Coping Mechanisms for Facial Gestures/Eye Contact in Dating

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Hi,

I believe this overlaps the love / dating forum, but I want to know if anyone has some articles, books, personal tips on modifying the way we naturally act, much of it specifically about facial gestures and eye contact which throws people off, when it comes to dating. For my entire life, to roughly around the time I was diagnosed, I had absolutely no idea this was going on, but now I know it's true. I just look stoned, disconnected and disinterested, if not simply "strange" when I'm just being myself. People never mentioned it since I was seen as "that was just how ______ is" by everyone around me.

Now, I've came across my share of things for NT's, but I'm getting the impression it doesn't do "enough", since we've got these nuances that really turn people off, thinking that we're completely disinterested, when we are, or just give off this overall "weird" vibe which some people have to been able to overcome. Could maybe taking really specific acting classes where you'd get feedback so we can train our faces to match what we're feeling like on the inside? (even if it's a manual thing). I've always believed there's a way to get most anything done, even if you've got to climb a mountain to do it.

If it makes a difference, I'm talking men (like me) in relation to NT women, but I'm up for any sort of universal that could work for everyone.

My apologies if this has been addressed already, nothing good came up in the search engine.

I did about 8 weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy for increasing eye contact and it did help me a little bit. At least now people don't keep looking over their shoulder becomes it seems like I'm talking to someone behind them.

I have also wondered whether a good acting coach wouldn't make a big difference in how an aspie was able to present physically. Or even, perhaps, a voice coach.

Intense work with a coach might entail filming you interacting socially from time to time. Athletic coaches film athletes in order to point out and correct fairly minute movements.

A friend of mine is an opera singer and spent years being coached. In order to improve her singing, the disciplines she adhered to changed her speaking voice, her posture, her figure, her gait and her gestures. Those changes were not the primary goal, they were incidental outgrowths of her training process.

Any number of physical training methods might make a big difference for you. I am thinking of things like yoga, Pilates and Feldenkrais.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feldenkrais_Method
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_i5QuIqcQo