Can An Autistic Man Be Very Social?

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I am the opposite. I shy away from social settings. Is not that I want to be rude. But on the other side of the family to mine, my cousins eldest boy (My dads brothers daughters first child) is very social. He thrives on being social. He is not happy unless he is in a social setting and he comes alive in such a setting. A disco is his element!
But he does have issues. He was in special needs classes in school. It was funny. I mentioned that I was on the list to be assessed, as he thougjt he may be autistic. I was joking with him and said "No, you are just thick!" (We get along well together. He knows I'm joking with him).
Anyway. He said his doctor had thought he was autistic so has put him on the list to be assessed. He is totally the opposite to me. It is why I was puzzled at first when he mentioned that he might be autistic. I worked with him on the last job (How I origionally had the job at the store two temporary jobs ago)... He has a real gift in that he is so naturally able to fit in wherever he is in any social enviroment... He gets on soo well with customers. Its the other things he struggles with things.

There is one area which may indicate autism in that his ability to co-ordinate his body is not quite up to scratch. Clumsy etc.
But is it common for men to be autistic and be very very social? I am the complete opposinte. Yes, I am polite and friendly and can deal with people if I need to, but I tend to prefer to shy away from a social enviroment. Is interesting how we get along so well as we are the opposites. Ok, I seem to often be getting him out of trouble when he digs himself into another situation as he often claims to be an expert in whatever field he is talking about when it soon becomes plain that he doesn't know a lot... But I don't want to disscourage him. Just steer him in the right direction. He really thrives as a salesperson. It is the one area where I really know he is naturally gifted.

I had to work and work at being a salesman. I had to work real hard to not stim and to come across as bold when I am naturally shy. For me it is all masking. Is not that I don't like people or meeting them, but I find it hard. A days worth of being social with customers for me takes a few days worth of recovery! More like a week of recovery these days to be honest! (I used to require less recovery time when I was younger, but I still needed it).

Of course. Being autistic means that one has trouble learning social skills, but it doesn't automatically mean that one doesn't want to socialize.

In spite of all the experience I've had in dealing with people, I still find myself at social gatherings feeling like I'm on the outside looking in -- like I'm in the middle of a street, with glass houses all around, people inside those houses, and no visible means of getting inside one of those houses to be with the people.

I'm a man with an official aspergers diagnosis and I'm a very social person. I'm an autistic male, but I also probably have many feminine traits (emphatic, emotionally sensitive and imaginative). I'm fascinated by people. Human behaviour and psychology have been my special interest since I was a teenager. I became a keen anthropologist of my own society as solution to my total social confusion I felt as an adolescent. I've gotten pretty good at it as my special interest became a career as I have become a psychologist. My social skills are so well studied and practiced that they are often better than an NTs. I find NTs are on autopilot throughout most of their social interactions, but because I'm almost completely reliant on using an intellectual process to interpret and respond to social stuff I'm always wide awake and so I notice things NTs don't. But, outside of work I'm happy to keep a low social profile. My love my work with people,but it drains my batteries so I leave work each day mentally drained. Now I'm getting older, I have less energy than I was younger and am needing more downtime.

I have a friend, diagnosed around the same time that I was, who would get frustrated with our NT friends for not being social enough! He was really into going out dancing, always wanting to arrange nights out to go clubbing, and loved both playing and coaching team sports. When our little social group all started "growing up", getting jobs and settling down in long-term relationships, he was forever complaining that he had no-one to go out with any more.

I can pretend to be very social , it's all an act.

Am I being very social ?

Wow. For me I feel similar to what Fnord said.


Fnord
Post subject: Re: Can An Autistic Man Be Very Social? Reply with quote
In spite of all the experience I've had in dealing with people, I still find myself at social gatherings feeling like I'm on the outside looking in -- like I'm in the middle of a street, with glass houses all around, people inside those houses, and no visible means of getting inside one of those houses to be with the people.


I am a bit like this in a social gathering.


