As someone with poor eyesight, the problem I have is detecting someone’s facial expressions. Other than paying attention to someone’s tone of voice, what other techniques should I use to detect someone’s hostility towards you? Whenever I am with my sighted friends, a lot of times there are occasions that my friends and I had conversation with someone and I thought of their interactions neutral or benign, but afterwards my friends tell me that the person we were having conversation gave us a “dirty look” what does it mean to give someone a dirty look, anyway? Or someone smirked on us?

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If you are sighted person, you can tell pretty easily in a distance exactly if someone gives welcoming facial expressions or hostile one. But since my eyesight is poor, I don’t have that luxury, so I have to rely other techniques to understand people’s feelings. At times, you stop or continue conversation based on someone’s facial expressions: are they receptive, outraged, and indifferent, shocked, questioning about what you said; all of these feelings can be expressed and interpreted without someone ever saying a word.

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Obviously, I can’t tell someone’s facial expressions due to my poor eyesight, so most of the time, I rely on the tone of voice and the language the person use. It doesn’t help also that I am kind of autistic and socially inept. So, is there a tip deciphering someone’s facial expressions for those of us who have poor eyesight? Or paying attention to the tone of voice the only refuge we have?