Scrunchy Face

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I'm happy, approachable, have conversations with the public, I'm fine with all that, people like me and remember me and they say stuff like, "Oh, hi!". Sometimes my face scrunches up and it looks like I'm giving them the evils or I'm scowling at them.

I don't mean to do it. I don't know how to stop myself doing it. I can only tell I've done it because either the person I'm talking to gives me a "Well excuse me, but why are you looking at me like that?" look, or I feel my facial muscles have scrunched up.

How do I stop this, how do I tell them it's involuntary? I was talking with this cute dentist today and I did it again. We talked about fascinating things and he went to the second best school for dentistry in Europe, or it was at the time. He was telling me about how the Japanese did thorough tooth testing with technology (of course...the Japanese) and how if there is deep decay in the tooth, if the nerve isn't damaged, you can usually leave a layer of decay on the tooth before the nerve so that you don't damage the nerve. The dentist seals the root and then adds the filling on top, and the bacteria from the leftover thin layer of decay actually dies off. I never knew that. I love it when people teach me things like that.

I did the face scrunchy thing and he had that look on his face. He asked me what I was up to today and I stupidly said (I mean, like an idiot) "Nothing much" and I sounded uninterested, then he sounded a little fed up.

Oh well. He was about 10 years younger than me and thought the same age of me. Sometimes people assume I'm in my early 20s.

Lately I have began wearing blue tinted mirrored glasses.

Psychologist Paul Ekman, an authority on facial expressions, says that of the 23 facial expressions relating to human emotion, about one-third involve the eyes. Shades may slightly obscure your view of the world, but they also hide the world's view of how you are feeling.

Not being able to see a person's eyes greatly reduces our ability to infer his or her emotions. For example, telling a fake smile from a real one can be difficult; but if the person who is smiling is wearing shades then detecting the sham smile is almost impossible. In a real smile, a muscle called the orbicularis oculi is activated, creating a hard-to-fake crinkling around the eyes. The eyes truly are the windows to the soul.

The eyes, eyelids, eyebrows and orbicularis oculi muscle play a major role in projecting emotions and the degree of emotions. The following is a list of some of these emotions:

* disgust, contempt, upset, unhappy, or miserable,
* worry, apprehension, surprise, fear, terror, or controlled fear
* broad smile, smile of enjoyment, a real smile from a fake smile, angry smile, or miserable smile
* despair or grief
* slight sadness, sadness, intense sadness, agony, or masked sadness
* annoyance, slight anger, anger, controlled or restrained anger, glaring anger, or masked expression of anger
* perplexity, confusion, concentration, or determination

It seems like NTs are always misinterpreting Aspies intentions. They look us in the eyes and imagine our thoughts. By wearing mirrored glasses we deprive them of this tool of assessing our intentions and our vulnerabilities. So I believe this may have a therapeutic value for Aspies.

I choose the color blue because: Blue is peaceful, tranquil and symbolizes loyalty. Blue is reliable and responsible. It exhibits inner security and confidence.

You could tell them the model answer and they still might choose to not believe it