JanuaryMan
Aspierational
Joined: Jan 02, 2012
Age: 28
Posts: 2548
Location: Hants, UK
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 Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, I used to have this online a lot. I would feel dependant on the interactions between people I knew at school online once school was over for the day. I'd be paranoid if they hung out together online and I wasn't there. I'd be paranoid if I emailed and no one emailed back but they were emailing one another, forgetting the appropriateness of my emails or messages in the first place and whether or not in their shoes I'd respond or even have anything to add to the convo if I did want to.
It does get better, OP, but not without lack of trying. The big one for me was panicing as to how much anything I did would impact friendships, impress others, offend others etc. and my constant attempts to be around them all the time, impress, be nice etc. ultimately backfired. I didn't realise I was doing this at the time (I was a kid, I was naive, needy, and I was also undiagnosed). The 2 ways to overcome it:
1) Realisation (good news, you're already there ).
2) Place less importance on the social interactions you do engage in.
To help with step 2, some ideas:
* Avoid typing or communicating excessively. Do not expect return communication at any stage. I find if I start typing too much the best thing is to branch my convo off into IM's with various people, or if I'm still over stimulated I walk away from the computer for a bit or log off.
* Avoid sharing any viewpoints on things you might disagree with. Just "okay" stuff or change topic when something you see as controversial or typically moronic comes up.
* Feel free to have negative thoughts, but avoid sharing them unless someone makes the move to do the same thing. Even then be weary some do set up traps (depending on age / maturity of the group) to test your loyalty. Why people do that is beyond me.
* Humour works! Just avoid it during SRS time.
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"A man is but the product of his thoughts - what he thinks, he becomes." - Mahatma Gandhi |
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Rascal77s
Picnic Basket Thief
Joined: Nov 13, 2011
Posts: 2337
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Tequila wrote: | | Rascal77s wrote: | | "Social Anxiety Online"...... Sounds like an MMO for aspies. |
There are social anxiety forums online that you can hang out at - one of the largest of those is Social Anxiety Support (http://www.socialanxietysupport.com), although I don't post there often. |
MMO is Massive Multiplayer Online and refers to multi-player video games Tequila. It was meant to be funny but my humor doesn't seem to work on aspies in general lol |
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JanuaryMan
Aspierational
Joined: Jan 02, 2012
Age: 28
Posts: 2548
Location: Hants, UK
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 2:35 pm Post subject: |
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I got the joke 
Boy would I hate to grind in that game. Sounds depressing!
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"A man is but the product of his thoughts - what he thinks, he becomes." - Mahatma Gandhi |
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Rascal77s
Picnic Basket Thief
Joined: Nov 13, 2011
Posts: 2337
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 4:52 pm Post subject: |
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| JanuaryMan wrote: | I got the joke
Boy would I hate to grind in that game. Sounds depressing! |
lol never thought about grinding. Running around hugging everything? |
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MeerkatFetish
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: Apr 19, 2012
Age: 21
Posts: 54
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 5:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Rascal77s wrote: |
MMO is Massive Multiplayer Online and refers to multi-player video games Tequila. It was meant to be funny but my humor doesn't seem to work on aspies in general lol |
I would play that, as long as voice communication weren't allowed and everyone were stuck to just texting  |
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Tequila
Trust the people!
Joined: Feb 26, 2006
Posts: 26047
Location: Lancashire, UK
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 5:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Rascal77s wrote: | | Tequila wrote: | | Rascal77s wrote: | | "Social Anxiety Online"...... Sounds like an MMO for aspies. |
There are social anxiety forums online that you can hang out at - one of the largest of those is Social Anxiety Support (http://www.socialanxietysupport.com), although I don't post there often. |
MMO is Massive Multiplayer Online and refers to multi-player video games Tequila. It was meant to be funny but my humor doesn't seem to work on aspies in general lol |
Yeah, I meant it more in the context of the thread! Not to worry. |
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Bloodheart
Grisha's Gal
Joined: Jan 18, 2011
Age: 30
Posts: 2168
Location: Newcastle, England.
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 5:42 pm Post subject: |
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| roccoslife wrote: | | Bloodheart wrote: |
I remember once upon a time when I wasn't this anxious about talking online *sigh* |
Me too  I remember I used to be really chatty with people on forums and while playing WoW when it first came out. Now Im just as quiet online as I am in the real world and do what you describe, constantly typing things out, then thinking it sounds stupid and deleting it and starting over etc. I used to be big into msn messenger a few years ago too, it used to be my preffered method of communication with friends etc. Now I find it much harder than talking face to face or on the phone (not that anyone uses msn these days anyway). |
Why do you suppose that happened to you?
I had a popular blog, chatted on MSN/ICQ/Y!M, often went on forums (including being owner of one and moderator of another), and played games like Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies - I can't for the life of me figure out why these days anything like this would be hard for me.
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Bloodheart
Good-looking girls break hearts, and goodhearted girls mend them. |
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NeueZiel
Seņorita Gamera
Joined: Apr 29, 2012
Posts: 1246
Location: Kapustin Yar
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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You might be "burned" out from so much communication via typing, as weird as that sounds or it could just be the fact that people are a lot meaner on the internet and online than they were in the early 2000s. People were always dicks, but I remember at one point before the facebook boom that online felt like my safe haven from the people and social interaction I feared so much. Well guess what? Thanks to iphones, wireless internet/communication and the popularity of facebook EVERYONE is online. Even if you use a separate alias it still feels...really weird, maybe that's more my inner latent hipster (ugh) saying "EVERYONE IS ON THE INTERNET NOW WAHH".
