Does anyone here actually not desire social contact?
Could this be some type of Schizoid overlap-comorbid thingy?
Not everyone (regardless of label) wants to socialize. There are even NTs who prefer solitude. Whether a person wants to socialize or not shouldn't be a diagnostic criteria. If you say you don't want to socialize, the professionals should listen to what you say.
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WP doesn't have a working first amendment.
Fuck. This will override the swear word filter.
Yes, but it implies a desire for a form of social contact one can handle, not the myriad varieties one cannot...
The healthy way to deal with the limitations everyone has, is to keep one's aspirations, realistically, within them.
I find it cruel enough to have had a life full of amazing people I had to let slip through my fingers because I have no way to know how to do anything else...
...without some misguided professional nitwit rubbing my nose in it too...
M
This I agree with.
I really enjoy socialising with others, others being my 3 best friends plus a small circle of their friends that I know very well. I have it as a part of my routine to go out with them once a week and if it's not possible I start feeling lonely and depressive.
I don't desire more friends than I have though- that would be too overwhealming. whenever I'm around people that I don't know my behaviour changes immediately- I'd appear pretty aspie to most of you.
when I'm around my friends I feel safe and happy and don't care about the social mistakes I might make because I know they won't hold them against me.
Danielismyname, I thought you were HFA, wouldn't that explain your unwillingness to socialise? anyway, autism/AS doesn't rule out schizoid so you just might be right.
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not a bug - a feature.
Ah, but I think there's some point to what those guys are telling you, Daniel. The fact is, NTs *do* enjoy social gatherings, therefore it's actually possible to enjoy them; it's just a question of finding out what NTs do, what frame of mind they set themselves in, what do they think (and what do they *avoid* thinking) to get something positive out of those social situations. And maybe you're indeed utterly unable to do *some* of those things NTs do... but it'd be extremely rare if you were unable to do virtually *all* of them. I think that's the point of those guys prodding you to keep trying to interact with others, on the off chance that you may actually learn to do one or two of those things, if even intuitively (or, for that matter, intellectually, where NTs do it intuitively).
It's like approaching a coffee machine and, because you don't know how to operate it, you don't get any coffee out of it. Well, maybe, but if you decide that you won't approach a coffee machine anymore, ever, you're sure as hell not going to get any coffee out of them, ever. What those guys are telling you, is to keep approaching the coffee machine, push all the buttons at random if you have to, so that eventually you might learn how to get some damn coffee out of it.
I'm more or less like you (and many others here, of course): when going to social gatherings, I find myself lost easily over 95% of the time, bored because I don't understand most of the conversations (or, rather, the point in having them), etc. But I don't actively refuse going to social gatherings, nor do I anticipate being bored virtually 100% of the time, because I know that, every now and then during those, I actually find myself engaged in an interesting conversation, an exchange of laughs, or even some positive, honest-to-God mutual sympathy.
And it's because I treasure those moments, however rare, that I don't want to stop interacting with others altogether.
Isn't that a bit like constantly bashing somebody else's head agin a brick wall in case someday they can work out how to teleport through it?
Not to mention a bit presumptive about how much they will get out of being on the other side anyway?
...and that is perfectly fine too...as long as you are the one working out your own cost/gain equation and making your own decision about it...not some professional trying to impose it upon you.
M
This is how I think of myself:
I am like a wild animal. A wild animal living among the humans (a herbivore not carnivore- relax). We all know how the average Joe plumber feels about wild animals. Not much like for them, understanding, patience, just wants them to go someplace else away from Joe Plumber. In some instances J. Plumber might even go so far as to harm one if they get on his nerves too much.
So, where do wild animals go if they wish to survive? To refuges of course!
Refuges, state parks, places where animals are protected from people who don't understand, haven't much empathy with them or patience for them, just wants them out of the way, out of their hair so they can get on with the art of being a human with oooooooh soooooooooo wonderful social skills!
That is what I consider my home to be, a refuge, but like a wild animal, I sometimes leave my refuge.
So yeah, sometimes I get social contact. Other times I want to be in my refuge, away from them too.
It's nice having a place to withdraw in while I recover from my experiences.
I am like a wild animal. A wild animal living among the humans (a herbivore not carnivore- relax). We all know how the average Joe plumber feels about wild animals. Not much like for them, understanding, patience, just wants them to go someplace else away from Joe Plumber. In some instances J. Plumber might even go so far as to harm one if they get on his nerves too much.
So, where do wild animals go if they wish to survive? To refuges of course!
