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YowlingCat
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18 Feb 2007, 9:48 pm

I have the social skills of an empty bottle.



Cordelia
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19 Feb 2007, 7:06 am

hehehehehe....thank you. that made me smile; I hope you don't take it meanly.

It was so descriptive. Yup, i'm an empty bottle too.

i started reading the tips links, there's one on how NT's handle communication and it makes sense. i'm going to try it. in past, i just wouldn't respond....becuase there seemed to be nothing to say to someone's comment. now, i understand...NT's are handling comments like a dance. One says something, the other gives response...then the other says something so another response can be given....i'm not the best in rewriting...to understand it better; I recommend you read it yourself.

Hey, to the last posted response....I would look at what you want to accomplish...rather than what you want to gain. I just read a book called "i'm okay, your okay" and it logicially evaluates how NT"s are looking for acceptance. If we aspies concentrate and send out the acceptance signals, than people feel better and they will like you. It worked okay for me; I stay only a few minutes in a group; I just don't hang out...that gets me in trouble ...I avoid it like theh plague.

You sound likable to me...you see a therapist, so I know your trying...you want people to like you...so I know you have feelings.

I look through this, and I write a ton of stuff...sorry....i can be a drone when I get on a topic....

I really need to get an avatar....by the way...i had partial autism as a kid; i was a head-banger for a while. maybe that's the avatar i will get...



denegibson
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19 Feb 2007, 12:00 pm

I wouldn't say good, though I seem to have a habit of making people laugh which I guess makes up for it..


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dragonboy
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26 Feb 2007, 1:05 pm

my social skills have improved alot and now i can comminicate with some people normally on one on one conversations but not in groups as i try and hide out of those. my experience is trial and error is the best method and put yourself out there sometimes even if it doesnt work its still a learning experience.



AngelsFall
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02 Mar 2007, 1:54 pm

Anxiled wrote:
I can't say zero because I speak English fluently. Nevertheless, on a scale of 0-100, my social skills are probably a 5. No friends for almost 2 decades. I can't even connect with people online. None of my therapists can tolerate me. They've told me pretty much to f**k off. My first instinct was to give myself a 1, but I gave myself 4 extra points just to be generous to myself. Really, my social skills are at almost absolute zero. I can't get anyone to f***ing like me. No one no one no one no one!! !!


Do you have msn?



emerald_tea
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03 Mar 2007, 7:37 pm

My social skills are pretty bad. I can fake it for short periods of time, basing my behavior, tone of voice, and phrasing from TV shows and movies. I'm a girl, so supposedly my social skills are better. However, I was hanging out with some guy friends this weekend, and I felt out of my league. (Not as displaced as I was in the past, in the company of females, at an all-women's college). But I think it says something, that I felt like I wasn't able to pick up on the subtleties/behave appropriately even among guys who typically are more uh... laidback about social norms? I don't know. I could be totally wrong.



ASPER
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05 Mar 2007, 2:16 pm

the opposite sex,just cant have a nice conversation,specially when my parents are around,i dont know and never met someone more shy than me,its sad,because i want to take part of the world and sometimes its not that sad because i just have hope for improving...

with people i know i talk,not that much,about certain issues,i hate gossiping and obsene topics.

eye contact cant do it more than 5 seconds

NTs annoy me,i bore them,i dont like their sarcastic challenges

i hate narcissists and proud people,mainstream copy cats.

peace



Erilyn
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05 Mar 2007, 5:54 pm

I have come a million miles in the last five years alone - I’m 28 - but I still suck.

“Small talk”: I’m horrible at it. I can follow the “unwritten rules” of it much better than I used to, but it still feels like so much work to me. It took me forever to figure out that people want more than a one-word answer when they ask you a question, and even longer to figure out that I am supposed to then reciprocate with stupid questions of my own. Then I am supposed to feign interest in - and even comment on – those answers. And I still have trouble knowing when it’s appropriate to excuse myself, or end the conversation. It all takes so much mental energy and it’s just so tiring.

