Re: Posting Pictures

October 10, 2004

I have had much the same thing said about me. Many times people have said I look angry or at least deep in thought, but whatever the case may be, unapproachable. Perhaps what it is is simply the look of being intent and knowing what you are doing that puts people off. For example, when shopping, I pretty much know exactly what I want and want to get it and get out. Most others seem to like to browse and chat and so on. Idle chat with strangers also makes me uncomfortable and is something of a waste of time. Talking to them doesn't make the time pass any faster and the odds I will learn anything useful from them are about the same as my seeing them again.

That girl had the "I'm as good as you" syndrome. C.S. described that as one of the temptations of evil, designed to keep people from improving themselves and instead tear down others to their level. This is borne out by the fact that instead of taking the effort to understand the words you were saying and use you as a role model, she was going to beat you with a piece of pipe. I suppose that is the NT response to things like that. There was a percieved threat to her fragile little ego so she had to beat it with a pipe to make herself feel superior. So many of them may be living in a modern society (thanks largely to people with AS), but their brains are still in the caves.

October 10, 2004

At 12:25 PM 10/10/04 +0200, Inger Lorelei wrote:

>

>I had absolutely no clue that I came

>across like that. And still don't, since I can't see myself from outside - I

>always get surprised to hear other people's impressions of me.

From viewing myself on film and hearing people describe me who were close

enough to me to feel comfortable being candid, I sometimes come across as

" unapproachable. " I've noticed tha tmost people do seem to avoid me and I

know it's not because I smell bad.

Maybe they think I look funny ... In most parts of the world I wouldn't

look that funny, but around here, I probably do. I live in an area that's

about 90% Mormon (Church of the Latter-Day Saints) and there's a certain

look to a Mormon. Once you've been around them for a while, you can spot

them right away. It's almost become a game for me, figuring it out just for

fun.

Though sometimes it's obvious that someone *isn't* Mormon because they say

horrible things about the Mormons right away, when they first meet you.

That has always bothered me, even though I'm not Mormon, because it seems

so disrespectful. I guess the people who do that are trying to find

solidarity since we non-Mormons are the minority around here, but it just

makes me disgusted and want to get away from the person.

So, anyway, I apparently have a frown or at least a not-smile on my face

most of the time. I do know that I consciously think " now it's time to make

a smile " when someone greets me. I probably forget and let it drop

eventually if they stop to talk a while. I have been out walking and just

revelling in the beauty of everything and feeling so great and at peace

with the universe and then I'll walk by someone and they say, " hey! What's

wrong? Are you upset about something? "

My partner tells me that I sometimes come across as angry when I'm excited

about something and that I probably frighten people when I'm frustrated

about something. He has cautioned me to be careful in public because he's

afraid I might get arrested or start a fight. In the thirty years before I

met him, I've never had the cops called on me for being frustrated in

public but I have had an awful lot of people try to fight with me and never

understood the reasons.

One time, back when I was still working, a girl I worked with cornered me

in a back storage room and she was swinging a big pece of metal and said

she was going to " kick my *** " now. I was really surprised becuase I didn't

think I'd ever done anything wrong to her and I had thought that she liked

me okay. I said, " Why do you want to fight with me? " and she said, " because

you always act like you think you're better than everybody else. You use

those big words all the time like you're laughing at me because I'm stupid

or something. " (She said all this in a sort of slang and accent that I

can't type out. She was from a different part of town than me and I had

noticed that the other part of town had a very different culture and

language than where I grew up in the middle-class, all-white suburbs. It's

almost like we came from different countries, even though we grww up only

40 miles from one another.)

I told her, " I don't use the words I do to make fun of anybody. That's just

how I talk without thinking about it. If I really thought I was better than

you, I would change the way I talked and speak to you the way I would speak

to a three-year-old. I talk to you the way I do because I consider you to

be an equal. "

That made her stop for a moment. Then she said, " you really mean that? " I

assured her that I did and she actually put down the piece of metal and

decided to be my friend after that.

I always thought it was crazy, though -- all my life I've gotten in trouble

for " starting fights " and maybe I actually do start them unconsciously by

exhibiting body language that I don't know I'm exhibiting and wouldn't even

understand if I saw it. But in truth, I have no desire to fight anybody and

it has always filled me with a great sense of injustice that, ever since

small childhood, I got in trouble for fights when other people started them

and I was just defending myself.

Fortunately, now that I am older, I've mostly learned to stop that by not

going where a fight might happen and I've also gotten better at talking my

way out of it than I was as a child. But I really do fear going back to

minimum wage employment because that's one place that you just can't avoid

people who want to pick fights. I'm also afraid that people in

higher-paying jobs like to pick fights, too, but word-fights instead of

fist-fights and do it in ways that are even more subtle and will confuse me

much more than the obvious ways that people start fist-fights.

I often feel so vulnerable and helpless against people with ill intent!

Sparrow

October 10, 2004

Very interesting, Sparrow!

Many aspies in our Swedish group have reported being accused of looking

angry when they are feeling good or just neutral. My Aspie grandfather had a

decidely :-( look on his face even though he was a friendly soul who rarely

got angry.

Unlike many Aspies, I have a sort of ''social software' that kicks in

automatically to animate my face & body whenever I interact with others. But

when left alone to relax or concentrate on something or when walking around

town admiring beautiful buildings for example, I'm sure I look like a right

sour-puss too. I can be in total bliss and still look like a zombie.

Inger

Sparrow wrote:

> From viewing myself on film and hearing people describe me who were close