Social Norms

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I was reading a few different websites that say that females with Aspergers will attempt to pick up and mimic social rules and cues whereas males remain oblivious-this has to do with differences in brain wiring, females are generally peace-seeking, etc.
I know this is true in my case. I didn't realize I was doing pretty much everything wrong socially until I was around 8, but from that point on I tried my best to copy the speech patterns and behaviours of others around me. I continue to do so, referencing my scripts constantly, although almost every day I discover that I'd laughed too quickly or smiled too much. -.-

So the point of all this is: Do you look for and imitate social norms, like boring exchanges and scripted expressions, to remain in a more optimal social position?

I definitely try to imitate social norms and traits that I pick up from people that I'm around a lot or my close friends. It's basically how I learn to fit in society.

That is exactly what I do. I realised about 11 or 12 that I was getting everything wrong (I had no idea about Aspergers I just thought I was a horrible person) and so I set about learning how to get it right. I watched other people very carefully and mimicked them, I read books on etiquette, I watched films and TV programmes and copied the characters or I chose another woman that I admired and copied her. I practised whole conversations in front of the mirror and imagined interactions in my head until I felt more comfortable with them.

The positive side to this is that I am now good at most social interactions, but the negative aspect is that it took me a long time to work out who I was as a person because the real me was so tangled up with the pretend me. I had whole relationships where I wasn't me at all (if that makes any sense). I think mimicking can work as long as there is a clear line in your mind about the real you and your public persona.

I've always done this, and I still do this without even realizing it. For example, a friend of mine called me out on one particular event...

I had been having coffee with a gay professor friend of mine earlier that day. Well, he has a lot of flamboyant mannerisms and such, and apparently I had picked them up from him that day. So, at work later that afternoon, according to my friend, I was acting like a gay man. She said that it was weird and it was freaking her out. I told her that I had had coffee with a gay friend, but she's NT and still didn't quite understand my behavior.

I do this without realizing it.

I am male and I TRIED doing that just a couple of weeks ago, mimicking the social norms of my colleagues around me... aaaand it really didn't work out for me. They picked up pretty fast that there was something 'off' about me, and I felt very, very uncomfortable pretending to be something I wasn't. So I said to myself "Eh, screw it", and dropped the whole act altogether. Now, they're gonna take me as I am, or else they're not gonna take me at all.

As far as mimicking behaviours in general, I have done that fairly consistently over the past 3 years or so. Generally, I copy the behaviours of people I like who are sociable. I've had a couple of colleagues who are quite extraverted and with whom I've gottan along with a house on fire, and I've considered them kind of role models for me in terms of social interaction. So, often I think back on how they did things in social situations, and I try to apply that in my own social interactions now, and that seems to be working.

I mimic to some extent to get along with people. It was sort of part of how I originally understood people. Give them such and such an input to get a specific result from them. I saw what other people did to get certain results and mimicked what they did to (try) get the same result. I think that is part of why AS went unrecognised in me for so long. However I dont get the more complicated things and dont really get the differences in how to treat different genres of people.

I didn't even realize how crucial social skills were to surviving in this world until I entered college and there was this guest speaker there who spoke of how important maintaining friendships and creating your own social network are and how they could help you a lot once you started working, and further more upon joining WP. Now, I at least try not to be a hermit, even when I'd rather be at home reading or something. It feels like I have a lot to catch up on now though in terms of socializing

I guess I mimic social norms - but do so unconsciously.

I do wonder about child/teen/adult brain with AS/ASD - the fact is that teen brains work differently to adult brains, so I wonder how this effects those of us on the spectrum and how it may effect AS/ASD assessment between kids and adults. I don't think enough with AS/ASD research focuses on differences between people on the spectrum; different sexes, ages, other neurological differences.

As a kid, I never mimiced people, I found the concept of acting rather difficult. When I got older and I pushed hard to learn social skills, I did adapt certain phrases and mannerisms little by little. I would watch people a lot and pick up small things here and there. But outright copying has never been my style. I encorporate things into my personality.

I don't mimic people but I've always been a 'people-watcher' - I observe how people behave, interact etc, and try to learn from it. Thing is though, I'm always worried that I'll get caught out by behaving the wrong way or saying the wrong thing, so I tend to be quite reserved and then people think I'm aloof.