Fear of smiling when saying sorry

Totally agree with that. About the only humour I laugh at is situational comedy and the more ludicrous the better. But as you say life also presents itself in the most ludicrous situations which just makes me disolve into laughter (which totally baffles folk around me because I won't have laughed at anything for months). 

Have you ever noticed how "normal" folks constantly take the mick out of each other and ridicule others, yet the one time they do something really funny (if unfortunate) they get really offended. You know, I'll stick to my own world where you laugh at whats funny and gloss over whats basically just scoring points by insulting other people.

Thanks for both your replies. I do appreciate it.

Dunk

Something else to add, not knowing when to stop teasing is a known feature of Asperger's, and even if you have a genuine comment to make, the potential exists to laugh out loud at the wrong moment, even if you aren't doing it deliberately.  Sometimes I get the urge to laugh at something that seems ludicrous (for reasons other than the average person might find ludicrous).  Perhaps, even though you see you have said or done something to upset someone, you feel bad, you have a sort of conflicting desire to smile because it seems somehow absurd that people get offended and need such platitudes.  I may not have explained it well, but the truth could be somewhere in there.  Sometimes I find the whole world ludicrous.  I think my brain has a gear it switches into when everything gets too much sometimes and I just laugh when it might not make sense to others.

In fact, I had a phone conversation this morning, over a very serious matter, the other person was giving me an example of something that happened to someone she knew and I guffawed loudly when she told me.  She replied "it seems funny but it's terrible" or something like that.  She wasn't offended (that I could tell) but sometimes it's like I make light of something (which I do also think is tied in with the low empathy because my first instinct is not to feel what the other person might be feeling, but to react to the overall picture).

I think this is a significant component of autism/aspergers.

The problem is the people who define autism only take account of conspicuous poor eye contact - in terms of "gaze aversion" - avoiding eye contact by looking away.

They pooh pooh the idea that there is difficulty reading facial expressions, it is only supposed to be about eye contact - information conveyed by the eyes - and if you appear to be looking in the right direction, apparently you've no problem with that.

In reality, I suspect, there is a great deal more to this, but I have to offer it up as a theory:

Not only do people with autism/aspergers have difficulty reading facial expressions, they have difficulty generating the appropriate facial expression.

Many people with autism are reported to have a blank or sad facial expression. Many people report smiling to avoid being accused of a sad face. Others report feeling uncomfortable about whether their facial expression is right. It is a big issue - but neglected by health porofessionals.

In terms of reading facial expression and reading information conveyed by the eyes, its not about whether people make eye contact, but whether they can take in and respond correctly to information conveyed by facial expression. People complain of being overwhelmed by this information and being unable to make sense of it, and finding it easier to look away. Also the fact some people are able to make eye contact doesn't mean they are using the information conveyed correctly.

Conversely, and possibly for similar reasons, peiople with autism/spergers have difficulty generating appropriate facial expressions. They may be accused of having the wrong facial expression to back what they are trying to say. Hence, to avoid criticism, some people resort to a blank, empty looking facial expression, sometimes appearing as a sad face, as an easier option than trying to get it right.

So a difficulty about whether you are smiling when you shouldn't is a likely manifestation of autism.

Trouble is autism is low priority research. We get the dumbest, most up their own ....., the most unscientific "quacks" - So this crucial issue in understanding autism has never been adequately researched.