What price do you pay for socializing?

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This week has been a week where I've willingly socialized with others. It has not come cheaply.

I'm not so much anxious to ask questions anymore. In fact, I'm asking too many questions. I can see that my professors are getting tired of my persistent inquiries.

I notice that I will drain away the conversation to the point where the other will think I've lost interest. I will always look away, focus on something neutral, or just look at their mouths when they speak. If I feel some kind of presence behind me, like a person walking or a noise from afar, I have to see what it is.

Yesterday, when I was buying an expensive watch for myself (which I might return ). We were talking for about 4-6 minutes when she asked me if I was nervous. She said I was being very "fidgety". I can see why, I didn't stop tapping on the glass case since I got there.

Earlier this week, I was talking to this other girl whom I had no idea what to talk about so in an attempt to small talk I began talking about folders. I mean seriously, folders!

I feel good with myself, somewhat confident that I can socialize with people to an extent. I just think the price I'm paying is making myself come across as very strange, aloof, and apathetic. I'm sure it's not that different with you guys.

Usually, I am very reserved, very to myself; never speaking or talking. I guess I'm losing part of my "mysterious charm".

People have socialized with me, but I've always been one for basic receptive language in "social" settings; no one has bothered saying something that is meaningful enough for a reply in-depth out there and in person other than professionals.

I don't socialize, nor do I want to.

You mean aside from sounding like a complete idiot?

Socializing becomes easier and more natural with pracitice. If you limit the amount you socialize, then you will never be good at it and always come across as strange. If think if you go out and keep socializing, you will get good at it.

I find it physically draining.

The really big price for socialising? For me that's coming off totally random, colourful and never quite representing a coherent line. I just do something, anything, not caring how it comes off to others and whether the expression is correct.

I socialise just because everyone expects a certain amount of it from me and would I stop it, I'd get in trouble. How I see it is that I socialise a lot, but neurotypicals repeatedly complain that I'm withdrawn and make myself scarce. Talk of different perceptions here.

I'm a different person to everybody who has wanted to get to know me. I tend to borrow actions too, actions, sentences. It sometimes feels like I can hardly express my personality.

To J. I'm an utter lunatic, to V. I don't know what I am, to D. I'm a thoughtful and probably insecure, to K. I'm shy but cool(?), to M. I'm all cocky and confident.

I reflect what a person prospects on me once they think they know me. I know I come off as randomly because I can be very charming and even somewhat manipulating, I'm very observing and have an incredible patience - by using all this, I not only can make myself appear almost invisible (which I'm a lot to think about it), but I also am like a mirror.

A sorrowful thought. Learning about autism has helped only very basic to express myself, happiness and sadness, but beyond that. I just wish I knew how to do it.

For me, the price of being around people at all is an increase in overload. I have come to automatically note them as something I have to expend energy perceiving, because otherwise bad things can happen unexpectedly around them. This leads to a constant drain on energy unless I can make myself stop singling them out for my attention, and then when I'm not paying attention they often intrude themselves into the center of my attention, or try to. They also do this when they think I'm not paying attention but when in reality I'm just not sending out the proper signals.

The "bad things can happen unexpectedly around them" comes from a long time of finding that if I am not paying direct attention to them, or if I even just look to them as if I'm not paying direct attention to them, then they start doing things like waving their hands in my face, hitting or kicking my body, shaking my body, screaming in my ear, and other things that are highly aversive (some of them worse than all that, such as the kids who used to jump up and down on my hands and arms in an attempt to get a reaction out of me since I was reacting to nothing they could tell anyway). Then in mental institutions, shutdown was very dangerous because it ended up with me getting in trouble at best and being beaten and tied up at worst.

All of this meaning that I try to pay attention to people for safety reasons even if I am not socializing around them. I have found that it is dangerous to not notice them so I notice them. And noticing them takes effort, and if I have to notice them for long enough, it becomes impossible to notice them and also impossible to understand a whole lot of things: they take away all my energy I use for understanding things or being able to do things.

Socializing with them is hard on a whole new level because it requires a certain level of interaction. I find it rewarding to socialize with some people, but still draining with all but one or two of them. (One of them I have known and trusted for so long that her company is almost no more aversive to me than the company of an object. I can get exhausted by her, but it's much harder because my brain processes her as so thoroughly familiar that she's not tiring unless we talk to each other too long or something in which case it's the words, not the company.)

So despite enjoying socializing and needing some degree of it, the price can be very steep, and it is basically exhaustion which leaves no room for standard processing of anything or response to my environment, in extreme forms it means that I freeze more often and for longer and am able to do fewer things. So I am very careful about socializing.

My favorite people to socialize with are cats, and I have a volunteer job doing exactly that. To sit in a room full of cats, I can understand the social context far more effortlessly than a room full of humans, and I interact with them on a level that is more natural to me. It is less tiring and draining even though I am severely allergic to them.

There should be isolated exercises that an aspie can do to improve social skills, opposed the general practice of socialising. You know the way body builders concentrate on a body part though a split routine to get overall strong. he wouldn’t just do one overall general exercise to get strong but the does different types. I am no condoner of body building 5 day split routine, I just had to use it as an example.

The price you pay, is only as you perceive it. I try to tell myself that it doesn't matter what I say, it doesn't matter what they think, it'll be okay. I am who I am, eff any who won't accept.

I know that's right, but I still struggle with it. After all, I am who I am, and I'm very uncomfortable around people I don't know or trust. Maybe one day I'll get "it."

Usually I answer questions, I've asked very few.

I like to gain insight on things of interest through people. And I like psychological shields.

I have this problem too. Right now I'm taking an anti-anxiety pill for nervousness, it's done wonders. Yes, I've had people tell me how different I am like a compliment. Which might be a polite way of saying I'm strange because well maybe I am a little strange. For me it's taken some practice. When I do small talk, I usually ask about themselves. It sort of puts them on the spot light. You'd be surprised how much some people enjoy talking about themselves. I usually have to cut them short with, "I've got to go, I need to get this or that done." Keep the confidence up, don't let AS or whatever it is have label you. As for fidgeting, I used to do that still do sometimes but not as bad. I think because of the medication I'm on. Might be nerves as well as your conditon.

I'm afraid that I socialize too much, I'll become an NT.

And that thought scares the crap out of me.

I tend to socialise fairly well thats wot i get 4rm NTs which is good feedback however i don't do it very often cos i feel my special interests play a massive part in my life.