People putting out their hands

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Does this confuse other people too? Sometimes it doesn't matter if the fist is open or closed.. well if they want me to give them something, it's most likely to be open, but it can be open or closed if they're offering a hand up/down, or if they've done something "bad" and are asking for a little slap on the back of the hand, they'll put a fist out for the little "punch our fists together" thing.. I'm good with handshakes, besides the fact that I don't shake hands like a girl, I totally have a guy-ish handshake.. but all those other reasons people put their hands in front of me just baffle me, I always get this little moment of panic. And then I start getting used to what they mean from certain people, and there's a new person who does the same thing and expects me to do something totally different, and I do what it seems like I should do based on what's normally expected of me, and then I feel like an idiot because I get it wrong. As soon as I start to think "ok, I know what's expected of me." and relax a little bit about it.. I totally screw one up and the panic starts all over again.

people gesticulate and then I tend to look at their hands, and then they think it's weird that I look at their hands, even though they're waving them around in front of me. Could lose an eye!

My problem is kinda the opposite.. it's stuff I'm supposed to respond to, and they kinda hold their hand there until I do whatever it is I'm supposed to do, or until I totally botch it up by doing the wrong thing.

I know what you mean. People will stick their hand out and wait for you to so something with it. If someone has just experienced a success (or I have) and they put their hand up, palm facing forward, I sometimes know I'm supposed to do a high-five. But sometimes they position their hand in a weird way, or there isn't any reason for a high-five, and I'm just not sure. I used to get all nervous feeling inside. Now I just think to myself, "I guess this person is going to see some kind of aspie quality in me right now. They'll just have to deal with it."

If I were you I wouldn't try to get it right. Rather just get rid of the panic.

My mother taught me a great way of dealing with embarassment. She didn't actually teach me, it's just that I saw her using this in her job and all sorts of other situations and I adopted it.

This is what would have happened if she were in the situation...

If she feels embarassed, she laughs in a relaxed sort of way and says with a calm, confident smile, "I have no idea of what I am supposed to do! I am clueless with this stuff."

People end up laughing with her instead of at her. Sometimes they show her the trick then, gently and a couple of times over, and sometimes she might say, "OK, got it! I'll get it right next time," but other times it might be a case of "I'm never going to get this, I am just a different type of person" still spoken with a relaxed smile and a shake of the head, or sometimes some kind of joking movement with her hands in which she deliberately imitates the gesture incorrectly. If it were me, I would also add, "OK, let's chat so I can get past this embarassment, please" -- but I smile and laugh in a relaxed way when I say this, because it really does take lessen the embarassment considerably if I can laugh about it. Then other people don't feel so tense and embarassed about my embarassment either.

Honestly, being able to express embarassment is an incredibly important tool in the fight against social anxiety.

This story should illustrate better than anything else:

I went to a trade show with two colleagues. This was in the city and I didn't expect to run into anyone I knew. So I decided I would like to wear this loooong wig to try out a new look. My colleagues are very tolerant of my quirkiness, and they were smiling about the whole thing and after that, when we arrived at the trade show, they acted as if it was normal for me to have this long hair. Then something bad happened. I was engaged in deep conversation about something highly technical with someone who was staffing one of the displays, and my wig started coming off. I tried to keep talking and this person stared at me. At that point my colleagues came along and started giggling, because here I was talking all this serious sense whilst looking like a perfect fool. Somehow they managed to remove me from the situation, but it was too late to save me from total embarassment.

I tried to stay calm and preserve my dignity for a moment and act like nothing much had happened, but I could see by their laughter that it was too late for that.

So I got dramatic. I laughed and said "Aaaaargh! I feel like an idiot! I feel so stupid!" I doubled over and covered my face and kept sort of laughing, although I felt more like crawling under a rock than laughing. They laughed too, and they didn't try to say "Don't worry, it wasn't that bad." Instead they told me how funny this other person's face looked when she was staring at me, and I was still going "Aaaargghhh! Noooo! Oh I feel worse now!" but actually, the truth is that just saying it all in such an expressive way but with a smile really makes one feel a lot better. Even if you end up crying through the laughing, people will laugh with you in a good way. It's almost as if the drama of doing that externally partially balances out the drama of what's happening internally.

Hmm.. those are good ideas, but kinda depend on two things.. in the first example, being able to chat, talk, converse, and generally effectivly express things to other people, because the "lets chat so I can get past this embarrassment" only works if I can chat! In the second, the other person appreciating that humor, and someone else reacting in a way that they become the object of the humor. What would happen f there weren't someone else there getting all freaked out by your reaction to make the person laugh?

I have, more and more lately, just been telling people that I'm a crummy conversationalist, that I just don't know what to do in social situations, etc. It helps some, but is generally dependent on what the other person is like. I know a lot of times people get offended, and think I'm nasty or don't like them because I don't talk to them, or don't say more then "hi" or "hey".. saying "man, I wish I were a better conversationalist!," "I wish I had more things to say to people!" or "I'm sorry I'm quiet, I wish I were like _____ who can just chat about anything, but I'm just not like that." or something like that does frequently decrease the likelihood people will get pissed at me for not being chatty.

The thing is that a lot of these situations happen when I'm already getting close to a meltdown..
I've been working with the local rescue squad lately, and while I don't think I have the judgment and ability to be in charge of any situations, I can certainly, say, take blood pressures, set up oxygen, stuff like that. So a lot of these situations are when I'm already feeling awkward and unsure, because I've spent the day watching other people talk to people, judge situations and how to react, and wish that I could get into that too. Doing it helps me feel less worthless, because even though I'm on disability because I really can't function in a work environment, expectations on volunteers are different.. I don't have to do the constant explaining of myself, justifying being paid for doing something as though it were a job, because it's not. It just gets so discouraging that I can't handle so much of what everyone else can do seemingly so easily. So a lot of these social encounters I have are when I'm already kinda interactioned-out.

if people extend their hand for a "handshake", i always falter and look at their hand before i shake it.

sometimes i refuse to offer my hand to shake. that leads to trouble but i can not overcome my resistance to extending my hand to them.
i hate greasy skin of peoples hands and i want to wash it off soon after i encounter it.
i am always distracted by unpleasant thoughts for many minutes after i have shaken some people's hands.
i really like to go to the toilet and wash my hands after "shaking hands" with people who i am told to shake hands with.

when someone extends their hand to me and they do not say "hello" at the same time, then i do not perceive the meaning of them putting their hand near me.

a few weeks ago, i was at the office and i finished my hot dog for lunch, but i still had the paper it came in in my hand. i scrunched it into a ball, but i could not find an appropriate bin to put it in. i was getting agitated about having the paper in my hand and i was thinking about dropping it on the floor because i did not want to attend to it any more.

then one of my bosses came along the corridor with a few clients that were going to be in a meeting i was attending in 10 minutes.
the boss introduced them to me but i was mildly distressed at the fact i still had the paper in my hand.
when one extended his hand toward me, i gave him my paper that i wanted to dispose of, and he took it and put it into a bin he found. i got into a lot of trouble about that later with my boss.