Emojis

I don’t know what most emojis mean and when I look up their meanings they can have several which have seemingly no connection to one another. Also, the various emoji reference directories differ from one another.

I sometimes use the smiling, laughing, sad, puzzled and confused emojis because they are useful if you are saying something in a tone of voice that can’t be portrayed in words. I sometimes send a friend pink hearts and other variations of hearts to mean loving friendship rather than romantic love. I’m always worried that I’ll send the wrong thing and somebody will think I’m after a romantic liaison. 

I've tried enlarging them, but I still have to stare at them for a long time to work out what it is, by which time the point of it has disapeared, a bit like having to have a joke explained to you, the meaning sort of gets lost.

I thought that one of the common things with autism is an inability to read emotional expression in faces? So why is it so odd to be confused by an emoji?

I think it could be a different thing from reading human human faces for many autistic people.

Perhaps many people who don’t message people regularly using emojis won’t naturally know what they mean.

I take all emoji smiles to mean happy, pleasant or benevolent, whereas sometimes humans smile but are being sarcastic so it’s not always clear what they mean. Likewise the down turned mouth means sadness, but a person might say I’m very unhappy and had a downturned mouth but they are meaning the opposite. I think the mouth with lips straight across means neutral or neither happy or sad. People might send an emoji that has a wide smile and tears if they are telling a joke or they find something somebody says is funny. 

I don’t know many of the other emojis and some of the faces are difficult for me to read. I expect if I regularly messaged people using more emojis I would soon learn what they mean, but I am ok as I am for now. 

I didn’t understand what ‘DiL’ or ‘pooter’ meant when I first came here and read your posts. I used to think that LOL meant ‘lots of love’.

Years ago I was sent a text by a colleague who wrote LOL and I thought she fancied me. 

I think it the stardardised shape that maybe giving me problems rather than the opposite. Maybe I'm emoji dyslexic, like I am with words? I suppose for me, I'm so used to reading the vibe people give off that no matter what comes out of thier mouths, I know pretty much what they're feeling, if they're unhappy and I ask how htey are and they say fine, I take them at face value, they don't have to tell me things they don't want too.

I'm not sure my phone does emoji's and I tend to use it more for things like arranging a dog walk or a hairdressers appointment, it's such a faff typing it all out that I don't bother and if I have something that needs more than a few words I call or email them.

Some abreviations confuse me too, actually most do, my DiL sent me an email with oxoxo at the end and I honestly wondered why she was sending me stock cubes?

I think it the stardardised shape that maybe giving me problems rather than the opposite. Maybe I'm emoji dyslexic, like I am with words? I suppose for me, I'm so used to reading the vibe people give off that no matter what comes out of thier mouths, I know pretty much what they're feeling, if they're unhappy and I ask how htey are and they say fine, I take them at face value, they don't have to tell me things they don't want too.

I'm not sure my phone does emoji's and I tend to use it more for things like arranging a dog walk or a hairdressers appointment, it's such a faff typing it all out that I don't bother and if I have something that needs more than a few words I call or email them.

Some abreviations confuse me too, actually most do, my DiL sent me an email with oxoxo at the end and I honestly wondered why she was sending me stock cubes?

I didn’t understand what ‘DiL’ or ‘pooter’ meant when I first came here and read your posts. I used to think that LOL meant ‘lots of love’.

Years ago I was sent a text by a colleague who wrote LOL and I thought she fancied me.