I'm autistic as shit and this has plagued my life since my childhood. My default in an awkward situation when I don't know what to do is to involuntarily smile and/or give a little laugh. And sometimes this goes well. Other times it doesn't. Other times they smile back but they're mad. It's a sarcastic smile. It's less of a happy smile and more of a "bruh really are you really this clueless" type of smile. And then they end up telling me to fuck off and leave them alone.And worst part is I only realize all that when it's over and I've majorly pissed the other person off. In the moment I'm basically frozen and clueless and don't quite know what's going on.A more extreme version of this was this one guy who always used to smile at me for no apparent reason, usually without saying anything. I thought he was just being friendly. However one day I smiled at him before he smiled at me and he shouted "WHAAAAT?!" very loudly and angrily. And my acquaintances thought it was very obvious all this time that he was smiling sarcastically because he didn't like me and thought I was weird. And other times in general where because of my smile people almost ended up being my ass. They thought I was making fun of them and their anger. And I basically had to de-escalate the situation by saying I randomly thought of a funny moment of a TV show and wasn't laughing at them. So as you can tell, this has been killing me...So HOW DO I TELL A GENUINE SMILE FROM A SARCASTIC SMILE for God's sake to save my fucking life?!
>>33756028Anyone whos going to threaten to attack you or has public outbursts like that is worse off than your inability to judge a smile. I like to think of it as advertising on who to avoid.
A genuine smile has the eyes narrow, almost close. think of something funny and force yourself to laugh, then freeze your face, thats what a real smile is. if the lips are smiling but the eyes arent then it's threatening
>>33756047True. Though in general I live in a pretty rough poor area where the police doesn't do shit so those type of people aren't as easy to avoid as you'd think since there's so many of them literally everywhere. When you meet one of those people you basically have to walk around eggshells and de-escalate the situation as quickly as possible. If I need to state the obvious I would move to a new location but that's just not a possibility right now. Shit keeps getting more expensive meanwhile I'm not getting any richer.
>>33756077Oh wow. This might genuinely be one of the best life advices I've ever gotten. I've been thinking of a smile as just the mouth but I (believe it or not) never thought to actually take the rest of the face into account. >the eyes narrow, almost closeSo basically the anime girl closed eye smile? Lol. Sorry, that's the first thing that came to my mind.>think of something funny and force yourself to laugh, then freeze your face, thats what a real smile is.This is actually genius. So basically a genuine laughing smile versus when you're being forced to smile for a photo against your will.>if the lips are smiling but the eyes arent then it's threateningYeah, this figures. So if the eyes aren't smiling that's basically my sign to get the fuck out.
>>33756100yeah np and basically when you smile, ESPECIALLY if it shows teeth, and the eyes dont close or narrow, then people start chimping out because their primate threat sense just got activated
>>33756110Ah makes sense. Somehow I already knew that monkeys and apes only show teeth when they're angry but didn't know shit about humans and sarcastic smiles, lol. My autistic ass low-key be knowing more about other species rather than my own.
>>33756187yea im also autistic (probably?) but i got really good at masking. btw i recommend just keeping a neutral expression unless you genuinely like someone, people dont like the fakeness. if you can1. maintain eye contact2. mentally stay focused on what they are saying and process it so you understand it3. choose an appropriate response at the appropriate pausethen you're golden. just repeat the feedback loop and if at step 2 you detect the other person is being malicious you just disengage
>>33756028not the point of this post i know but damn that's a beautiful woman. like she's my exact type