With me I think one day I finally realized no one gave a sh** what I had to say on livejournal, my blog, or on forums. I realized my personality online was just as autistic and people somehow could pick it up even through words, there was just no issue with eye contact and stuff. I just thought, "Why bother..?" and started shutting myself off to everyone, living in my own little world. |
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JanuaryMan
Aspierational
Joined: Jan 02, 2012
Age: 28
Posts: 2548
Location: Hants, UK
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 6:43 pm Post subject: |
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Hey bloodheart, maybe because in the past the Internet was home to only the smart, the quirky and interest groups. Now it's become a lot more domestic, and overpopulated with domestic and common opinions. And with this the entitlement complex, requirement to interact and dominate other opinions has increased dramatically. Even the fun things you mentioned are this day and age more stressful and open to criticisms. I too ran a lot of things, had extensive commitments to online games and now I don't even have many friends on any messenger programs. The Internet is a very different place from when you were more active (sounds like 2003-2005?). Maybe this has played a big part in your reclusion.
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"A man is but the product of his thoughts - what he thinks, he becomes." - Mahatma Gandhi |
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NeueZiel
Seņorita Gamera
Joined: Apr 29, 2012
Posts: 1246
Location: Kapustin Yar
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 6:51 pm Post subject: |
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| JanuaryMan wrote: | | Hey bloodheart, maybe because in the past the Internet was home to only the smart, the quirky and interest groups. Now it's become a lot more domestic, and overpopulated with domestic and common opinions. And with this the entitlement complex, requirement to interact and dominate other opinions has increased dramatically. Even the fun things you mentioned are this day and age more stressful and open to criticisms. I too ran a lot of things, had extensive commitments to online games and now I don't even have many friends on any messenger programs. The Internet is a very different place from when you were more active (sounds like 2003-2005?). Maybe this has played a big part in your reclusion. |
You're so right here, I also really hate the "trolling" culture now, back in the day you had sites like SomethingAwful but for the most part their kind of harassment was very different. Sites would get the ALOD (awful link of the day) and someone would snip quotes and captions, heckling it. Some sites and communities I went to got ALOD ironically but it was nowhere near the level of what we have now, where every kid wants to be a master troll. I also really hate the new lingo people use in games.
Let's face it, the Internet has always had creeps but its a much scarier place now for some of the same reasons and many new ones. To me it feels like venturing out into the street of a metropolitan city like Chicago, where cars, taxis and people are moving every second and sidewalk is littered with all kinds of people, most who don't care but some hate and want to hurt you. Less than a decade ago it was more like countryside with a few small houses.
Despite the volume of posts I make here this forum is really the last bastion for me, its not perfect, but its the only place I'm not terrified to post on. |
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JanuaryMan
Aspierational
Joined: Jan 02, 2012
Age: 28
Posts: 2548
Location: Hants, UK
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 7:02 pm Post subject: |
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Hey Neue..your countryside analogy is spot on. 
I really don't get what they call "trolling" now either. I used to be a griefer, and I consider it different. A griefer tends to pull off well thought out practical jokes on a virtual platform like a game or interest site. Usually the person on the receiving end would be a little pee'd but usually see a funny side to it. SomethingAwful was a good one for that. But these days this "trolling" is simply a competition of who can abuse someone the most, and it's not even intellectual humour it's simple outright abuse like spamming inboxes with hate mail and fascism, defamating a person's character when they have a clean sheet, going after their families, desecrating online memorials for the recently deceased and more.
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"A man is but the product of his thoughts - what he thinks, he becomes." - Mahatma Gandhi |
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Tequila
Trust the people!
Joined: Feb 26, 2006
Posts: 26047
Location: Lancashire, UK
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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| JanuaryMan wrote: | | SomethingAwful was a good one for that. But these days this "trolling" is simply a competition of who can abuse someone the most, and it's not even intellectual humour it's simple outright abuse like spamming inboxes with hate mail and fascism, defamating a person's character when they have a clean sheet, going after their families, desecrating online memorials for the recently deceased and more. |
The media have completely twisted the meaning of the word "trolling" - it means winding someone up on the Internet, usually on an Internet message board, in order to spark a reaction out of them. It can be anything from completely non-malicious to an element of maliciousness in it, but this isn't really the same as bullying and certainly isn't the same as posting hateful, vile abuse on tribute pages and harassing people's families. That's criminal behaviour. |
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JanuaryMan
Aspierational
Joined: Jan 02, 2012
Age: 28
Posts: 2548
Location: Hants, UK
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 7:09 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for clarification 
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lostgirl1986
There's a party in my head.
Joined: Feb 29, 2012
Age: 26
Posts: 6284
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 7:10 pm Post subject: Re: Social anxiety online |
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| Yeah, I do. I still feel way more comfortable with talking to people online than face to face but I'm still pretty shy with people online, especially on MSN and chat because you don't have too much time to think about what you're going to say unlike e-mail. I express myself better in writing as well. Usually I'll go to topics that interest me and that you have a common ground interest/experience with the people with whom you are talking to. |
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Jtuk
Phoenix
Joined: Jan 22, 2012
Posts: 732
Location: Wales, UK
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 7:52 pm Post subject: |
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yes, I'm OK to begin with, then get too into it, then think I've gone too far, then hide. It's a frequent pattern and happening to me here on WP now.
Jason |
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