Do random strangers ever laugh at you?

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I've noticed that this happens to me from time to time. It doesn't really bother me all that much, I'm just curious as to what the reason is. I already know that I don't make eye contact with strangers when I'm walking somewhere but I can't think of any weird behaviors that I do in public unless I'm doing something without being aware of it. I just know that I wouldn't openly laugh at random strangers unless they were doing something really bizarre and I can't really think of anything I do in public to warrant such reactions from people I don't even know. Do any of you know what could be causing this or does this happen to anybody else here?

That's probably the #1 reason I stopped sitting in the congregation at church. In high school I would just be sitting in my pew and I'd hear girls my age giggling and making fun of me for how I kept my hair, or how I dressed among other things. After the parish priest told me that making obscene gestures during church really kind-of defeats the purpose, I just decided to hide up in the loft and play music for the service instead.

I have had this happen to me many times. The confusing part of it is that it really is sometimes a mystery as to why I am being laughed at in certain situations. I do not worry about it though, since nothing much more serious than the laughter has ever come of it. I just forget about it and move on to whatever I was doing.

I've had this happen many times to me too. Sometimes they also threaten to beat me up. I don't know why.

No.

It's usually about something you're doing wrong.

Very typical Aspie moment for me.

Or people won't laugh, but stare and talk about me behind my back.

Yes, plenty of times over the years. It's why I view the general public as vermin.

Yes, it really bothers me. I don't like going out in public alone because it only seems to happen when I'm by myself, and it happens completely unprovoked. I've been attacked twice, harassed by pedophiles of the get-in-the-car variety thrice, and flat out told I'm not wanted in a Kohls. Otherwise, most people sort of stare at me, and I'm not sure what it is I do because I have pretty good control of my tics and don't do them in public if I can help it.

They have before. I laugh back, but I laugh back very loudly and hysterically. Then suddenly I'll just stop and stare at them with a death glare. Puts them on the spot immediately. Usually after that I just walk away casually as if nothing happened.

Yer, I get this a lot. Like you, I don't do anything to be laughed about either, and I've always been aware of my actions and I know I'm not doing anything even remotely worth laughing at.

OK, I haven't read any of the replies in this thread yet, but I bet somebody's put something like ''you're probably doing something odd you don't know about'' or ''I always thought I was fully aware of my actions but I have actually discovered that I do X and Y''. I don't think that is a very helpful answer because it could make you feel like you don't trust yourself. I don't always make the ''just because he/she's an Aspie....'' assumptions. I'm pretty sure you don't do anything what you deserve to be laughed at about. It's the same with me. But paranoid thoughts don't stop going round and round in my head, and having low self-esteem, low confidence, and very thin skin makes me distrust people even more, and makes me think that I'm in the spotlight all the time and that everybody's laughing at me. But I just got to try and think realistically: would grown adults really stand there laughing at me, who's just another ordinary-looking person in the street? Shouldn't NTs know better that laughing at somebody out loud and letting them know can really upset them and make them feel uncomfortable? (That's what Aspies are always told anyway. I bet it even says somewhere in the Autism Social Rule Book thread something like ''don't let other people know if you want to laugh at them, it could make them feel uncomfortable'', so I don't see why the same rule shouldn't apply to them).

I keep finding myself analyzing situations when I have thought people were laughing at me. I go over them over and over in my head, and it could take months. Sometimes I cry and want to smack their heads in, then see if they laugh.
(EDIT. I don't cry out in public but I cry when I get home).

Yes, it does make me lack confidence, and I keep telling myself that these people in these situations probably weren't laughing at me, and that I am just hypersensitive to this because of my social anxieties making me feel that I am a figure of ridicule, even though I am not some kind of village idiot. I know some people who ARE the village idiot, and everybody knows their names and always gossip about them and laughs at them, but they are very odd. One of them really stinks and has been walking around with the same dirty clothes on for 25 years, one of them lears at every single woman and just walks up and down the street all day with his hands in his pockets and has no friends and everybody just thinks he's disgusting, and one sits on a bench all day having conversations with thin air and making some people feel a bit afraid, and one has ASBOs (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders) where they cause so much grief and threat to other people that they get banned from certain areas like near schools and old people's homes. Those sorts of people get laughed at and recognised and shamed. I know they do because most of my family and all the local people who they know often talk and laugh about these people, and when they see them they sometimes laugh and say ''ooh, look, there goes [name]''. But somebody like me, nobody knows me really, only people who know my mum or someone else in my family. I don't come out much, and everybody who I do meet are strangers to me, and I normally get on the bus and go to a different town to do my shopping and go to work, and the other regular passengers on the bus know me and so do some of the drivers, but they never laugh at me. Passengers often sit next to me and have friendly small talk with me, and one or two of the drivers actually like me in an overfriendly way and I chat to one of them (he got me a Christmas card last year, just me), and I don't see myself as a weirdo or a target or the laughing stock of the town, so I don't see why people should laugh at me.

