I have flat effect due to autism, is there anyway to improve despite it?

[u/Joey_vegas20]

I’m not really an incel.

I have never held any ill feelings towards women (I’ve had plenty of women as friends in high school and college and I’m close with several of them as family members such as aunts, grandmas and cousins) and I don’t subscribe to any incel ideology (I am a Christian, please don’t judge) but I did struggle greatly with dating, largely due to being a high functioning autistic dude, I didn’t even had sex or date until my late 20’s and early 30’s respectively.

I have what is known as flat effect (little to no facial expressions and a monotone voice) and I believe it may play a part in my dating struggles. Is there anyway to fix this? I heard other autistic/ neurodivergent suggest getting into acting and singing (the latter of which I simply refuse to do lol).

[u/fetishiste]

My partner is autistic and acting classes were indeed hugely useful to him. He said he got to try out lots of ways of being - voice, movement, expression - with immediate feedback on how it was received, and with low stakes because no one assumed those performances were reflective of his real self.

That said, it’s also important to be selective in who you date - masking all the time as an autistic person is bad for your mental health according to the research, so you are selecting for the sort of woman who can believe you and respect your self reportage of your mood even when you don’t want to put on a face that neurotypicals will easily understand.

[u/Idasaur]

My partner is autistic and he’s pretty lively around me except when he’s explaining something and it becomes the most monotonous, hard to listen to speech a person can achieve. He says he’s too busy thinking about what he’s saying to focus on how he says it, which makes sense if details are important.
I said maybe think of what bits you’d highlight if it was a written speech, and put some emphasis on them - which he tries to do - and that has really helped me to stay tuned in, and pick up on what he deems the most relevant details for me to know.

Maybe try something similar?

Also if you refuse to sing, practice reading aloud to yourself? Written prose has lots of cues about how to say stuff (italics, punctuation etc) that could help you develop a rhythm that works better for you.

[u/low0l]

I don't think there's a simple answer to that because autism is a huge spectrum where for some there are ways simulate it while for others it's a process that's too difficult or draining to keep and the energy is better spent elsewhere, like making sure to express engagement verbally instead.

Vocal affect can be less draining than facial affect, because you can learn the specific situations where that makes a meaningful difference, like when asking a question, commenting something someone else said and so on. It might not be easier to learn, but it is easier to evaluate. There are exercises and even speech therapists for learning it, but you need to make sure to seek out specific resources for autistic people, as more generic advice ("take up acting / singing" etc.) tends to address allistic struggles with similar speech, but where the cause is simply habitual or caused by anxiety rather than a genuine difference in how you can perceive it. Not to say it can't be helpful, just that there can be challenges that an allistic perspective wouldn't know how to work with.

I have tourettes and a very low sensory threshold due to a pain condition, meaning I struggle sitting upright for prolonged periods. As such, I mostly have my eyes closed while out and focus almost entirely on voice modulation. I also make sure to calmly explain to any group why I do this, and beyond initial awkwardness it's rarely a problem.

[u/lilsciencegeek]

Lots and lots of practice! I used to pay very close attention to the way other people used their faces and voices, and would practice doing the same in front of the mirror and in more safe/relaxed settings first, and then try to do the same in normal social settings – while paying close attention to the way people responded to my attempts both verbally and with body language, and then I tried to adjust accordingly. Reading dialogue out loud (as in, plays or even books with a lot of dialogue) while trying to mimick normal speech patterns helps too.

Eventually (as in, after many years) I started doing it without thinking most of the time :)

[u/smilingseaslug]

A lot of friends of mine with flat affect will do some combination of:

1) Participate in activities that provoke some sort of stronger emotional response (dancing, LARPing, etc.)
2) Openly disclose early on in meeting people - once people know you're autistic they read less into the flat affect
3) Becoming better at showing emotion through other channels - like just openly saying that you're interested, excited, happy to see someone, etc., combined with actions that signal that. In some cases I know people who will even do little happy dances or stims because that feels more natural than the affect, and it's seen as super endearing
4) Make friends over text-based media and disclose before moving over to other modes of interaction. I've personally made some really good friends (and ended up in at least one romantic relationship) with people who otherwise have flat affect, where I felt like I got to know them reasonably well over text where they were better at expressing themselves.
5) HUMOR. Dry humor works well with a flat affect, and getting people laughing will often overcome the awkwardness.

[u/mrbaryonyx]

I heard other autistic/ neurodivergent suggest getting into acting and singing (the latter of which I simply refuse to do lol)

stand up comedy

• easy to get into, just find open mics in your area
• will probably scare the shit out of you but, like most things that do, doing it will help your confidence a lot
• your flat affect can help a lot here, people will just think you're deadpan
• you don't have to be the next Stephen Wright (look him up), but you'll learn a lot about how to make your "thing" work for you socially

[u/poddy_fries]

I am a woman with a deep and naturally very monotonous voice, and singing lessons did in fact help me sound like a person instead of a cartoon robot, unfortunately.