Aspie,with good social skills

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what's the secret to Aspie,that have good social skills,
one's that can get dates,make friends,socialize with
a large group of people,without being overwhelmed.
is it looks,smartness,ball skills?

Experience and the will to make hefty amounts of changes in order to get what they desire.

Experience, experience, experience, at least in my case. I mean, my social skills definitely aren't at the level of most neurotypicals, but they're decent enough that I can function around other people without too many issues. A lot of people even say that I'm really nice and polite, though in all fairness I tend to suck up to other people, and I also try to avoid conflicts. Whenever I do get into a conflict with someone though, I tend to become very loud and argumentative, and I lose what little grasp I have on my tact.

I think it's a watch-and-learn kind of thing that involves lots of effort. I think it also requires confidence and not thinking about one's social deficiencies while socializing. It's hard to recover when you start thinking about them and doubting yourself. I've made progress, but I'm still no social butterfly--I can mimic good social skills, but I still have a hard time generating spontaneous conversation that doesn't relate to an interest.

A big help is asking questions--let the other person carry the conversation while you just prompt them with questions relating to what they just said. Another trick (that I don't like but learned from an NT friend) is to ask questions that you know the answer to, even if it means pretending you don't understand something that you understand perfectly. I don't like this because I feel like it makes me look stupid, but I guess it's normal.

As for socializing with a large group, I'm not the person to give advice on that. It takes me a lot more effort to follow along with a group conversation than with a conversation that involves two or three people.

That's called "not actually being autistic in the first place".

Kind of like those short-sighted people who are great at seeing the details of distant objects.

But how do they cope when they get what they desire and how do they keep it all up in the long run?

I can appear normal for short periods of time. Short enough to make initial contact if I am in an environment that makes that easy for me (such as a class where I can talk to the person next to me about the work or assignments or something) but its not long before the appearance of normal starts to fade and my quirks emerge. Sometimes I don't even realise I am being quirky or odd, poeple think I am weird even though to me I am not weird at all.

Also, in certain ways, short term I can make changes but long term I struggle. People often say I don't try to help myself when in actual fact in the areas they want me to help myself or change I can't. I either don't know how or I am not able to keep the changes going for any significant period of time without becoming ill from exhaustion. They don't become second nature either....

It's like going out and meeting people. It is more complicated than most people I encounter think. Their advice is just go out to groups. Well I guess if you want to be really literal then yes I am going to meet people, but that does not mean I am going to be able to relate to those people (one of my biggest problems is an inability to relate to the majority of people I meet and a resulting inability to for relationships with them that are long lasting) when I am there. When in a room full of people I can't relate to I can feel even more lonely than if I were home alone.

Then if I do find a friend I don't cope with the following without potentially having upsets that either result in my yelling at things or to myself about things or, at its worst, screaming and hitting myself on the head:

1 People unexpectedly calling me without any notice at all or not giving me enough notice to change my plans for the evening (even if I don't have a set routine for that night...such as it is not ice cream and movie night for example, then I usually have an idea in my head of what I am going to be doing and I don't like to deviate too drastically from that unless I have a sudden change of mind. The change of mind needs to be my own rather than it being another persons change or mind or something enforced from the outside. Ie If I had planned on chicken for dinner and I was looking forward to chicken for dinner, after a few hours of pondering I may well be able to change my mind and opt for trying the venison I have in for dinner instead, and be ok with that...although I might not always be able to make up my mind whether to have the chicken or the venison which is frustrating and why I often have set menus on certina days of the week..it is just easier. However, if someone else where to decide that it was venison for dinner when I was expecting chicken then I am going to be somewhat upset about this). Similarly I don't like people just turning up or just ringing up and expecting me to drop whatever I am doing or whatever I was expecting to be doing that evening.

A I might not be in social mode and unable to think of much chit chat...my brain really wants to go back to what it was doing when it was interrupted. I can have a one track mind...it won't switch tracks and people chitty chatting to me about unrelated stuff is a bit difficult for me when my brain refuses to move from what it wanted to think about instead.

b It might be disruptive to one of my routines

c I tell people repeatedly that I don't answer the phone unless I am expecting a call from somebody and they still call without letting me know they are going to be or arranging a time. When I don't answer the phone they complain at me.

2 I get tired of dealing with people's complaints about me and the constant pressure to have to be social

3 They keep trying to change me into the type of girls that hangs around with a pack of girls...this is NOT going to happen in this lifetime. I prefer the company of males anyway, in the olden days, when I was young, they made more sense then a bunch of giggling women who spent all afternoon shopping for make up and talking about boys when I really wanted to go look at the cools stuff at the local natural history or science museum. Not many girls were into that, I'd have more luck finding a male who wouldn't mind going with me.

4 I don't see anything wrong with most of my quirks. The only one that concerns me is the head hitting. Otherwise I see no problem with being the quiet little book worm who likes sitting in quiet out of the way cafe's and reading, or who prefers hiking in the quiet countryside to night clubbing or whom likes to go to museums and whom is into the Paleolithic and whom opts for eating a clean diet (most of the time) based on fresh foods instead of boxed pizza. What is so wrong with any of that that it would make people avoid me? (Excluding the head hitting, I can see how the yelling and smacking myself on the head might upset people but the other stuff....what is wrong with it?).