Expressions and slang: You only get one first impression, and if I’m talking to someone I don’t know and they use an expression I’ve never heard before, it’s almost impossible for me to recover. I was introduced to someone once, and instead of greeting me with a normal “hello”, or “nice to meet you”, she actually said “what’d ya sayin’?” Huh? My brain tried to tell me two things at once: 1. take it literally, and 2. context, moron, this is obviously some sort of slang greeting! Unfortunately #1 reached my mouth first and I heard myself repeating the question out loud: “what am I …. saying?” then #2 caught up and I quickly tried to cover up my stupidity and sound casual: “uhh… not much…”. Smooth.

Eye contact: I’m getting better, but it’s still very hard for me. If the other person is talking, I can sometimes look them in the eye, but only if: a. they aren’t sitting or standing too close to me, b. I don’t have to look up (ie: they are standing and I am sitting), or c. they don’t have a particularly scrutinizing gaze (this one’s hard to explain, but there are just some people I can’t look in the eye for more than half a second, no matter how hard I try). If I am the one talking, eye contact becomes much more difficult. I notice that I blink a lot, and I tend to feign eye contact by quickly glancing in the general direction of the other person’s head, and/or I use a lot of hand gestures to try and take their attention away from my face. I know this probably doesn’t work very well, and probably actually makes me look uninterested – or even untruthful - but this all helps to explain why people don’t actually talk to me much.

Body language: I’m still learning here, too. I can understand the difference between obvious gestures and postures, like relaxed vs: agitated, a smile vs: a frown, etc., but have trouble with more subtle things. And it’s not just reading other people’s body language, I’m terrible at expressing my own. Like I just recently realized that you should turn your whole head towards someone when they talk to you – and even your whole upper body in some instances – rather than just turning your eyes in their direction. I never realized how unfriendly that can make a person appear. Unfortunately, like small talk, it’s difficult to actually remember to do this, and also to know how much is actually appropriate.

“Emotional” events, happy or sad: I don’t animate my emotions very well. I’ve never understood those girls who squeal and jump up and down with delight when their friends get engaged, never mind do it again when the friend actually gets married. I’ve read that Aspies aren’t supposed to feel empathy – which I think is BS – but I think maybe we just take a more practical approach to it. Of course, we fail to see that our friend actually WANTS us to squeal and jump all over the place – apparently it’s all part of those unwritten rules.



Last edited by Erilyn on 07 Mar 2007, 5:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

07 Mar 2007, 3:39 pm

It depends what situations I'm in. I can ask for directions and where thigns are when I'm shopping. I can talk to one person but with a group of people, it's very difficult to socialize. I do ofton interupt, even with one person. I say innaproppiate things but I don't know when I do it so I wouldn't know how often I do it. I can carry on a conversation deponding on what I'm talking about. If it's my obsession or something I'm interested in, then I can. I can do eye contant with certain people like my family and with people I'm comfortable with. I can read literal body language and emotions but I can't see the non verbal cues. I tend to read people wrong and I don't notice tones in peoples voices but I can hear volume and I know what yelling is, literal yelling.
I have some bad habits like popping pimples in public, picking my nose, scratching myself in the wrong spots.
I find it difficult to keep a converstaion going when I come up with things to say or talk about. Sometimes it's easy if the perosn is saying things that is interesting because I will keep asking questions then and that keeps it going or I find things in the person's story I can relate too so I share mine.

I don't keep up with fashion because I wear whatever I like and what is comfortable. Sometimes my mother will tell me what to wear to make me look like a young lady instead of a child or a teen. I don't wear make up but on occasions I do but it's my mother who puts it on. I don't even wear jewelry either. Sometimes I will try to dress up like an adult because I'm in a adult mood. I call it dress up because I am wearing what I usually don't wear. I like clothes like with disney characters on them, Nintendo, or cartoon characters like hello kitty, strawberry shortcake, any clothes that look kiddie like. To me adult clothes are boring and there is nothing exciting about them. There are very few I like.

I can answer questions like "What's up? "How's your day" "How's it going?" "You need anyhting" "Can I help you" and I give short ansers. No one's never tried having a conversation with me in a store.

