The autism social rule book.

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I learned it at Babycenter and women who use cloth diapers on their babies were getting told "good luck" by other people about it and they were taking it as a judgmental comment. I saw them talking about it in a thread about that word they get told by people in real life. So I learned I better be careful when I say it to people because they can think I am judging them.

I think just means don't vent to them again about the same stuff especially. Depends on what you mean by "move on". Find other topics. They're still your friend, even if you did find their advice "unhelpful". If you've got to vent about the same hassle, find somebody else to dump it on who hasn't heard it before.

Yeah. Even if you can't move on, best to keep it to yourself or keep it private to your friends or to your therapist if you are seeing one. But keep it off forums or people will get negative impressions about you.

Heck even if you vent about a person online for the whole forum to read or any guests and that person you're venting about saw it, they can still think you're bullying them even if it was only that one time you made the thread and never made other threads or posts about them.

That's what I do but then people can just call it gossip because you are talking about it to more than one person if it was about another person of course you're having issues with or had issues with. Some may even see it as a witch hunt.

With obsessive thinking, this is all hard when you are very upset and can't move on.

This is one of those social sounds that has always bothered me. That "I'm sorry" always makes me _want_ to say, "You didn't do it!" or "It's not your fault!" I've never thought of saying "Thank you", since they're expressing sympathy. But that sounds right. Now if I can only remember that for the next time that I need it, which could be years (I hope it's never, actually, but I wouldn't be that lucky....)

Always read the first page of discussion-board topics

Always check the date of the OP before replying to make sure it's not old, also before responding to a post, check the date first on it and their profile to make sure they are still coming to the forum so you aren't replying to someone who will likely never read it.

Sometimes a pause indicates an opening. Other times, it's just people collecting their thoughts. If someone pauses, wait a few seconds before speaking. Likewise, don't pause and wait for a reaction if you aren't finished talking!

Never threaten suicide, people will think you are doing it for attention or to manipulate to get your way.

That's a good one.

Here's another:
People can generally tell if you're not actually making eye contact (i.e. staring at their nose or something). To avoid this, as well as the discomfort of eye contact, simply explain that eye contact is uncomfortable for you. Most people will try to understand.

Yeah, apparently if you're looking at someone's nose or between their eyes they may not realize you're not making direct eye contact, but they will get the sense that something is odd about the way you're looking at them, which can give them a "bad feeling" about you. You can sometimes excuse this without telling the world that eye contact bothers you (which can lead to all sorts of negative associations) by saying something like "looking away from people helps me concentrate" or "sorry, I'm just really tired" or something similar.

Your friends will probably try to understand that eye contact is uncomfortable for you, but acquaintances and business associates are likely to perceive you as really strange. After all, eye contact does not make a normal person uncomfortable. If you're trying to blend in, this is not a good thing to admit. I've heard colleagues in the past talking about someone behind their back - someone they were perfectly friendly to face-to-face - and gossiping about how they thought he was a serial killer or something because of his social oddities, which he was pretty open about. I think too many people have watched Dexter and similar shows/films and assume that a lack of normal social skill is a direct indicator of psychosis.

I can actually contribute a "rule" or guideline for making eye contact, however. I once confessed to a good friend that I didn't understand how you could "look someone in the eye." After all, we have TWO eyes, and we can't look in two places at once. She informed me that you just look in one eye, then every now and then, you switch. It's uncomfortable as hell at first, but if you can get used to it (and also remember not to maintain unbroken eye contact for too long), it goes a really long way towards making yourself seem normal. It's never felt completely comfortable for me, but with enough practice, it can become semi-second-nature (as in, I no longer have to count seconds or something to determine when to look away).

Hmm, I've never heard that one.

My boyfriend is constantly informing me of all of the social situations in which eye contact is especially important. Handshakes, introductions, and basically anything with strangers. As you can imagine, that's extremely uncomfortable. What I tend to do is look up in a direction near them, then look down. Basically, I look like a total sketch (I imagine).

Introductions are the worst...I have learned to force myself to make eye contact (or at least try to look at them), but when I do look up, I'm always caught off guard by their facial expressions! Sometimes they smile; sometimes they don't; I never know what to do...

I know eye contact is hard, but try to quickly glance at people as you walk in public areas. My uncle taught me this little expression: ''it's better to hold your head up high and be noticed only be the familiar, than to keep your head down and be noticed by the unfamiliar''. That means that looking confident will make you look beyond people and spot the people who you know, and looking unconfident will make others take advantage of it. I'm not sure why this should work, but my uncle (who is a typical NT conformer) taught me this, and he said that it may be hard now, but in about a year or so it may help me overcome my nervous thoughts about being stared at.

I can be taken as "Good luck, you're gonna need it." Meaning that it is not a good idea at all.

omg, haha, I had somone find out I was obsessed by him because he used my laptop, that was SO embaressing.

Btw this topic is just awesome, I read every rule and it just makes sense, it so great. Its like coming home from a different dimension and meeting my own kind for the first time ever. It just makes sense!