Rebuked/ridiculed for missing female non-verbal signs?

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Clearly a question for Aspie guys

While I'm settled and married now, I had my share of dating woes with women...and it's funny but in hindsight, before I had my diagnosis in 2001 (while still in my 20s), I can remember in my mind's eye certain non-verbal signals I was getting from females on dates back in the mid-late 1990s. When I didn't have any clinical description of what was "wrong" with me, but knew that something was "off". The one I distinctly remember was the glancing around the room, and one timed I asked her about it - she smoothed it over by saying something like "Oh I just thought I recognized someone, I thought someone I knew was going to show up here but I guess it wasn't them." In hindsight, the unpalatable reality was "gee, this guy's a weird/creepy/spaced-out loser...how can I politely end this."

Whereas most NT guys would have discretely said "OK, well I enjoyed meeting you, but I've got to go take care of some errands", I kept rambling on and *she* was the one who ended it with some such line. In fact one time these guys sitting at a table near me picked up on what was going on, the young lady left, and one said "Dude!! How could you NOT tell that she wasn't in to you, it's like you should just cut your losses and move on!!" - whereupon his pals just proceeded to laugh, no doubt thinking "what a clueless dork". I instantly thought, how the heck could they know that, they can't read her mind, it's too ambiguous to call, etc, etc...but I didn't challenge them on it - I just casually said "well, I had nothing to lose". But I guess they saw my continued attempt at conversation in spite of "obvious" negative signals to be a lack of self-respect or "loser" social status or something. Whatever.

But it's that glancing around the room sign, that I'm sure many of us have got - some of us noticed, some didn't.
I think that on some level we may have noticed, but if you were like me, you would have blocked it out as an emotional "defence mechanism" - because let's face it, we've dealt with rejection umpteen times, that it's like it triggers something in the limbic brain to protect that "inner child", so we filter out subtle rejection signs. We become in denial that we're condemned to live a life of rejection, which paradoxically makes us less appealing and "creepy" because we ignore the very signs that say otherwise.

There was one time where I got sarcasm from onlookers ("fake friends") who told me that the girl who'd brushed me off was "really in to me", they told me lies that she kept looking my way after I walked away, or that she told them that she wanted to talk to me, but I could tell those jerks were lying and just wanted to ridicule me, I could tell enough that the young woman was kind of put off by my approach so I didn't fall for their games. So that's when I learned more by actively but discretely observing other young men approach women and pay attention to the nonverbals, that was even before I got diagnosed with Aspergers, and it helped somewhat. Took persistence and patience...women...they don't come with an instruction manual, and that's a lament for NT men as well!! LOL!!

I once had a chance for a wild night with a girl when I was 16----but I told her I had to be home for curfew.

She berated me for being a "chicken."

Wouldn’t know I haven’t had a date in over 4 years.

I don't think I even know how many times I've missed NT women's signals, but so what? There is no loss since I cannot get along with them anyway.

With neurodiverse women, it's completely different. I've always picked up on those (at least since high school). In those situations, it was typically the case that NT men around had no idea what was going on. I mean, I had this "thing" with a girl in my class in college, and basically nobody knew for the first year or so. I think they only realized it as another guy got rejected, and then he understood why. So, this goes both ways. NTs are just as clueless to the ND eye-contact-game as we are to their games.

You broke the rules. ND courtship (the eye-contact game) is completely incompatible with NT courtship, so you cannot go up and start to talk to somebody you initially fancied the ND way. Doesn't work because that's not how ND courtship works. You are NOT supposed to go up and talk to them. So, next time you get caught up in that remember that you are not doing NT courtship, so are not supposed to make verbal contact. Just enjoy it at a distance, especially given that you are in a relationship.

At least you've had dates. I've yet to have one 23 years into my life.

Apparently I'm clueless. What's the ND eye contact game? (I thought most Nd didn't like eye contact with strangers?)

I don't understand how these sort of situations arise. I'm always on the lookout for the tiniest hint that someone is disturbed by my presence and then I bail, this doesn't just apply to women either, I can pick up bad vibes from anybody quite easily.

My general tips with people in general:
If they make little effort to keep a conversation going, they're not interested.
If they're not focused on you, they're not interested.
If they talk about people they know more than anything else, they're not interested.
If their body in any way seems to be leaning away from you, they're not interested.
If they never initiate contact with you, they're not interested.
If they've always got some excuse as to avoid talking/being with you, they're not interested.

This is just really obvious stuff by the way, I dunno about subtleties.

^ I agree, and this one is gold:
"If they never initiate contact with you, they're not interested."

That's right. Most NDs don't like eye contact with random strangers or with people they don't like. But they also often have a history of being accused of staring, something they do when they fancy somebody too much and look too much at them. That's why many NDs have learnt to avoid eye contact. So, it takes a little practise (to act naturally) if you have a history of "staring", and coped with that by avoiding eye contact.

I think many NDs that didn't cope with allegations of staring by avoiding eye contact instead learned NTs limits on how much they could look without it being judged as staring, and then stayed just below that point. Instead of prolonged eye contact, they will use repeated eye contact, and then study if the girl (or guy) reciprocates, and repeat if so.