When I worked in a folkshop, sometimes customers would start talking to me like about the weather and I say my comment about it and asking me where something is and I tell them. I even remember having long conversations with a few customers but I don't remember what they were about about but one. One of them was me talking with two men who spoke spanish and didn't have very good english so it made me ask what and huh and I spoke some spanish back I learned in class. It was indeed a annoying one and hard due to having problems understanding them.


My social skills have improved but I don't know if they will ever be good as NTs. I don't know if mine will ever be good enough for them. Some things I do to cope isn't even good but no one in my family has a problem with what I do but sometimes my mother will critisize what I wear by telling me what I have on is out of style or the shoes I have on are worn out so she helps me pick out something else to wear. She does that when we head out somewhere but now that I don't live near her anymore, I don't think I be getting that anymore unless I'm visiting her or she is here visiting.



nate_face
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07 Mar 2007, 10:51 pm

I used to have horrible social skills. I never could understand sarcasm, metaphors, etc. So often people got annoyed when trying to talk to me and would leave. I often misunderstand words and when people are talking I tend to pick out oen word from what they are saying and ask them more about that, but it's usually not the point. I don't understand tones of voices like whispering, yelling, etc.

According to my psychiatrist I'm really weak with understanding emotion by looking into people's eyes (I hatee making eye contact, it makes me feel threatened) or listening to their voices, I'm bad with knowing when to say what, and when to stay quiet.

Before I would have really long delays between each sentence and so people would think I wasi gnoring them and walk away, but I'm getting better on that. Also I've been working on keeping a conversation alive, and not just stopping, and I really like asking people questions like what there favourite movie is :D I don't stutter anymore either! :]



bjmax31
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14 Mar 2007, 10:24 am

Aiden wrote:
Mine skills, are terribe just terrible :( because I never know what to talk about :x



Same here



IamI
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19 Mar 2007, 7:11 am

I don't have much difficulty with eye contact. It's the continuation of converstation which I Have difficulties and it's not that I don' know what I want to say it's that I can't think of a way to say it with some one saying "Could your repeat that as if I'm in a special class".



poopylungstuffing
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20 Mar 2007, 8:24 am

Mine can be very bad..but I try to make the best of it. I can be very accommodating and hospitable almost to a fault with some people..but I must mantain a bubble of distance between myself and them.....I deal with dozens of people from out of town bands every month...it is my job/desire to make them feel welcome/comfortable, and I think I do ok at it. I am able to connect with some more than others..and it all depends on my mood and their moods etc...um...and it is always more or less on a superficial level.
Sometimes I can be easily hurt/insulted..sometimes unduely...and sometimes i can be kinda snappy and deal with situations poorly..and hurt people's feelings.....sometimes I deal with some people who hang around all the time by completely ignoring them...(my ex-roommates multiple girlfriends, for example..he is like a sibling to me and is always mixed up in some stupid love triangle or other and i just don't want to get involved)...That is just how I cope with being around so many people all the time. Sometimes I compulsively give stuff I like away to people..like i gave away "Hearbreak bear" the other night..or my Oak Farms plastic mooing milking dairy cow...or my coveted black wool jughead hat

Image
there is heartbreak bear particpating in a dance party..i forget which of those folks I gave him to...

Sometimes i get into conversations where I get excited and can't stop talking about a subject to a person until i have told them everything I know...usually they will find an excuse and walk away...and I can hardly blame them..
My social skills around my parents are awful 'cause I am always very tense around them...even though they are nice people.
But of all the people I regularly deal with on a day to day person, the only person I feel closest and most comfortable and relaxed and myself around is my boyfriend..
sorry to ramble.



Ragtime
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20 Mar 2007, 9:50 am

My problem isn't just the obsession which with I handle -- as I do all things -- friendship, but also with the only other option for me: apathy. Either apathy or obsession will kill a friendship, and I don't have a middleground between the two -- unless it's totally acted, and fake. (And I can't fake it very well for long.) So, the option for me, I've found, is to find people who are also somewhat obsessive-apathetic as I am, so that A) we understand each other's dealing with the obsession and apathy, and B) we naturally socialize the same ways, with the same rules.



ericmc783
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22 Mar 2007, 6:43 pm

mine are decent.