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LabPet
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14 Oct 2014, 3:28 pm

dianthus wrote:
I get approached by people and I don't know why other than my appearance. Probably not just my actual looks but something about my body language. I actually try to do things to be less approachable like avoiding eye contact but people still come up to me anyway. And I think maybe some people walk away puzzled or frustrated because I'm not what they expect me to be. Or maybe it's just that I feel puzzled and frustrated because I don't understand what they expect.

If people never approach you, they probably see you as unapproachable for some reason (please tell me the secret, lol). And I think if you are attractive, and you keep attracting someone's attention but they don't know how to approach you, they grow frustrated with it. They can end up resenting you for it.


I do know what you mean. In fact, I've actually been misinterpreted as being seductive! I am not, but coquettish behaviour from an attractive female, which is actually just me being shy and socially awkward, can be misconstrued as seductive. :roll:


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14 Oct 2014, 4:11 pm

Having been both (my weight has fluctuated a lot in my life), they're hard in different ways. I'm female, though - it may be different for men. But it seems to me when you're attractive, men are more likely to overlook your mistakes or find them cute; however, strange guys are far, far more likely to approach and pester you, which can be really disorienting, stressful, even scary. You attract attention, and I don't usually like attention.
Other women are friendlier on the surface when you're attractive, but more likely to stab you in the back.
On the other hand, if you're unattractive (and particularly, if you're fat) you have to fight twice as much of an uphill battle to get any kind of respect or acknowledgement of your competence, but at least people mostly leave you alone (there are those who go out of their way to insult you, though).

On the whole I'd say it's worse to be unattractive.



Raleigh
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14 Oct 2014, 4:43 pm

When I was younger I attracted a lot of attention from guys, which I hated. Girls didn't seem to like me at all. Maybe it was jealousy, idk. If it was it was stupid because I was no competition at all when it came down to it. I was just as socially awkward then as I am now.
I can remember consciously trying to make myself appear less attractive by cutting off my hair, wearing boyish clothes, no makeup or jewellery - which is stupid also and the girls didn't like me any better for it.
It was a confusing time with guys hitting on me which I didn't welcome and girls being b*tchy to me which I didn't deserve. But maybe that's typical of the teenage years in general.
Having said that, I believe it is more difficult when you're attractive and have AS because you can't deal with the attention you attract - both positive and negative.


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14 Oct 2014, 5:29 pm

I don't know, I work in films, commercials and music videos, and I work very often with very attractive people, and what I have notice, especially for women, is that they can be gorgeous and have bad social skills and it doesn't matter, it's almost like if people give them a pass and say "it's part of their charm" or "she's just protecting herself because she gets hit one a lot" or she just gets called a pretentious b***h who thinks she above everyone, but most often she's given a pass. While men, when they are attractive (models, actors) are expected to be friendly, warm and social. I also notice guys are more OK with women who are a little socially awkward, It's other women who are the worst, especially if the socially awkward one is attractive. It's just jealousy I guess.


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NiceCupOfTea
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14 Oct 2014, 5:37 pm

Speaking as an unattractive female (no false modesty here), I have felt like an invisible ghost for most of my life. At school nobody fancied me and I knew nobody fancied me. I had no clue how to make myself more pretty; style my hair, or whatever. And even less clue about how to speak to boys. I didn't fit in with other girls, but I also didn't fit in with the boys either. I could've settled for being a tomboy sort who was a "laugh" to be with, but I wasn't even that to anyone; just invisible.



LabPet
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14 Oct 2014, 6:09 pm

NiceCupOfTea wrote:
Speaking as an unattractive female (no false modesty here), I have felt like an invisible ghost for most of my life. At school nobody fancied me and I knew nobody fancied me. I had no clue how to make myself more pretty; style my hair, or whatever. And even less clue about how to speak to boys. I didn't fit in with other girls, but I also didn't fit in with the boys either. I could've settled for being a tomboy sort who was a "laugh" to be with, but I wasn't even that to anyone; just invisible.


Well, you're not invisible on the Wrong Planet - and you do fit in here. :)


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14 Oct 2014, 6:12 pm

I consider myself attractive. While people do approach me, I think I shatter their expectation of a sociable, bubbly person because most don't approach me a second time. This has actually worked well in figuring out who I get along with best. I also don't think I have it easier or harder than people who aren't attractive. We have different difficulties for different reasons, and it doesn't make sense to compare them.


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14 Oct 2014, 6:27 pm

hollowmoon wrote:
Zajie wrote:
I don't think so because I have a classmate whos very attractive- shes more social anxious and anti social than me and shes mean too lol but she gets approached so much even thought she ignores people they still like her


does she have aspergers though? Weird I never ever get approached and have no friends plus Ive been ostrasized in school workplace.. just about everywhere


I don't know if shes aspie but I can describe her as weird or geeky, same with me and I'm also really never approached except for some exceptional few times and its always from people I dislike who you won't even feel safe with, I won't say I'm considered good looking like that girl in fact I was called ugly by some people at school lol, I look normal/average



hollowmoon
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14 Oct 2014, 8:57 pm

NiceCupOfTea wrote:
Speaking as an unattractive female (no false modesty here), I have felt like an invisible ghost for most of my life. At school nobody fancied me and I knew nobody fancied me. I had no clue how to make myself more pretty; style my hair, or whatever. And even less clue about how to speak to boys. I didn't fit in with other girls, but I also didn't fit in with the boys either. I could've settled for being a tomboy sort who was a "laugh" to be with, but I wasn't even that to anyone; just invisible.


I think that no attention is better than negative attention.