But the very strange thing is, in past employment situations, I have been able to wear an official mask where I takeon the roll of the position and then I am fine, BUT it does late a lot out of me to do it. And these days I have been feeling so fragile that I find I can't do the things like I once was able to do them. This concerns me. I am really hoping that the fragilidity will heal over time where I can pull myself back into being able to do the things I once did.

I hope so too MG

I love this description. People are entirely inaccessible to me, although I don't necessarily want into their world.

I went to high school with a guy on the spectrum who appeared to have no anxiety whatsoever and was extremely chatty with whomever happened to be near him, be it a fellow classmate, teacher, or a total stranger during a field trip. So yeah, it’s possible for an autistic person to be very social though.

In regard to myself, the phrase “selectively social” is the best descriptor, as I enjoy being social sometimes, usually when planned ahead, but not others, since I usually need time to recover after such an event.

I'm sure it can happen. I went through a vary sociable phase for a year or two while I was living among some people I felt safe with. Performing music probably makes me look more sociable than I am. It tends to be something of an ice breaker that gets people to come and talk to me sometimes.

What limits me is that with large numbers of friends the social complexity gets overwhelming and I can't keep up with all the changes, so by default I feel reluctant to add to the list.

Yes, I used to support an autistic guy who was very sociable. He had a team of about twelve people who would take him out and party. It was a fun job taking him out to punk gigs and pagan rituals. He is very gregarious.

For the few years that I performed publicly, I found that it often attracted rather more attention than I either wanted or could cope with. My stage-fright was nothing compared to my off-stage-fright! I recognise now how I used to use other band members as a "human shield", and I'm kind of thankful that we didn't attract very many gushing fans!


My social life is far more comfortable now that I've settled down to having a relatively small number of friends with whom I'm comfortable letting my mask down a little bit. Three of our little troupe, including me, were all diagnosed within months of each other during our 40s. We'd known each other for donkey's years, but were all as surprised as each other when we discovered this (each as much by our own diagnoses as by those of the others). But I don't think it's that much of a coincidence. Despite many differences in our tastes and beliefs we all have the same open mindedness and "style" of friendship, as do many of the little web of NT friends who brought us together (who also act as a kind of "filter" for who else we might get introduced to). Our evenings of monologues, rants, tangents, and gallows humour probably wouldn't be most people's idea of a fun night out, but they suit us just fine.

I am "social", my Aspie-like mom was "social" and yet we watched NTs, we didn't join. Read "Autism in Heels" - the author was super social (even did cheerleading). When I do rally folks together it's for a Cause, not a spa day.

Have you heard of "Aspergese"? I was at a social event and there was a person "like me" --- I suspect we could have talked for hours and not been "awkward" b/c we wouldn't have judged our conversation similarly. In answering the ASD-like person's question I had gone over the NT 2-min limit and my NT co-worker turned the conversation back to the ASD-like individual (how very NT) who was taken aback b/c the conversation had been progressing just fine in our opinion: 5-10 min, interruptions for clarification and furtherment... it was splendid. So who's awkward now, I ask? The NT - who disrupted the natural flow of conversation. "Unnatural" and "awkward" to him, but we were doing just fine. So who get's to say what is awkward or not? I think chit-chat is awkward, but NTs get to say it's what everyone "should" do. I think that exchanging knowledge is natural and NTs get to say it's "awkward". Boo.

^ I couldn't resist a little chuckle of recognition there.

On several occasions, I've been at some do or other, and been delighted to find someone else there who speaks "Aspergese". But it seems that you can never have a conversation in "Aspergese" for very long before someone comes over to insist that you should "have some fun", "let your hair down", "lighten up", "stop being party-poopers", "mix more", etc., etc. I don't interrupt other people's conversations that I'm not part of to insist that they change the subject or go do something else, and I'd run a mile if I thought the conversation was becoming confrontational.

Boo!

I'm a very social aspie. I enjoy evenings out with my two closest friends. I also go to clubhouse dances and other social events whether my two friends are going to be at them or not. I have a great time at those events.