Autism and Social Patterns

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Being that individuals on the spectrum seem to notice/create patterns more frequently or in a more bizarre manner than neurotypical people, wouldn't that mean that in some circumstances, those individuals would pick up certain social courtesies such as when to say sorry because of the underlying patterns involved in observation and trial and error? Could this be part of the reason some people on the spectrum in adulthood are referred to as more 'mild', as they have learned (though possibly unbeknownst to themselves) the patterns of socializing throughout the years?

Obviously this assumes that the individual in question attempts to socialize and isn't a more solely introverted, reserved individual (regardless of spectrum or not). It likely also requires similar learning in other areas such as non-verbal skills and may not be possible if one cannot distinguish obvious tones etc. In other words, I don't think this would be very possible in the majority of cases, but I still find it intriguing.

It makes me wonder.. although an extroverted individual on the spectrum experiences a lot of rejection and whatnot throughout their life time, wouldn't that be better in the long run, at least sometimes? Are extroverted Auties/Aspies better off later in life?

What are your thoughts?

I popped out of my shell, spend a huge amount of energy trying to socialise and it backfired basically. Now I am in an awful depressive slump, wondering if it's worth being alive if I am never even going to have a lover again for the rest of my life and I have no motivation to want to bother doing anything other than eating chocolate ice cream (I don't like drinking alcohol or drugs as alcohol gives me headaches and makes me feel aggressive (not usual for me to feel aggressive unless I have been experiencing significant levels of abuse) and drugs are just nasty and I don't want to go there) so food is my crutch of choice when I am in this frame of mind as long as I don't over do it and give myself a tummy ache) and watching Norman Wisdom films.

I don't think repeated rejection is good for a person although rejection is not the only factor. It is the feeling that you are damned no matter what you do combined with the knowledge that you tried so hard and put so much effort in and it all came to nothing. It still was not good enough for this arrogant ego obsessed society. To them you are still s**t on their shoe and will be treated as such.

Yes I met a couple of fellas during my going out phase but they upset me. I thought I was being friendly and they seemed to think my friendliness meant I wanted to have sex with them. I don't like casual sex or one night stands, I was looking for someone to bond with. Men are icky...or at least some are. They think because you have a high sex drive and you are single that you will sleep with anything that has a penis dangling between their legs.

You show men a little bit of affection and they think you are local free prostitution service. I can only assume that it would be best to act coldly around men so they don't keep getting the wrong impression as people will no doubt blame me for giving off the wrong signals even though I have no idea what those are exactly. If I act coldly and ignore men though then I can pretty much be sure that I am remaining single forever.

I've digressed.

I tried being extroverted, my social skills didn't improve and just exhausted myself into a nasty episode of depression instead.

Staying in bed watching norman wisdom movies and eating chocolate ice cream today. Might organise my art of crochet collection later although I am upset over that at the moment as I spilled some coffee on one of the issues causing the pages to stick together. When I tried to pull them apart they ripped. Now I don't know whether to order in another copy of that issue or leave it and put up with it being damaged (poor thing). I am very fussy when it comes to the condition of my collections as I become very fond of them and I get upset when damage occurs to them. It is bothering me...

I have a tub of belgian chocolate haagen dazs in my freezer. They have it on special offer at Sainsbury right now. It is £2.83 a tub at the moment so I bought 2.

I find myself in a similar position to Bumble. It's not the same (I'm male, for a start), but I've also been through phases of trying to get out and interact only to find myself being rejected because I don't understand all the rules about "proper" eye contact, and understanding the complexities of social distance and conversation flow. I wouldn't call myself an extrovert, but I do like to have friends.

Then you realise that the only way to learn it is to practice, and if you practice you end up causing anxiety in NTs. I was reading a paper yesterday about "creepiness", and it is really scary how much of this overlaps into characteristics, even diagnostic criteria, for AS.

