I have high functioning asd and social anxiety which means that I'm generally uncomfortable in public. I feel like an alien trying to blend in - if I go out when I'm less confident, I spend the whole time analysing how I'm coming across. I'm not at all convincing as a human. I don't respond to social cues in a typical way and I imagine that others sense that there's something off about me.
The reason I'm mentioning all this is that recently I've noticed that I keep getting followed by security guards in shops.
This afternoon I was in a small supermarket branch and a security guard or manager was very obviously following me around the aisles. I'm not good at making on-the-spot decisions about what to buy and so I was probably acting in a 'suspicious' way but him following me around wasn't helping! When I was paying for my items at the self checkout he was standing behind me and he continued staring at me until I'd left the shop and crossed the street!
A similar thing happened last week.
I realise that they have jobs to do but it wouldn't make any sense to follow a single person around a busy shop unless you had reason to believe that they were likely to steal something.
AIBU in thinking that my uncomfortableness must be coming across as suspiciousness? Is my general awkwardness being mistaken for the demeanour of a criminal? How can I feel less awkward when someone is literally stalking me around a shop?
Is it unreasonable to expect security staff to be able to distinguish between how a criminal acts and how a person with asd/ anxiety might act?