this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2026
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Autism

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Tried masking. What did I do wrong? (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by MeowerMisfit817@lemmy.world to c/autism@lemmy.world
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Switching schools. Thought maybe masking my autism would do good for finally having friends.

Here's what I did:

1- Sit on the third line: not too much back, not too much on the front;

2- Get pretty. Bracelets, jacket...

3- Watch them talk and imitate what they talk about when they talk to you.

Well, didn't go this well. Still getting ignored (I like to joke with my brother that "Neurotypicals have autism detectors").

Where did I miss it? I tried joining some conversations I heard, but they were pretty unkind at me after that.

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[–] hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.world 15 points 5 days ago

There's no script for social interactions. Most people do masking subconsciously because there's so many things that neueotypicals look for, e.g. body language, facial expressions, micro movements, and how all of them fit together.

You'd need to be superhuman to emulate all of that consciously.

I'm so sorry you have to actively play a part to do this. Usually I always had like 1 friend I can depend on and nowadays when I wanna join friend groups, I still depend on that one friend and then just hang out for a while, before actually interacting.

Turns out, if you just observe and mirror the bigger things, like laughing at their jokes, or looking engaged when they tell stories or similar, you slowly build up trust and connection.

Just remember, it takes time to join a social circle and there's an immense number of setbacks, that you kind of just have to deal with.