I hate the concept of "social skills"

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Who's to judge what my "skills" are? Is someone who's eccentric or quirky less skilled than the mainstream?

I'm trying to reach a state of inner peace, through Eastern philosophy and such, but I can't help but sometimes let things get to me.

yeah I hate the concept too. I wish I could sneaky peek in the script whenever I don't know what to say

SAME HERE!

I've come to dislike the term, because I find it sad that so many Aspies believe that social skills is what will make the difference, when our problem lies elsewhere: the inability to use intuition to improvise in new social situations where skills is NOT what is required but intuition is.

Social skills kill me every day of my life.

AGREED!

I agree with GreenTea. There's a social skills training class here that meets once a month and I want to go to it.. even tho my social skills have improved a lot over the years. I just want to find out what deficits I have. I don't even know!

it's like telling blind people they could see if they'd just squint harder...

skills are learned behaviors that are developed in the brain. but if that part of your brain doesn't work as described, then it's kind of hard to build a foundation.

The NTs, including shrinks, are confused about
the difference between "skill" and "instinct."

Simple, basic social skills can be taught. All children need to be taught, and most Aspies need a little extra instruction. Emily Post and your mother are good resources for that sort of thing. You can phrase the question simply, with real words, and most adults will give you the same answer. Most of the people who are articulate enough to hang out here know enough social skills and don’t really need any more instructions.

The rules are pretty stable within a culture, like traffic regulations. When that little red light comes on, you are expected to stop. When it “changes” (the red light turns off and the green light turns on) you are expected to go. By the age of 19 (the OP) you probably know enough of them to drive efficiently and safely.

After that comes the fascists who want to impose their fantasies on others, and the sadistic ba***rds who are just playing Calvinball. It’s just a carrot on a stick. It’s a lie.
(The only rule in Calvinball is that you can't play it the same way twice. “They aren't really rules, more like guidelines.” http://net.educause.edu/er/erm07/erm0731_fig.gif)

Instincts are inborn and you cannot really learn them. You can learn a few tricks, and will continue to learn them all of your life, but you will never be good at it.

Last edited by Tahitiii on 08 Feb 2009, 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't know to be honest.
I go to a social skills group and all they do is state the plain obvious... A bit like taking someone poor at Maths and telling them the answers to equations. It doesn't actually help in most situations, only very specific ones.
I don't mind though, people I like go there and I get along with them very well(aspies I think), and we get to talk about things we like(mainly computers) a lot when the hired social skills person(don't know what she's actually called) doesn't turn up. This is every Wednesday lunch time at my school, just incase you were wondering, lolz.
EMZ=]

i do too.. but....

it's nice when people respect your desire to be left alone--not because they hate you but because they respect you. it's nice when NTs enjoy being around us--due to our expertise in devising a method of sidesteping routine social rituals, thus exempting ourselves from ranking games ...once that is accomplished, most of the pressure is off, and it's a walk in the park to smile, nod, wave and be friendly--which NTs absolutely thrive on btw. ..IMO, miracles of social interaction are accomplished by caring enough about yourself to get what you need in order to be safe and happy .

and that inevitably involves some skill..i've recently begun writing a book on clear intent, hope to get it published, and hope it's a best-seller.

having been more or less reclusive all my life, and having survived the socialization process with only a smidgeon of self-esteem intact...it hasn't been easy navigating the social waters..it isn't easy for us to survive, let alone be happy. and when NTs damn near seek out your company more than you seek out theirs...it's like having your cake and eating it too..at the very least. finally you can breathe a sigh of relief because it's no longer this huge weight on your shoulders that causes you to walk all hunched over and grimace and maybe repeatedly stim...and exhibit other body language signals that show your fear and trepidation and lack of confidence.

whatever self-esteem remaining after you've been socially bludgeoned for 18 years...please nurture it and make it grow strong. sooner or later you'll be glad you did.

So they're giving you something good by accident. You need a focus or it would fall apart, and you need an official sounding justification so the powers-that-be will allow you to congregate. That sounds like it should work. Do you hang out with the same people outside of this class?

One of them. But I hanged out with him before the group started, and I've known him since I was 3 years old, and we've been on holiday together and stuff, so the social group didn't really do anything. I probably do talk to him a bit more thanks to it, and it does cause conversation at times.
The other 5 or so that go to it I don't tend to talk to out of the group, but do enjoy talking to them in the group. I'm the only girl in the group, so it's sort of awkward. My friend was offered to go there too, but she didn't want to go, and I think she would hate it when she found out it was about social skills and found it very patronizing(she has a social life superior to mine by far, lol).
EMZ=]

Exactly Greentea, I call it the social instinct.

I have come to the conclusion that if I father a kid that I should not send them to the public school system at all. The reason being is my aspie child might pick up values that I do not want them to pick up from the NT majority.

Greentea, here is another thing NTs do that I have realized. They do stuff like this. Sometimes when they say social skills they mean values meaning they sometimes they take two seperate words and roll them up into one word.

They do the same thing with the word empathy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy. There are two words here empathy and empathic concern. Again they rolled up empathic concern into the word empathy. I think this is one of the major reasons we have problems understanding the NT dialect.

This is similar to Newspeak in George Orwell's 1984. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak. The problem is is we're still using old speak.

Greentea, check out this article by George Orwell. http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/pol ... sh/e_polit

Last edited by cubedemon6073 on 08 Feb 2009, 3:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

? That post is only seven minutes old. The links are empty.

i dont need no freakn skills other then my mad 1337 ones