It's a mystery. Makes me feel like calling Shaggy and Scoobydoo and their friends to help solve the mystery because it's a bloody big mystery.

Yes, but I live in Salford and so if you don't appear interbred you're funny lookin'.

Not sure if I've sent this link before but for those of you who are emotionally affected, this might help you.

http://www.socialanxiety.co.uk/blog/fee ... ing-at-you

I have embraced my weirdness over the years and just do not care who looks at me anymore. My daughter, who more than likely has AS also, is my "going out" buddy. She goes to the grocery store and runs errands with me. I have have a hard time going places without her. She is huge therapy for me. She lets me be me and she'll act just as crazy with me. (making screeching noises when turning the cart quickly at the grocery store, chair dancing in the car to the music, pretending to be robots as we put things in the cart) I LOVE HER!! ! But, yes people stare and laugh, we don't care though

I think it's more easier to accept people staring or laughing if you know you are doing something what's considered weird or unusual to them, because it's your problem more, and you know why they are laughing, and if you felt bothered by it then you know what to do to make them stop, like reducing your noticable habits or stopping them or working on them if you can't control it, and so on. And at least there is a better explanation for the attention.

But when you're somebody like me, quite boring, quiet, does nothing to get unwanted attention, and able to put on an NT front that shows up NT behaviour which makes me blend in with the rest, it's rather frustrating when you still experience laughter from random strangers. There is nothing to work on, I can't stop stimming because I don't stim in the first place, I can't dress more stylish because I already dress in stylish clothes that suits my age and gender, I can't change how I carry my handbag because I carry it like everybody else (just over my shoulder with my hand on the strap to keep it there which is how I see lots of other women have their handbags), I can't work on my posture because I usually walk with my head and shoulders up and with my arm moving as I walk (not too fast or ''spastically'') or I put my hand in my coat pocket when I'm standing about in a queue, and so I don't know what else to do. I'm good at observing other people, and so when I do observe other people I don't notice anything they do that I don't. And everybody's different anyway, nobody's perfect, but I mean I don't do anything that doesn't fit the normal standards. I keep nice and clean too, I don't smell bad and my hair is always washed, and I've just got my hair styled so it looks nicer, and I like to keep on top of my hair.

So I don't quite understand what it is that would make people laugh at me so much. Either NTs have a very boring sense of humour and only laugh at things that look normal (which is VERY childish indeed), or I am doing something that's outrageously different, though I don't know what exactly.

Ok, now I understand the question a little more. Yes, people stare and laugh at me even when I'm trying to be normal. I get very angry because I'm thinking "I'm acting just like you"!?!?!? I think most NT's are jerks though, that's my opinion.

At school I remember really bitchy, horrible, chavvy girls having a problem with me. Just sneering and laughing and commenting about me while I was metres away. I think it was because I was quiet and this made me vulnerable. I was just being myself, instead of conforming to what other girls would image-wise. So what I'm not a complete tart like you? It's also resulted in things being thrown at me and things being poured over me or smashed onto my head. It's because I was an easy target.
I think that kind of treatment has made me into a very paranoid person. Nowadays if I see a group of young people I feel immediately uncomfortable, and if they laugh I sometimes wonder if it's about me. I don't think people realise (or care) that bullying leaves huge mental scars. It's also made me into someone who now loathes the general public, giving me an anger streak inside my head towards people to the point where sometimes (but not always with everyone) I think of them as scum. Sometimes I see people and I just KNOW that they're probably that sort of horrible person that I experienced at school.... and I immediately think SCUM.
Guess what, though! Those people I hated at school are now doing nothing with their lives, except dealing with pregnancies from random men or a criminal record... or are just lowlives who have achieved nothing and can barely spell their own names. That makes me feel better.