Extract from Tony Atwood book

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Jamesy
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01 Oct 2017, 10:05 am

I was reading an extract a few years back from Tony Atwoods book about aspergers saying roughly along the lines

"On nights out he would get looks from women implying 'Not for you' and then continuing "his self loathing over a lack of a girlfriend

Why do you think women gave him that attitude?



magz
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01 Oct 2017, 10:24 am

I'm a woman, but ND not NT, so I can only guess.
And I guess body language is too important in these things.
And messed up body language is one of the flag symptoms.


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Jamesy
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01 Oct 2017, 10:31 am

magz wrote:
I'm a woman, but ND not NT, so I can only guess.
And I guess body language is too important in these things.
And messed up body language is one of the flag symptoms.


What do you mean messed up body language?



magz
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01 Oct 2017, 10:43 am

Jamesy wrote:
magz wrote:
I'm a woman, but ND not NT, so I can only guess.
And I guess body language is too important in these things.
And messed up body language is one of the flag symptoms.


What do you mean messed up body language?

That my body language (if I don't controll it consiously, which I learned but which is tiring) does not fit what I feel. And the NTs take for granted that it does.
Examples:
* My boss often comes too close to you, talks too fast and too loud. Many people interpret him as angry, but those who know him well, know it is just excitement over the topic of the conversation;
* My friend was smiling all the time, regardless what she was actually feeling. She needed training to learn other facial expressions;
* My husband often says I'm resentful when I am just confused and too tired to control my body language.


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Chronos
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02 Oct 2017, 2:20 am

Jamesy wrote:
I was reading an extract a few years back from Tony Atwoods book about aspergers saying roughly along the lines

"On nights out he would get looks from women implying 'Not for you' and then continuing "his self loathing over a lack of a girlfriend

Why do you think women gave him that attitude?


It's impossible to draw any conclusion on this with so little information.



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04 Oct 2017, 5:32 pm

Chronos wrote:
It's impossible to draw any conclusion on this with so little information.


Impossible if you don't have years of experience with being a bitter virgin, knowledge of psychology and neuroscience, and information from podcasts of people who teach how to deal with women like beigephillip.

The book Mindverse, and How Emotion Are Made are pretty clear on this. Body language isn't actually much of a tell of what people are thinking. Now there's really obvious stuff like crossed arms in context where they might be mad, but the best indicator is actually tone of voice and what they say.
Beyond this, the way it's phrased is "he would get looks from women implying 'Not for you'".
This is called mental inference. It's why you think animals are happy when they bark, why you think a squirrel is scared when it darts, etc. Your mind is predicting what is actually happening, when the truth is that nothing special happened and you have no idea what emotion is going through your dogs mind, you just think you do.
The look he probably got, speaking from experience, was either straight out disgust at his appearance or the 'cold' face. If a woman isn't smiling at you, and she's attractive, it's a bit of a sad experience. However, in this situation you also have to realize that he was looking at the women too, and women are used to getting leered at by men. For some reason, I don't think they like it.
Now, for a bonus I'll answer how to fix all this. I haven't done it myself in real life because I freak out around new people and strangers, but I've deducted this from people with heavy field experience and what they say.
If you smile and dress nice, engage, and say something clever and introduce yourself with a handshake, most people(especially women), will respond at least with something neutral. As long as you lead the conversation and have interesting things to say and comment about, express interest in them and what they are doing while being relaxed and confident, the situation can improve from there. From my deduction, all you have to do is maintain this atmosphere around women and you'll have a good shot at this working out.
As for a relationship, for a man, you have to always be leading it and showing your value to the relationship. Your money, how you care for her, making decisions on where to eat and being proactive about finding out what she likes then giving it to her. The best way to find out is to ask, and no that's not an aspie only thing it applies to everyone(from the book Mindverse).