First impressions and conversation

More like: Unknown defense mechanism in NTs, they study us, we study them, it's only fair

the force is real?

mariusz power?

something happens. more tests are required 

haha so it works in a literal sense too!

guess what, few times when they stopped blinking they just walked past me as if they did not see me

I heard Alain de Boton once say that every hour of life ideally requires ten minutes of processing and analysing. For autistics, more than double it I reckon! No wonder we’re always exhausted and frazzled. 

hahaha, when all else fails, confuse and misdirect haha

yeah, well whats done is done, as others have said, maybe it wasn't even noticed, and its not like you behaved badly or anything towards the person.

likely just seemed to be "a quiet person" and people can be understanding of that. 

hearing your own voice on the line too, yeah, even without hating your own voice, the distraction of it makes it feel like when 2 people try to speak to me at once, or the "competing sounds" thimg happens and i get the "noiseball" in my head

yeah, must've been a crap experience for you, at work too, but another day, another start 

It reminded me about a joke I make on people to trigger TFBR (The Furious Blinking Response), I think it does erase short memory so they can't remember last few minutes, their way to stay sane

I do Obi-Wan's hand gesture when he attempt his Mind Control Trick and say: I'm invisible, you do not see me. They literally look like unsure what to choose Fight, Flight, or Freeze, while blinking furiously.

I wear devious mask sometimes

I always make bad first impressions.

I suspect it goes back to my family problems, where my father made it very clear that I was the shame of the family and that I was a dark secret that must be kept hidden.  So I have very little practice at making a first or any impression.  Instead I just try to blend into the background and hope nobody knows that I even exist.

Haha! I think that’s my default stance until I get to know somebody- aim to blend into the background out of fear of actually interacting with somebody! I’ve definitely gone to some bizarre lengths to avoid a conversation.

The worrying afterwards is something I do too. I had the script playing during that day, which is exhausting- trying to follow a group conversation and listing to my own internal dialogue at the same time. But the worry afterwards takes as much out of me. Laying in bed that night was like replaying and watching a highlight reel of awkwardness!

I can see what you mean here.

Unknown said:

A lot of the time things don't matter half as much as we think they do.

This is something I know to be true, at least when I’m in logical mode. It’s something I’ve got to try and remember when anxiety takes it’s hold.

I would say something about the person alerted you so you reverted to the script

Oakling said:

”Don’t make eye contact, they might talk to you”

that's my favourite

Similarly i was with some people in a restaurant. There was a lot going on externally around me and internally in my head. I had to summon everything within me to answer a simple question of "so what have you been up to?" I thought it came out jumbled up, with bad intonation and all the other stuff not quite right too. I asked my partner later if he noticed anything at the time and he said no. So I thought the person I was answering to probably didn't notice either. I think like I said before,  sometimes how we see things isn't how the other person sees it.

Also I find elderly people like having a chat, he might have just been happy to have a chat with someone.  It wasn't a disaster! I'm sure he got the info he wanted in the end. Be kind to yourself.

Oh god yes postmortems can be horrible, though I do often have a rising sense of panic as I waffle on in the moment too. On a tangential but relevant note, I had an experience tonight just as I was leaving work. The enquiry desk phone rang, and as it had been quiet all evening my brain wasnt switched on enough. The whole thing ended up a disaster as something was wrong on the line and I could hear my voice echoed back at me, which gave me the horrors as i had to come to terms again with that being what I actually sound like (horrific). But also, the guy who’d rung was a very nice elderly now-Canadian  (originally from here) wanting directions to the building, and theres nothing worse you could ask me when Im tired - my sense of which streets map to others etc Is atrocious even on a good day. So I mangled all that, and then messed up the rest of the conversation where he was telling me a big about his history, why he was back visiting, how ge hoped to use the library etc. And I couldnt string one coherent sentence together. I’m cringing thinking back on it. On another day, Id have been better, tonight - disaster. The shame. 

i always surprise myself by being pretty much one or two words and sentences going nowhere, i tend to get depressed etc after those instances as reminds me how i can be and that ive not changed as much as i thought i had

or am just talkative and dont have much problem talking to people aside from impulsivity and "dropping clangers"(was described as that to me once)

at the times i just don't notice any internal dialogue, nor really have it i don't think, which to be honest is a major factor in suspecting im high functioning asd due to what i now know were "shutdowns" in the the past

i tend to worry more afterwards than during in all honesty

Everyone is used to seeing the world through their own view because thats all we have. It's hard but I think if everyone tried to get out of their own heads for a bit it'd do the world wonders! I know what anxiety is like over these sorts of situations though and it can be all encompassing.  Another take could be well so what if he thought you were a bit weird? Does it really matter? You're colleagues not best friends. We often encounter all sorts of people in the workplace. I am the opposite, I often judge people the way I judge myself. Which is far too harshly. I wonder as autistic people if we do have a bit of a skewed view sometimes of how other people see us. For me it is because i cant read the situation in the moment. And quite often default to negative.

A lot of the time things don't matter half as much as we think they do.

An interesting take. I’m so used to seeing my own view, because it’s my view I navigate the world with, that I’d not considered that. You’re probably right though. I very rarely judge others the way I judge myself, so perhaps they are the same and won’t spend a single thought on it all. Thanks out_of_step.