Do you come off as very approachable?

Post Reply New Topic

I find people (and pets) tend to approach me a lot.

Kids run up and watch me shelve books at work, dogs come up to me in the park or cats walk beside me when I pass their houses.
Guys will talk to me in doctors waiting rooms. Old ladies ask me to reach things or read labels in the shops.

I got two weird encounters today. One saleslady was asking me how old I was, and when I said "23. Why?" She started saying I looked really innocent but calm and mature. (I was nonplussed and said "How about that?")
Then a check out chick started chatting to me and asking me where I worked.

Hm. Maybe it's because aspie females look young and innocent therefore non threatening? Or some other reason? Just randomly wondering if lots of others get this, or if it's just me.

you must look approachable. i have the opposite effect on people. my wife says my look sometimes is angry and im not angry.
actually this is one of my sore points, i find it very hard to meet people. just chatting someone up never happens with me.

animals love me though.

I am definitely better with wild animals than I am with people.

I think it's a short woman thing. We're not as "scary" as men and big women. It happens to me alot too <-- 5ft not AS as far as I care to know, my mother 4ft9 and my sister 4ft10.

I am an adult male and I find that strangers will approach me to make small talk or to ask for help. I too have pondered as to why this may be. I think part of it may be due to autistic naivete. I also feel we give off a non-threatening vibe. Deep down, I feel the majority of people have a need to talk and we are very good listeners and somehow they can recognize this Another possible reason is that having AS makes us very much aware of discrimination so we may also emit a tolerance/acceptance vibe.

I'm the same, not so sure it's linked to being short (I'm 5'7 - so not tall, but definitely not short). I love it, I love that I can talk to people wherever I go.

Well, I'm 5'2" (woman) and no one ever approaches me. It's like I'm invisible.

There have been a few times when I met up with a friend at our local coffee shop, which is in a little outdoor shopping center, and people would come up to her and ask the time, or if she knows where such and such a shop is, or ask where she got her pants. She's about half and inch shorter than me, eight years older, but prettier and slimmer. There were a couple of years when I was at that shopping center, by myself, every week, getting coffees, going in and out of shops, sitting by the fountain. No one ever looked at me. It was really weird to be there with my friend and have people flocking to us like that. Still, they were talking to her, not me. I was pretty much ignored.

I can kind of understand it if I'm in a particularly closed mood, and my body language is saying "Stay away." But a lot of times I'm not in that kind of mood at all. In fact, if I am, I stay home. So, I have no idea what the problem is. Maybe I'm just butt ugly. (Except most of the time, people don't even look in my direction enough to see that I'm even there, let alone what I look like.)

Yes and no.

I'm constantly approaced by kids but unapproachable to men or people around my age group....

Oh well...it's boring to be a grownup pretending your something you're not.

Yes I find children sometimes approach me. A few weeks ago I was in a shoe store and this toddler girl kept coming up to me with bits and pieces she found around the shop. Dogs approach me sometimes too, cats at times though a lot of cats are not friendly to strangers of any type...

Adult humans though sort of try and approach me at times, almost out of curiosity but then seem confused or weirded out at what they find.

I think it's to do with body language more than anything. I think I give off very open body language and I tend to smile at people a lot (I can't seem to help myself).

Yes and No.

People in the street find it very easy to ask for directions, photos etc.

Sometimes people have found me to be aloof and unreachable, it depends on lots of things like how my health is, whether I feel I am in a 'safe' group or even if I am having a more 'autistic' day.

Generally speaking, I would help anyone provided I believed the situation to be safe, errring on the side of caution.

This is something that confuses me, i know i'm not very approachable, people tell me i'm not very approachable and it's obvious to me why that would be so. Yet everytime i go out, i DO get approached by people, yet friends and family members who are much more approachable seem to get approached less.

I find it strange because usually I'm tired and on edge or trying not to lose it from everything around me, and from the reactions I get I must still read as friendly. My face must be deceptive. I'm used to covering I guess.
What's really funny is when I'll force a smile that feels like my avatar looks, but it comes off as genuine.

My students found me difficult to approach, which is great!

Yes, it can be done: good teaching without students using the office hour facility.

that IS funny and now i understand your avatar. im still working on this fake smile thing, its obvious lots of people do it all the time, they learned it or it came intuitively . here i amn in my late 30s starting tpo try it out. HAH! i so often dont feel like smiling so thats probably part of my problem. i dont care what they say about using lless muscles to smile than to frown, i feel like it takes a lot of effort. it is a fun thing to practice but i have to be in a very good space to go around smiling, i dont know how some of you fake it so good! well, its certainly a benefit and you sound like you see the positives of it so thats a good thing . i envy your ease with smiling, i would like to be that kind of person.