Similarly, if I want to eat the same flavoured ice cream every Saturday (my paleo open meal) then what is wrong with that?
If I prefer a little notice before someone drops round and disturbs what I was doing..what is so wrong with that?
If I don't want to do drugs...what is so wrong with that?
If i prefer to use natural methods instead of medication to help manage my mood what is so wrong with that?
And why is it such a crime that I am not always sure how to do things like start a conversation, sometimes talk too much or sometimes don't talk enough because I don't know what to say...it's not exaclty a major crime so why does society make me pay for it like I am some kind of criminal? Genocidal murders get more understand than I do...and I don't hurt anybody.

I'm not really sure Bumble.

My autistic friend and myself don't really have any demands/contacts like you do. For one, we don't use phones, and we choose when we want to be social. We don't experience any pressure to change so we fit another 'pack of guys' either because we avoid them. How we've been sculpted over life placed us into the niche of having few friends that were incredibly hard to find/make (especially for me). We have very few friends, but we tend to have commonalities that where-ever we go seem to be in the minority.

When I have to talk to others (even my dad etc) I feel irritated/bothered and would rather not be doing so 80-90% of the time. I have very few people that I actually enjoy being around all the time, and they are my few friends. As I said, it's somewhat like I found a niche. I'm lucky, even if the fact remains that I'm the least likeable in the group because I'm the most boring. There are no problems with your quirks (being a bookworm etc), it just so happens that your 'niche' is rarer and thus difficult to find a place for (hope that makes sense).

There are many minorities in terms of interests/personality, and we're both a part of one. I'm just lucky that I found others that were similar to myself.

I agree. ersatz social skills maybe, but not proficient ones if actually autistic.
like a nearsighted person who is sort of getting by with squinting.

I wonder if there are gender issues coming into play as there is a lot of pressure on females to be a certain way, to be very social, to dress a certain way and follow fashions and wear make up (not something I wear often, even in my photos, only in one or two of them do I wear face paint as I call it), to make lots of chit chat and gossip (something I am uncomfortable with), to be more empathic and socially adept.

I have not had female friends in 20 years and when I did have them in my late teens it did not work out well as they wanted to walk around town shopping, talking about boys and looking at make up and I wanted to go natural history and science museums, In fact I went to Birmingham with them one day and took them around all the museums. On arriving home they said to me "we are not going to go to Brum with you again" to which I replied "why not". They said "because you dragged us around all the museums and it was really boring".

Um...well why didn't they say so at the time then? I thought we had had the most fascinating and fun filled day

Suffice to say those friendships did not last long and nor did the ones I made a college (I used to help people with their work sometimes if they were struggling so made friends briefly that way but the friendships died when college ended and since then, other than a few failed relationships or friendships with males who wanted a relationship but didn't get one for whatever reason) I have not had any real life friends.

I just float around on my own all the time.

But when I do try to socialise people pretty much just tell me to go away because I am odd.

Realizing and willingly accepting that good social skills are about wanting to fit into the group extremely much.

And most importantly - act according to that, by striving to gain higher social status every day.


Any aspie that does this betrays his true nature. It is similar to a cat living like a dog. It will never be truly happy. If it was, it likely would have been a dog to begin with.

No diagnosis is the secret.

Yeah that's basically what I went through too, with the exception that I'm only 18 and so am only just about to start university. I somehow managed to luck out and find friends that 'fit'. Actually it's more complicated than that, I wouldn't be friends with them if it wasn't for a random female coming up to me at school one day, who then over the course of months coerced us into spending time together. One of my best friends has 1 leg, and the other has autism. It's fair to say that we all come from a similar background. All my 'friends' before them were 'not so weird' and none of those friendships lasted (AKA 'unreal' friends).

What if wanting to develop social skills is about trying to find a life mate rather than trying to fit into the group? It is difficult to find a mate without fitting into a group in this day and age as if you are ostracised any potential mates will ignore you in favour of the more socially popular females.

I personally don't care at all about fitting into some group for the sake of fitting into a group but I did care about finding a life mate and my loneliness in that way made me unhappy and still does to a degree. As I am now starting to accept that I will probably never find a life mate to be with (especially as I don't want a typical relationship and would prefer that we live in separate houses even if we are a committed monogamous loving couple...this is hard to find, men always want to cohabit and I don't adapt well to living with others...) my motivation to socialise will fade, especially if my main reason for socialising (finding a mate) is removed from the equation. Which is basically what is happening. MY secondary motivation for socialising is stimulating conversation.

The only reason I continue to come to the boards now is because I enjoy stimulating conversation. I do not find this stimulating conversation very often in the real world, and recently I can only find it by coming here, ergo my motivation to socialise in the real world has well and truly died. I see little point in interacting with people...

My therapist is going to love that...

I don't understand how anyone can spend their lives living only for their social status. I would find that most unfullfilling.

As you say yourself, the problem is that to practically find a mate you have to "fit in" to some extent - the more you disregard that aspect of finding a mate, the more your social status drops, and the more you will degrade your own genes, making it even more unlikely to find a willing mate.

Our brains were not made for being together with a mate for our whole life. We were meant to "do the deed" in the mating season, and the mother was supposed to raise the kids on her own. Being humans, that is not very practical.

We cannot live the "solitary wild-life" our brains were made for, we have to force socialization to survive. We have to realize we are not very fit for survival in the current environment.

So,how do explain some of these Aspie,that have double
digit number of partners,one's that can get dates,sex,relationship,almost
flawless,or the one's that can easily make friends.
I've seen Aspie,that have very good social skills(on this site).

Reincarnation as an NT.