No problem. I'm glad I could help, even a little. I say that about the frustration because with me, it's not uncommon for people to read me wrong. For example, when there are several people in a room staring at me, I tend to want to leave quickly. The look on my face I have is one of extreme nervousness, but for some reason is taken by some people as anger, so I will hear people saying cusswords under their breath sometimes. I had it happen really bad with a mechanic almost a year ago because I had to take my mom's car in which was not fixed completely. Given, the mechanic had his own personal problems, he took my nervousness as an attack against him and was about to cuss me out. I often have difficulties with "people" persons who pride themselves on how well they can read other peoples facial expressions, because they have a very specific way of reading people and I throw them off. I can offend those sorts of people quite easily, and it's not uncommon for people like that to keep asking me if I'm ok. Some people just assume that I'm not very intelligent, and where I work now people laugh at me when I'm nervous. I'm 23 now, and I've noticed that I have much better luck when I'm thrown into an environment that wears me out with walking all day so I don't have to worry about stuff, and where I'm dealing with something I like. One of my most favorite jobs so far has been at Toys R Us, because I remembered where all the toys were instantly and was able to help people quite a bit at Christmas, and it wore me out so much. I didn't have to look at people too much because I was pointing them towards toys, but even when I did, I did pretty well because I wasn't really nervous, and really loved toys. Perhaps the only problem was me trying to sell people toys they didn't want, but most of the time I was so enthusiastic that I could even get that to happen. Right now I'm working in a mailroom, in fact they promoted me to my own mailroom, but I have nothing to do but sit and go online all day and worry about stuff. This is a bad position, and I'm thinking about switching to something else more active, and that I like more. Another thing that I think is important for you to consider for your son is the fact that conversation skills are not natural for a lot of people and they have to be learned, even with neurotypicals, especially shy types. There are lots of books that can teach people the art of holding a conversation and keeping it going like a good game of ping pong. I think one my psychologist was telling me about was called Intimiate Connections by David D. Burns, which goes into more than just converstions but keeping relationships (I know your son probably isn't read for that yet). I might not be able to tell you advice as good as a psychologist, but I think it is important to find something he likes, and maybe wear off that extra energy. If he is doing something he likes (I know he's probably not old enough for a job yet) people will probably overlook his social weakness for the most part because they see that he's probably pretty good at, or will be good at. I always wished my parents took me out and found out what I would like when I was younger, or gave me drum lessons or piano lessons. There was a lot of stuff I wanted to do, but we just couldn't afford it really.
