How do you deal with customers who misinterpret your facial expressions or otherwise read you as being different but don't necessarily understand why? A large part of why I took up with Starbucks was to work on my social skills as a newly-diagnosed autistic adult, and in these 3+ years I've definitely made progress but at the cost of constant emotional and mental strain. I wear a small puzzle piece pin to signal to those who know the symbol that I am... This.

Today, not for the first time, a customer asked me why I was upset and when I said I was not she continued to aggressively insist I was upset with her, to the point of asking for my name (right next to my puzzle pin) which I'm sure she will call SOMEONE about to complain about how I was so mad at her. I am semi-open about my autism with coworkers out of necessity and an attempt to socialize well, though of course I don't really talk about the dark stuff. I don't want to have to do "a talk" with my SM about the fact that I'm autistic because I don't want to be treated differently... but at a certain point I suppose something has to give.

I would be interested to hear how fellow neurological unicorns handle this stuff, since my somewhat closeted methods really don't serve me well.