Refuges, state parks, places where animals are protected from people who don't understand, haven't much empathy with them or patience for them, just wants them out of the way, out of their hair so they can get on with the art of being a human with oooooooh soooooooooo wonderful social skills!
That is what I consider my home to be, a refuge, but like a wild animal, I sometimes leave my refuge.
So yeah, sometimes I get social contact. Other times I want to be in my refuge, away from them too.
It's nice having a place to withdraw in while I recover from my experiences.
That is SO true...
M
Autism is one of my repetitive behaviours. Unfortunately, clinical sites mostly state that people with Asperger's want to socialize like everyone else (from a small amount like my mother, to people who need it constantly), so I have to step out of my hollow and ask others. It's purely mechanical with no emotions attached.
I don't think it's normal to desire complete solitude from others, and I do desire this. Perhaps due to my greater level of impairment as a child compared to someone with AS brought on this Schizoid personality (I was socially aloof); perhaps it's due to my complete empathetic disconnect to others, and I don't "feel" what others feel when they see and interact with another human (there's varying levels of impairment in empathy for those with an ASD).
I prefer a very low level of social contact. When I interact with people, I want to exchange ideas and do some purposeful activity, rather than "socializing" per se. I don't have any real degree of social phobia; I just find most types of socializing rather boring. Even on Internet forums, I remember people's ideas more than I remember the people themselves.
It's not that I don't care about people; I've got a huge sense of fairness, and when something happens that violates that, I feel there's something horribly wrong and it has to be fixed. But I just think it's not all that interesting to interact with other people unless they know interesting things that I can learn. They don't have to be in my special interests; I'm quite happy to talk to a cab driver about what it's like to drive a cab. But just sitting and talking about nothing, or things that both people know already... Kind of boring, honestly.
Optimum level of social contact for me? Maybe 1-2 hours per week. More, if we're engaged in something I'm interested in, like a science project or a D&D game.
_________________
Reports from a Resident Alien:
http://chaoticidealism.livejournal.com
Autism Memorial:
http://autism-memorial.livejournal.com
I am like a wild animal. A wild animal living among the humans (a herbivore not carnivore- relax). We all know how the average Joe plumber feels about wild animals. Not much like for them, understanding, patience, just wants them to go someplace else away from Joe Plumber. In some instances J. Plumber might even go so far as to harm one if they get on his nerves too much.
So, where do wild animals go if they wish to survive? To refuges of course!
Refuges, state parks, places where animals are protected from people who don't understand, haven't much empathy with them or patience for them, just wants them out of the way, out of their hair so they can get on with the art of being a human with oooooooh soooooooooo wonderful social skills!
That is what I consider my home to be, a refuge, but like a wild animal, I sometimes leave my refuge.
So yeah, sometimes I get social contact. Other times I want to be in my refuge, away from them too.
It's nice having a place to withdraw in while I recover from my experiences.
that's true, but to take your methaphor a bit further- there are people who like wild animals and who are willing to get to know them and accept them. it's just that such people are so few and far between...
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not a bug - a feature.
humans are the worst animals that visit my house.
they come armed with preconceptions and attitudes and they try to steer my mind into their "ideal" way of thinking.
i am totally resistant to that.
my belief set is like a plastic that can not be biodegraded by anyone elses suggestions.
i formed my outlook on life without human intervention, so their intervention at this later stage is totally ineffectual.
i feel like humans are all very self centered in an egotistical way.
most humans will fight hardest to gain stuff for their personal selves.
i hate being at the supermarket among other humans that see i am a human and expect me to act like them.
i resist to acclimatise to their attitudes and i can not talk with them about the particularities of their story to me.
i am totally disinterested in the thoughts of other humans, as they are just electrical impulses that flow along their neuronal conduits of previous experience.
this will sound bad, but humans are just gifted monkeys.
all their thoughts are biologically programmed to be proliferent throughout their audience, and so they are just vocalizing their biological instinct.
like wolves howl at the moon.
like birds chirp in a tree.
but animals have one totally astounding advantage over humans in the quest for my love.
they are incapable of lying.
I think we're only talking about people in this particular topic. I know more than one Aspie who gets primary social contact from animals, though, especially pets. I interact with my two cats pretty regularly, for example. The nice thing about cats is that they don't really mind if you get bored with them; they'll just go find themselves a patch of sun to nap in. I do have to make sure one of my cats gets enough playtime, though, or he'll go chasing after the other one and make her neurotic.
_________________
Reports from a Resident Alien:
http://chaoticidealism.livejournal.com
Autism Memorial:
http://autism-memorial.livejournal.com
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