are you a master of social skills and graces...

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...in your own mind?

Often when I'm lying in bed or daydreaming, I'll be imagining myself with a bunch of peers or in a social situation and I'm the center of a discussion (the one speaking) and I'm a fraking whiz and sharp as a tack with my wit and banter. I always have the right thing to say and my timing is perfect, I never stumble over my words or stutter. I do all the gestural responses fitting to the situation.

If only I could bring that out.

<--not sarcastic. Dreamy.

sometimes I have delusions of verbosity...

I'm the same, usually if it's a night before meeting friends or something I have this daydream about being the life of the party and cracking everybody up with my amazing wit etc. And I plan perfect conversations and plan how I'll start them and what I will say but the next day when I do see the friends I can never put those thoughts into practice.

Last october I went to town with a mate and her friend and even though I was chatting I seemed to be giving the scarves in the shop way more eye contact thsan I was giving them, and I promised myself I wouldn't do that.

I think this is, at least in part, a coping mechanism that many of us develop early in life. By going over various hypothetical conversations that we are likely to have in a given setting, we are able to come up with potential opening lines and responses ahead of time, and thus be prepared. Of course, there also tend to be delusions of grandeur in one's fantisy world, Aspies' and NTs' alike.

I used to experience this and IMO it's a subtle form of narcissism. It sets you up for anxiety and depression as the reality of actual social interaction will never match your daydreams. Also in the time you spend daydreaming you could be committing yourself to an actual endeavour and achieving something worthwhile and this is exactly what will make people like you.

ummm. Gee, thanks.

There's "screw you, you're a ret*d and you'll never amount to anything" and then there's this. Don't know which is worse

or other people might call it positive visualising or something like that.

No, dont feel bad-its not exactly a crime against humanity is it? Daydreaming about how you would want things to go? I mean, I have an Oscar acceptance speech in my head, despite never even auditioning for a school play

Now if you are planning on shooting the audience of rapt listeners after your speech...that is bad.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever had a daydream that involves being in a group of people. Well, except the daydream where I'm sitting in a treehouse with a few historical figures that I admire, but we aren't socializing in that, we're just sitting quietly.

If my daydreams involve another person at all, the person is simply there in my imagination, and if I think of something funny or interesting, I can smile at them, and they understand.

But no, I don't socialize in my daydreams. Not like what you described.

I never realized that before.

I always daydream about this and being Mr. Romeo!

It wasn't meant as an insult, I was just talking from experience. If you find that some day something good comes out of these kind of delusions then more power to you

I know we're all supposed to have aspergers here and stuff and we don't normally hold back with opinions but do me a favor and step the hell off. I've hade enough of people telling me what I can't do in this world and what I should be doing.

You copy?

I do this occasionally, normally I'm pretty successful socially (more by being generally nice and interested in other people than knowing how to play "the game") but when something dosn't go may way (such as a failed job interview) I'll day dream that it went perfect. Normally my daydreams tend towards adventures.

I don't see why it will set you up for anxiety and depression, you could provide a little evidence. And no one works 24 hours a day so that's plenty of time for daydreaming.


Definitely the first one, this was well meaning, if evidently badly written advice.

I feel for ya man, these 20 year old's can be rough.

I didn't anything rough about his post.

No i`m not - i rarely vision myself any
other way then the way i am in real life.
I find it very hard to daydream and
pretend that i "did this" and "said that",
when i didn`t, i dont know how so i dont
know how to pretend like it. And if i did
it, i think it would just confuse me, i
have enough on my mind as it is.

Yes, all the time. I am the life of the party in my head.

I concur with the posters who wrote that it is a way of preparing for conversations. For the most part I think I do it as a way to work through and understand social situations. Playing out various scenarios helps me anticipate what I should say (or review what I should have said) - developing a response, clarifying my thoughts, etc. It also helps me understand the other individuals. The differences between my head and real life are that the conversations in my head are not real time (I can run through one conversation in my head for hours, going back and perfecting dialogue with little progression) and people react in my head how I expect them to act.

I disagree with the posters who wrote that it is delusional, narcissistic and will lead to depression and anxiety. For me these daydreams are grounded in reality (as far as I understand reality). It could be based on past events, future events or made up events, but it is based on a real world construct. I cannot dream that I am someone else, but I do play with variables to see how the outcomes changes. If there is too much fantasy (if the event is implausible or a person's reaction is unlikely) then the daydream doesn't have much traction. I guess you can say I am experimenting with and trying to understand a social system.

These daydreams, along with studying various topics in sociology, psychology, social skills, etc. forms the basis for my understanding of people and social situations. Before I go into a social situation, I work through it in my mind. Afterwords, I run through the social situation for hours which allows me to process the feedback. In between, I am trying to better understand the social framework.