One cited study's finding included "Leander and colleagues ... discovered that interacting with individuals displaying inappropriate
levels of nonverbal mimicry during social interaction produces an actual physical sensation of feeling cold." I do know that I (and many other Aspies) learn social behaviour through (some often pretty clumsy) mimicry. This is a bad place to start.

(Much of the following makes reference to Francis T. McAndrew and Sara S. Koehnke (On the Nature of) Creepiness, Basis of a poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, New Orleans, January, 2013.)

As far as I can make out, there are factors (such as the social distance issues and not being able to follow conventional conversation flow) which mean that NTs, especially female NTs, find us as hard to predict as we do them. This raises anxiety levels, making them uncomfortable. This goes even if you have the sense to avoid inappropriate touching (do not touch unless invited is a really simple rule).

Besides what I've already mentioned, the factors that stood out include:
The person stood too close to your friend
The person had a peculiar smile
The person had unkempt hair
The person was dressed oddly
The person licked his or her lips frequently [sounds like a form of stimming]
The person was wearing dirty clothes
The person laughed at unpredictable times
The person made it nearly impossible for your friend to leave the conversation without appearing rude
The person relentlessly steered the conversation toward one topic

The paper also developed a composite variable, which described characteristics of "creepy people": "The appearance and nonverbal behavior items in the composite variable, being of the opposite sex (probably due to the predominantly female sample in our study), being extremely thin, not looking the interaction partner in the eye, asking to take a picture of the interaction partner, watching people before interacting with them, asking about details of one’s personal life, having a mental illness, talking about his/her own personal life, displaying too much or too little emotion, being older, and steering the conversation toward sex."

Now, there were others, and obviously some of these are things it's possible to overcome with a bit of thought and conscious self care (if I'm up to going out, I'm up to changing my clothes and washing my hair), and others can be dealt with on a rule base (eg. "do not ask to take a photo"), but, to me, this makes me think Aspie - while not all creepy people are Aspies, being as Aspie is going to leave you wide open to social rejection. It's possible to overcome some of these issues, but many of them are inevitably going to remain a nightmare.

The authors also note "We are also wary of individuals who have a preoccupation with monitoring the behavior of others." This is particularly nightmarish for Aspies, as one of the few available learning strategies is to observe their behaviour. I for one, have no idea how to start a random conversation with someone I haven't at least noticed.

The more of these behaviours you exhibit, the more NTs are going to have trouble interacting with you, so I suppose it's worth working on as many as possible, but just about all Aspies are likely to have trouble with several. I mean, start with improper eye contact, and work from there.

I can't speak to Bumble's issues with men. I know that I don't consciously regard women the way she describes, although I know there are men out there who do. I have identified another (possibly closely related) problem. I have been told that I'm unaware I'm being flirted with. In other words, I can't distinguish a "flirt" signal from a "friend" signal from a "casual conversation" signal (I can sort of distinguish the latter two, but not reliably). So, when I try to mimic NT behaviour, I'm probably sending unintended "flirt" signals along with the others - both to males and females (the occasions when I've had to extricate myself from a homosexual pickup - I score a zero on the Kinsey Scale - supports this hypothesis).

What I would say, then, is that those of us who try to interact more may learn more skills, but are also going to suffer greater levels of rejection, and this is likely to lead to similar levels of marginalisation than if we hadn't tried, along with depression and social anxiety - which is exactly what happened to me. I got out on Wednesday, spent a day hiding, and am only now starting to recover - and it wasn't an especially long day. There is still no way in Hell I'm going out today, and probably not tomorrow either.

This is definitely the case for me. I watch what other people do and try to do the same things. And I remember things almost like the way you would program a computer, the way you use IF/THEN statements in BASIC (IF the person does x THEN I respond by doing y). Sometimes it really backfires on me because I do the same thing I have seen others do, and it turns out it wasn't the right thing because different rules somehow apply to me. Or I do the same thing I have done before without realizing something is different in the current situation. In other words I do pick up on social rules or other people's preferences but I tend to interpret them a bit too rigidly, rather than dynamically.