Specific things you do to look NT

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Try reading a book in public, you will end up with people talking to you in droves!

Try walking downtown while listening to music. Annoying tourists will ask you for directions to places you don't even know.

- Make eye contact.
- Modulate my voice to sound like expressive-sounding people.
- Remember to orient my body towards people when I'm conversing with them.
- Actually answering people when they talk to me.
- Not corrected people on their grammatical mistakes or factual errors.
- Putting up with small talk and making at least some attempt at it.
- Not telling people that what they're talking about is boring and that I could have been reading the whole time they were talking.

There's some of the things I do.

How are you going to travel if you're poor?

Feet....and a tent....the way humans travelled in the olden days.

I am mostly interested in travel around the UK to begin with. Tropical locations don't interest me as they are too hot (I really don't cope in extreme heat temperatures plus I sun burn and don't like using chemical sun creams...my system is sensitive to said chemicals and the recent heat wave is more than enough) although I wouldn't mind seeing some of America, Italy and France.

I am mostly interested in seeing Britain's geological structures and coast line, this can be done quite cheaply by hiking and camping.

One can live quite frugally and still manage to do a fair bit in this society...

I get knowledge for free from the library
Knowledge cheaply from the internet
I can travel for nothing if I am willing to walk
and so on

I even got free shampoo the other day as a free sample from a store...go around enough of them and you won't need to bother buying shampoo ever again lol. Although you don't want to push your luck by overdoing it. But it does sometimes cut down on expenses as does using the no-pooing method with bicarbonate of soda and cider vinegar. Some like it, some don't...either way its cheap, really cheap and is somewhat better for the hair than concoctions using Sodium Laurel sulphite/sulphate.

Whilst some art supplies are expensive (when first starting out) I find that over time it gets cheaper and you can use make shift items in the meantime (ie a place matt propped up on index cards as a drawing board until you can acquire a proper one which is really no more than a section of shaped wood anyway and people who can do carpentry can make their own).

Best long term option? Learn carpentry from the free books from the library and cheap knowledge from the internet and make your own drawing board using cheap pieces of suitable wood or even free ones from old furniture or stuff people have chucked out.

Sales are good places to get supplies and even jumble sales and car boot sales can provide useful items (household etc) for ridiculously cheap prices.

look around for free things...

for me, i lower the volume of my voice, manage the context of my conversations and avoid talking about my special interests. i also try my best to make eye contact. thats not even the hardest part, the hardest part if effectivly communication with the other person, so that means really trying to think about everything they say, how they say it and what they're doing when they're saying it, its very very very hard to be aware of all this so i get tired very very very easily and often shut down after 2 hours of socialization, which makes things even harder.

i still cant pick up on 'subtle ques' ((which i still dont know what people mean when people say that)) and i cant read body language but i can read a little bit of general situations and emotions

a lot of the time im trying to mimic other girls and what they are doing so i dont stand out.

Play dumb.

See if you where in Russia people would think your ret*d or suspect , I so bad want to go their , funny my GP went their recently and he said the people where not "friendly " ,, I'm thinking WTF you made that judgment when hanging out in tourist enclaves , get real bro.

How are you going to travel if you're poor?[/quoteHitch a ride, couch surf , eat at soup kitchens for the homeless , free holiday !

Last edited by aussiebloke on 04 Aug 2014, 3:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I suppose the main thing that I do to blend in to conversations is make it about them as much as possible. People seem to like to talk a lot about themselves. So if I get them talking about something they like I can basically just smile and nod and maybe just have to prompt them to keep going every once in a while. No need to worry about if they're interested in my current obsession, or spend much time thinking about what I'm going to say next, or even really concentrate much on what they're saying. I had a 45 minute phone conversation with my brother the other day where I spent maybe 5 minutes total talking.

Of course the downside to that is that I find most of my conversations with most people around me extremely boring and I miss a lot of what's actually said, because I'm pretty much tuned out for half of it. It can also be a problem at work when I miss pertinent details for a project.

Another thing that I've started noticing that I do a lot is laugh before I get the joke. I'll see the way someone is smiling, or their tone of voice indicates what they just said was a joke before my mind has time to actually process the words (I have an auditory lag, especially if I'm distracted or in a place with a lot of background noise). So I have sort of a reflexive fake laugh that I do when I catch those cues. Then sometimes I'll follow it up with a more genuine laugh when I actually get the joke 10-15 seconds later.

Here are some things I do that seem to work for me:

1. When I'm having a conversation with someone I pretend I'm interested, even if what the're talking about is not interesting. I think it is important to actually listen to what they are saying because most people will be able to tell if you aren't listening.

2. Comment on the things that they say, so that they know you are participating in the conversation.

3. Try to make eye contact. I realize that this has already been said but I mentioned it again because I think eye contact is very important.

4. Ask people questions like, "How are you?" or "How are things going?" Most NTs like to talk about themselves so this gives them an opportunity to talk about things going on in their lives. And of course, you have to pretend you care what they say even if you don't.

5. Smile if they are smiling.

Hope this helped. It can be exhausting sometimes but I think we can do it.

Look people in the eyes, force myself to socialise.

I strongly despise that term as I find it to be ignorant, but to answer your question:

1. I laugh with them (even when I don't find something to be hysterical).
2. I try to appear like the rest.
3. I try to display adequate social skills.

I can't remember all the things I do because sometimes even I forget to do them and some of them were mentioned by others in this thread but here is my list of things I do to try and appear as normal as possible, some of this is also overlap for my anxiety disorder.

Try to make eye contact with people and face in their direction while talking
Stand up straight and not fidget with pens and hands, don't touch my face don't pull on my hair.
Attempt to make small talk, and try not to always fall back on talking about the weather.
Practice regulating my voice so it's not too loud or quiet.
Study the social mannerisms of other people, how do they stand what to the say and so on, read up about it online
and read how to make friends and conversation self help articles and books.
Don't talk about anything unless it was brought up, don't hijack the conversation, try to get the other person talking about their
life and nod or repeat bits of it back to them, parroting.
Try to be as stereotypical as possible.
Take breaks from people if I feel like I am becoming overwhelmed by all the stimulus of lights and sound, before I have a meltdown.
Laugh at jokes if other people laugh even if the joke was not funny or I didn't get it (I hate doing this one.)

I don't try to act NT. I just act myself.

end all conversations with "Have a nice day"