What's the difference between aspie shyness and

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Joined: 1 Jul 2008
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26 Aug 2009, 11:07 am

It's a semantics problem. We need to define the word first.

Senility was once an unexplained phenomenon that just happened to old people. Then we learned that some confusion is caused by life style, other illnesses, medications, or other factors that can be treated or addressed. In other cases, confusion is caused by untreatable diseases like Alzheimer's. When they got done picking away at the causes, there was nothing left, and "senility" was declared a myth. We still have people who are confused, but we have a different understanding now and call it by a bunch of different names.

The word, "shy" is a description of an outwardly observable behavior, not an attempt to name a cause. If someone seems shy, then he is shy.

darby54
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26 Aug 2009, 1:35 pm

Callista wrote:

Shyness is a personality trait that can belong to either AS or non-AS.

Aspies are more likely to be shy than NTs, but there are more dimensions to social personality than shyness, and some of them are autistic traits.

I am neither shy nor outgoing... I am more asocial.

Shy people care about what other people may think, and so feel anxiety when asked to be with many people or many people they don't know well, so they make close friendships with a few people. Outgoing people will want to get to know everyone, so they are more confident and make connections easily at the expense of making those close friendships that shy people are more prone to make.

Me, though... well, I have little social anxiety; but I am just so introverted that it is more like I am just unconnected or aloof from others than truly "shy". I can make a presentation with only a small amount of nervousness, and would greatly prefer a presentation to a conversation, because I get so badly lost in conversations. But I don't get nervous in conversations either, and am prone to buttonholing people in line at the grocery store to announce that I have just adopted a new cat, or something similarly inane.

So that makes me neither the eccentric extrovert or the nervous loner stereotype, but something entirely different... it's as though I'm simply living my life parallel to the other people in the world, and we happen to inhabit the same dimension, but otherwise I simply live a life parallel to others' lives, never quite touching theirs.

I have never found a proper word for the degree of social connectedness someone experiences. It has no relationship to introversion or extroversion. Many people with a very low degree of social connectedness would probably be diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder; but oddly enough I don't quite fit into that either, as I simply care too much about others' welfare, even if I never quite touch their lives. I suppose "empathy" would be a word for it, but then only if "empathy" can be explained to be something quite different from, and unrelated to, "compassion"... a sociopath has empathy but not compassion; an altruistic autistic person has compassion but not empathy... Even then there's no good word for it, and that frustrates me.

Well said! I agree with and relate to everything you say... except I don't talk to someone at the grocery store unless I have to, lol.

The way I see it, shyness is fear-based, e.g. fear of others, fear of judgment, fear of one's own lack of confidence, etc.

But non-involvement with others, disliking socializing, and being quiet because there's nothing to say, aren't necessarily fear-based, and that's the difference for me.

Socializing for me is a physically, mentally and emotionally debilitating experience, as well as tediously boring, so I avoid it. But I'm certainly not shy. Back in the 80s (during my fitness obsession) I was a professional aerobics instructor for five years. I loved it. But trying to chitchat before and after class, or those horrible 'girls night out' with the other instructors, pure torture. As you point out, big difference between presentation and conversation. Also, back in high school I was in the drama club. I could act on stage with a person yet hardly be able to force out a non-scripted word to them backstage.

darby54
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26 Aug 2009, 2:36 pm

Tahitiii wrote:

It's about talking to too many people at once. I still have no idea how anyone can do it. There's so much to think about and do when you're talking to just one or two people that it's exhausting. Even when it's someone I like, it's a lot of work. Talking to 30 people, all at the same time? Forget it.

Trinny wrote:

About presentations.
Maybe you just can’t stand all these eyes on you, without saying anything, just looking at you.

That’s what I don’t like about presentations, we had to do many last year in university.
Also I can’t sit in public transport facing the people who don’t speak to me, but I’m not shy.

This is a really good point, Trinny. I think it's extremely distracting to have all those eyes silently watching you. I can get distracted when only one set of eyes silently watches me. And when I get distracted I lose focus, get stressed and things get difficult. I don't know why exactly. I'll have to think about that. But it's definitely the eye thing. I even have a hard time reading posts with avatar eyes watching me, as silly as that sounds.

In thinking about the eye thing, I realize that the kind of 'presentations' in my life that didn't bother me - my aerobic-instructor career, and acting in plays on stage, as well as dancing on stage - in those types of activities, the eyes weren't on me in the same way they are when you're giving a speech and everyone is silently staring at you. In exercise classes people mostly watch themselves in the mirror... plus they are obviously participating themselves, and it's not like they're all standing there just watching you. And when you're on stage, you're not looking at the audience at all (at least I never did) and the lighting hides the audience pretty well, too, so you don't see the eyes watching.

Anyway, I just made this connection with the eye thing and wanted to share, and the hypersensitivity to the eyes would seem to be autistic-related (as opposed to shyness-related).

