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If you can't read facial expressions, how can you judge sincerity? In his recent post, "The Meaning of a Smile," John Elder Robison addresses this question, discussing the difference between a real smile and a "salesman smile," and how many of us on the spectrum struggle to tell the difference. Reading his post brought to mind a recent encounter with a man who gave me "the salesman smile."
One weekend afternoon, my husband, a friend, and I dropped into a discount store for some essentials. As such environments are somewhat stressful for both of us (for slightly different reasons), my husband and I have learned to multi-task. Splitting up often gets us out quicker and reduces frustration.
Unfamiliar with the layout of the store, I was distracted, trying to find the proper department. Just as I turned into it, a man suddenly materialized out of the crowd. "Excuse me," he said, fixing me with a dazzling smile. "Could you help me?"
Taken off guard, I hesitated...of all of the people nearby, why had he singled me out? Did I seem more open and friendly than the others? Or could he be trying to pick me up?
With this possibility, I recognized a need to be careful. Scary experiences early on had taught me very clearly how easy it could be to send the wrong signals to the opposite sex. I had no desire to risk my safety or my marriage by making those mistakes now.
Hoping to stall for time, I stumbled, "I, I don't know...I'll try. What do you need?" As I spoke, I surreptitiously looked him over, on the look out for anything that would give me sense of his intentions, or the type of person he might be.
His blonde hair was short and spiky - perhaps a bit unkempt, but still within the realm of today's fashion. As he sidled up to me, angling his body to further face me, I caught the glint of a diamond stud in his ear. I glanced down at his arm, now a few inches from mine. The skin was red, almost to the point of being purple, and marred in several places with thick scabs.
Something about that disturbed me, but I try not to be too swayed by such things - you can't judge a book by its cover, after all. Flaws on the skin do not necessarily reflect a defect in the character, despite what Disney might want you to believe.
Still at a loss as to his intentions, I checked in with something deeper which, for want of a better word, I have always called my "gut." I felt something - a subtle, uncomfortable, feeling of vibration, which I've learned to connect with being close to someone whose nerves are stretched raw.
Overlaid on top of that...something else. A feeling of "sharpness," which brought to mind angled shapes and bright colors. This, I associate with something artificial...when something about a person, their patterns of subtle movement, doesn't quite jibe with "typical" patterns.
What did it mean? Could it be that I was dealing with a person whose nerves were stretched taught, through some unnatural, perhaps chemical, means? Hmm...
"Well," he said, fumbling in pocket, "You see, I'm involved in this program..." He thrust at me a dog-eared and slightly dirty laminated card printed with pictures of various magazines. "We're selling these magazines - and if I sell the most, I get to go to Amsterdam! Which of these magazines looks good to you?"
Aah, I got it now - this particular gambit had been tried on me before, and to my embarrassment, I'd been taken in. In fact, this had been a source of one of my earliest arguments with my husband - a street-savvy New Yorker, who isn't on the spectrum. In acute frustration he'd said, "You're such a smart person! How could you be taken in by this?" Not having an explanation for this unevenness in skills - it appeared to him as negligence, rather than an inability to read certain signals.
Drawing on that painful experience, I turned to this man and responded that I wasn't interested in any of them. He leaned closer, his smile got wider, and he said, "Oh, come on...don't you want to help me get to Amsterdam? Surely there's something here you could use..."
Feeling the squeeze, I pushed back harder, "No, I'm sorry, I'm not interested." Now, his façade was slipping as he fired back, "Why?"
I responded, "I'm just not...and this is not a good time...I really need to go now, I have people waiting for me."
The change in him was sudden and dramatic, almost violent. The smile disappeared, and his voice became loud and harsh. "FINE!" He almost yelled...then spun off into the crowd just as quickly as he had appeared.
I left the encounter feeling disturbed, and vulnerable. I was pleased that it appeared that I had reached the "right" conclusion - but it was scary to think how much effort it had taken, and how much I had been forced to rely on what were, to me, "subtle" clues. What if I had missed these clues? Even one? The outcome of the encounter might have been different.
In this case, the stakes were smaller - one lone con artist, trying to con me out of some money...but what if it had been something else? Something life-threatening? That's an uncomfortable feeling.
Not for the first time, I thanked God for that "gut" sense, which has more than once saved me in such situations. I've never been able to fully explain it - what was it? The religious might say it was supernatural, but now I wonder...could it be a form of synesthesia?
Is it possible at some level I read the emotional/social signals given off by others, but through some cross-wiring sometimes it is interpreted in sensory impressions, rather than as emotional data? That's an interesting thought, especially in light of some new theories, such as the intense world theory of autism.
If our sensory and emotional systems are perpetually overloaded, is it possible that one might cross over to another? If the redirection is consistent, it would seem that this conversion of emotional input would only further stress an overloaded sensory system - which would explain why so many of us withdraw, especially in emotional situations.
Back in September, I referenced an interview with Dr. Oliver Sacks. In it, he references the case of a writer, who developed a case of visual alexia...his brain had lost the ability to read. After a period of time, he reported that he was learning to read again - but testing showed that the original issues were still there. As a means of compensating, he had begun to trace the characters on his palate with his tongue - and his brain was learning to interpret that input to decode what was being read.
I can't help but wonder if there might be some similar dynamic at work here - is this my brain's way of compensating? Could it be that when it comes to decoding emotions and empathy, it's not so much a question of "absent" as it is "different?"
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