Social etiquette and the effects of isolation

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I spend 99% of my time alone. Hence very little interaction with others. Result -an increasing inability to know how to be socially with others. Some might call this a social etiquette deficit. I am never quite sure how to behave with other people. I am hyper aware that this could be a problem in terms of being socially acceptable.
I feel a little like Tarzan taken out of the jungle and thrust into polite company .

Well surely the only way you would get this way is if you were a shut in for some time.

In order to be social with others you need to get up to their level. This is not a judgement, this is the best way I think I have of describing a perception of the working of people. This means reducing your level of self-examination.

When the focus you have is something that you can share with others, that is when socialness occurs. Anything else regarding following the proper rules of socialness? Ignore that, for now. Socialness is not simply an action you do, it is an exchange of yourself with another person. How ever you -choose- to participate defines what the exchange will be.

What you describe, and what so many people on this forum describe, is a lack of understanding of social etiquette. I currently think that that's an EXTREMELY poor description of the actuality of autism. That's the way that NT's view it, and how other autistics view other autistics, because that view is based on observable perception. But that's not an explanation of the internal workings of who you are whatsoever.

Like, it seems like people here complain that they are not sociopaths, in terms of how they approach being social. They cannot control how someone else sees them, and it upsets them greatly. They then redouble their efforts into learning and understanding, trying to piece together all the nuance, so much so that they don't even realize that NTs don't focus on how to act right in the first place, and that that focus itself is the barrier that's making their communication poor.

Communication is -supposed- to be an exchange of selves. So if you are so self-centered (this is not using this term negatively, it is simply a note of where your focus lies, and that is within yourself) that you cannot talk about your thoughts, that's going to cause problems.

Truly being social is terrifying.

If you haven't ever been truly social, or true to yourself in social interactions, you will find you -will- make social errors. But trying to learn the social things to do and not do through ways other than experience will result in not actually learning them, as intellectual understanding is not the same as learning from experience.




Of course, where your attention or focus lies is not always controllable (ask someone who researches/groks ADD) and autism is not purely poor social skills.

So to have difficulty with social interaction is to be self centred rather than a genuine problem that some of us have?!
Talk about character assassination.

I am very sensitive about coming over like a complete social misfit/twat. I think if it was just my sister it wouldn't be quite so bad. However her husband verbally shoots from the hip and I find him quite intimidating.

I am I guess someone who subconsciously thinks of things to worry about, and even things most others would take in their stride become sources of anxiety/worry.

I find it hard to believe that people would take me as I am,foibles,warts and all. I think I am always expecting to be mocked which ties in with what I call the fearful paranoia.

Have been deliberating over what I should pack. Am thinking trousers, t shirt ,couple of pairs of socks and underwear,sleep shorts and t shirt for bed,dressing gown,slippers,toothbrush and electric shaver.

I remember some time after coming out of an intense depressive episode, I decided I needed a job asap, not that I was in any state of mind to work. This I'm sure is still partly the depression's fault, but a few weeks of web-based job searching and emails later I had a phone interview. It sounds silly but pretty much after saying 'hello' to the woman on the other end, I realised I couldn't - literally couldn't - speak to her. I ended up telling her a string of broken sentences that in hindsight must have been as crazy as they sounded because she hung up on me. :/
Definitely isolation has an impact on one's social (and job-seeking!) abilities. I often re-think that doomed interview and all the 'star employee' things I could have said, but sometimes that bridge between thinking words and then actually saying them just isn't there. Anxiety must play a huge role, and isolation is definitely a great way of eroding self-confidence.