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14 Oct 2014, 9:19 pm

I am female, not sure if I am an 'attractive' one, but apparently there are people that think that otherwise I don't think I would have ended up in the various failed relationships I've had...then I have people that have said I was ugly mostly internet trolls over a couple profile pictures I've had various places a couple times maybe not the best pictures but whatever. Then of course just generally speaking I don't wear make-up, I dress kind of interestingly but by no means normal for most females my age and I am not in any way really graceful or feminine really. So I guess I am not really sure if I'd even be attractive or not or what effect it has on difficulties in life.


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15 Oct 2014, 3:25 am

I'm not a handsome man and I've always felt that that has had a major negative effect on my life. I've always felt that someone's looks play a bigger part in how others treat them than we want to admit.

Beautiful people get forgiven small social faux pas. People actively seek them out and will make an effort to get to know them. As a result they often get more confident around people because they've had good feedback in the past. Things that might be considered immature or boring if I did them would be charming and cute if they did them.

I can't say for certain whether the bad feedback I've had on my appearance result from my actual physical appearance or from my "aspie-ness" - a blank, expressionless face and awkward body language. - or a bit of both. It certainly isn't from a want of personal grooming. I have noticed that people who do well socially have bright, expressive eyes, a mobile face and smile often. My face isn't like that, I guess I'm in the "uncanny valley".

I really can't see how being attractive can be a net disadvantage in life.



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15 Oct 2014, 3:54 am

vickygleitz wrote:
I was considered quite attractive as a young woman. It made life much easier,and I was considered cute but quirky, unique, a paradox.


I never really learned that I was considered attractive by people until after my first relationship. At that time I was willing to look around, be less shy, make more male friends, etc.

It quickly sunk in that while I have no problems attracting men simply because of how they think I look, it doesn't take long until they realize something is off. And then they get upset about it, like they were cheated or that I lied to them somehow. A lot of this relates to my 1) social awkwardness, 2) periods of hyper-focusing on projects of interest, and 3) simply liking to be alone. That's weird to them.



alex
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15 Oct 2014, 3:57 am

As far as the attractiveness thing goes (male or female), most scientific studies on physical attractiveness would lead you to believe that being universally attractive makes you more likely to get hired, get promoted, and be successful compared to individuals who are considered unattractive.

http://www.businessinsider.com/attracti ... ful-2012-9
http://money.usnews.com/money/personal- ... attractive

That being said, I live in Los Angeles, and it's ridiculous how many extremely attractive people are waitressing or bar tending and barely making ends meet while pursuing an acting or modeling career.

As far as Asperger's is concerned though, I don't see how an unattractive person on the spectrum would have a leg up due to the (in my opinion incorrect) notion that people don't expect them to have a good personality. I'm sure everyone's heard the stereotype (even though I don't really think this is true) that less attractive have more personality compared to unattractive people (usually it's related to overweight people being nicer than skinny people... again i disagree with this stereotype).

I know a lot of models and actresses and some of them have great personalities while others do not. It seems to be the same ratio as it is with people who are unattractive but that's just my own personal observation, nothing scientifically valid.

Also, i don't see how being shy is necessarily a totally negative thing.


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evilreligion
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15 Oct 2014, 4:14 am

Attractiveness always gets attention so regardless of where you are on the spectrum you will get noticed more. Whether that is good or bad will depend on whether you want attention.

It also tends to have a positive influence on the way people of the opposite sex will treat you. More allowances are made for attractive people. This is nothing to do with autism its just the way people are programmed.

I could see attractive aspie girls having some additional potential problems at school age though. There is a potential for unwanted male attention and that combined with an aspie "naivety" and lack of social understanding could be potentially dangerous for the girl. Youtuber TheAnmish has talked about her near rape experiences in some of her video's, I can see how that could be a big issue. Women like TheAnMish, who lets face it is absolutely beautiful, will inevitably get hit on by boys and if the aspie traits mean they are less aware intentions and what's going on socially then this is a potentially very dangerous mix. You have hormone fueled horny boys, hitting on a girl because she is hot, the girl give sof the wrong signals because she is aspie, the boy is all charming and nice, the aspie girl just thinks he is nice and does not read his real intentions, and then bam you are in a date rape situation. Very dangerous.

A further complication for hot aspie women growing up would be jealousy from other girls. Teenage girls are, well to be perfectly frank, evil. If they see a beautiful but vulnerable peer they may be jealous and then take it out on them. This jealousy could fuel cruelty and I'm sure this has happened many times before.

Teenage boys tend to be less concerned about such matters. Most teenage boys don't even acknowledge that their fellow boys are attractive or not and so tend not to get so jealous of such things. Secondly the rape threat to boys is far less (yes I know it can happen but its just not as much of an issue). So I don't really see that attractiveness being so much of an issue for aspie boys.

Later in life though i.e. after school and teenage hormones. Attractiveness is almost always a positive, it will mean people will tend to like you more, do things for you and pay more attention to what you have to say. There still remain a potential rape danger for attractive female aspies though, so female aspies please be extra careful out there!!



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15 Oct 2014, 5:12 am

I could see how attractiveness would bring some specific problems to autistics.

I never really had that problem and in a way I was glad for it. Being just another nameless 'average' meant i would be overlooked and left alone in most situations, which was prefferable. To engage in interaction or not was left to my perogative.

However, many if not most would take on those problems willingly, at least theoretically, to gain attractiveness, for it is perceived as such a clear advantage in a broad range of ways.



Alyosha
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15 Oct 2014, 6:21 pm

evilreligion wrote:
There still remain a potential rape danger for attractive female aspies though, so female aspies please be extra careful out there!!


you dont have to be attractive for people to want to rape you. like not even remotely.



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