No real way to legally fight this kind of thing. Had to shrug it off...