Denim
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26 Aug 2009, 3:29 pm

TPE2 wrote:

deadeyexx wrote:

Nobody is born shy.

There is any proof of that?

I'd like to go with first hand knowledge, but in this case isn't it quite obvious? Atleast it's to me. Surroundings shape man.

polymathpoolplayer
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26 Aug 2009, 4:28 pm

deadeyexx wrote:

Nobody is born shy. It's an aquired pattern of behavior caused by repeated bad social episodes that sends the overall message to interact less. Aspie traits lead to a lot of bad social episodes. Therefore, aspies are often shy.

There are many other reasons people have bad social episodes too, so yes, NTs can also be shy. But shyness is only an effect of bad reinforcment; not a personality trait.

I disagree. I've read reports that shyness and outgoing behavior is genetic, as are personality types and even likings like loving/hating tomatoes. This is also my experience with the siblings in my family: oldest sister terribly outgoing, my brother withdrawn, me kind of 50/50, the second youngest sister outgoing, the youngest shy, all of this observable at a young age. I teach piano to a family that has three girls, they are all different - the oldest is loud and boisterous and self-assured, the youngest is shy and has an "inferiority complex" and the middle one is the scientist, neither being happy nor sad in extreme measure, neither aloof nor outgoing. I believe birth order plays a part but have only my gut feeling to go by, although in this experts agree that it does play a major role.

BTW Show your links please.

answersfinally
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26 Aug 2009, 10:23 pm

Lots of misinformation here! yes, many people are born shy. Gosh there is so much research on this topic that it is astounding for anyone to claim otherwise! It is probably the most inherent characteristic possible. Wake up! Take a read--as an AS you probably advocate reading over tv and other frivolous pursuits-so how about doing it about something that you are interested in. For starters, read Kagans work--its now 30 years worth of research! If you believe that you are better than everyone else who you are shy around, you are an ASpie.

Callista
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26 Aug 2009, 10:26 pm

Denim wrote:

TPE2 wrote:

deadeyexx wrote:

Nobody is born shy.

There is any proof of that?

I'd like to go with first hand knowledge, but in this case isn't it quite obvious? Atleast it's to me. Surroundings shape man.

Personality is highly hertiable. Introverted parents will have introverted children more often than not--even if the children are adopted out to random people at birth.

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NicksQuestions
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26 Aug 2009, 10:59 pm

Spokane_Girl wrote:

none aspies being shy?

I read that lot of aspies are shy but I heard lot of people are shy even though they don't have AS. I don't even know if my own social issues is due to shyness or AS. I am always telling my husband "That was shyness." One of the reasons why I'm shy is I don't want to make myself look stupid and I don't want to be stupid so my husband always has to ask things for me.

For those who actually want to socialize but don't because of anxiety:

Aspies are often shy because of their severe social skill problems, which is different than someone with normal social skills who is shy because of social anxiety. Social Anxiety Disorder and Asperger's is not the same thing, although both of them can have a lot of anxiety.

deadeyexx
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27 Aug 2009, 10:05 am

polymathpoolplayer wrote:

BTW Show your links please.

OK
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/bre ... e-born-shy

Maybe some people are born with a predisposition to become shy, but life experiences must still reinforce it. Anyone can become shy if they're cut down enough.

Tahitiii
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27 Aug 2009, 10:32 am

That link lead to a blog by Bernardo J. Carducci.
It is the definition of an idiot:

Quote:

"...There is no way that we can be born shy.

The Role of Self: A Necessary Component
The principal reason you cannot be born shy is that shyness is characterized by three major features: excessive self-consciousness, excessive negative self-evaluation, and excessive negative self-preoccupation. All three characteristic features of shyness involve a sense of self. And the sense of self does not develop until approximately 18 months of age. Since individuals are not born with a sense of self, they cannot be born shy."

That's like saying that a wolf is not a born predator because,
at birth, it is blind, deaf and toothless.

No, I didn't bother with the rest of the blog. My stomach couldn't take it.

Runo Misaki
Raven
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28 Nov 2018, 9:06 pm

I'm not sure but I think it has to do with how shyness is displayed. I think neurotypicals tend to hide their shyness more than aspies. (Example: some shy neurotypicals that I know say that they have social anxiety and hate public speaking. But when I notice their social interactions, they make good eye contact and speak normally. Even though they're feeling shy, they don't let it show in their body language. When aspies are shy, their shyness tends to be more visible and obvious. When I'm feeling shy, my body language, voice, gestures and facial expressions give it all away. This is me- looking down or to the side, fig leaf position, feet turned inwards, not smiling, blushing, hiding hands in sleeves, hiding mouth with sweatshirt or hands, speaking quietly, lack of eye contact, a bit of stuttering and fidgeting.) Conclusion-aspie shyness is more exaggerated while neurotypical shyness is more hidden. Well at least for most spies.

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