Has anyone done anything that made them more social?

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Many things.
* Going to school, and having a couple friends. You can ask them for guidance, they drag you into socialising, and you can become friends with their friends.

* Being in a small class that I enjoy. Since I enjoy it, people can see me opened up more, and since it's a small group, I'm less nervous and can get more acclimated to speaking to those people.

* Succeeding at something in front of people. I showed a documentary I made, and I was so embarrassed, but it turns out people loved it! And some people who weren't in the class came to see it. I had, I think, 4 people I don't usually talk to come up to me and tell me how good it was. It made me feel good, and feel more confident.

Practice makes perfect. I'd recommend trying to find people you share your special interests with. When you can talk to them, talking to other people is less impossible. And if you trust the person, don't be afraid to ask them how to do something in a social event. And observe!

Before 1998, I used to get drunk, to be more social.

Drinking will do it, but I have no one to get socially drink with.

Beggar_Man, no, I didn't; I started out with Jak and Daxter. Ah, fun times, trying to understand the mute protagonist. I did learn quite a lot from Daxter, though. ...But I honestly don't even see a glimmer of Jak's personality from the later games in TPL. It's weird. I'm still trying to wrap my head around what changed.

When I was a child, I was painfully shy and basically didn't know how to interact with people. I remember realizing, as a teenager about to go into Junior High, that I was beginning to understand the world a bit better- through observation and reading, mainly- and that this knowledge made the world a little less scary. From then on, I made a conscious effort to be less shy, and to try to talk to as many people as possible. I remember this was not easy for me, I basically forced myself to do it. Of course, I made other mistakes, like obsessively talking about my special interests, or not realizing that certain people didn't want me to talk to them, but at least it was a start. Looking back, I think this conscious effort helped me in the long run: the more chance one has to practice something, the better one is able to do it. I could never be one of these "ultra social" people though, I do need enough time for myself. There are also times when I get into "hibernation mode", and don't really want to be around people much. The key, for me, is to find a balance.

Customer Serivce??? ahhhhh!
I cant see an Aspie surviving a "customer service" job. Like putting an aspie in Human Resources !
I used to get stuck at the desk when I was really pregnant working at a Lab....plus my coworker couldnt figure out the computer. I was nice to people who deserved it....the there were those jerks who would come up to the desk and treat me like I was some lower form of life. We had these little forms you could fill out to complain and people would grab them and say "whats your name?" and I would be happy to tell them and spell it for them!
One time I was drawing someones blood and some guy came around the wall to ask me how long he was going to have to wait???? I have a needle in someones arm! Like would this guy walk into an exam room and ask the doctor how long he had to wait when he was with another patient?
I tried to be nice and say "Ill be right with you, could you please go back to the waiting room?" but no...he had to keep asking how long it would be so I said "For you....four hours". He left, thankfully, because I doubt I would have been able to draw his blood I was so angry with him.
Anyway, I needed a rant....thank you

- Playing with the Nintendo DS
- Learning English (Before I knew wheter "elf (Dutch for 11)" was eleven or twelve and the same for "Twaalf (Dutch for 12)")
- Playing World of Warcraft (this school year)
But then (also this school year) Pokémon became popular and I had to ask if they had EV-trained their pokémon . I still need to EV-train my third pokémon, by the way.

O, and once at secondary school I made this hilarious joke. Here is what happened etc.:

Persons involved: My math teacher, happy with the beamer that has been installed last year (he's always been an enthousiastic user of that thing ) he always shows things on the screen.

E. : A classmate I keep anonymous for here. He was teh tallest classmate in our class of 11 (it was a new subject). He also took lessons in Informatica and he was good with fixing computer problems.

Me: Said the right thing at the right time.

So here's what happened: The math teacher starts his program, whit the beamer on when the program gets stuck. "<program> does not respond"
"E., our computerman, you can probably help."
*He didn't hear it, he was talking and waiting 'till he would call us to see the screen after the prgram would've started*
Me: "E. does not respond."
We had to tell E. and his neighbours after and they laughed as well.

My job at Wal-Mart has helped a lot. I talk to coworkers, and the interaction with customers is structured and mostly question/answer type stuff, so it gives me a sort of safe way to interact with people i think.

I can relate to this, in my work I need to be able to be social, I've learned by copying others; however it really is very draining and I find that I don't like to socialize outside of work and really need my weekends as downtime.

I also am in retail sales. My experience is similar to yours. When things get busy and I perceive that my job includes multitasking, I get stressed out. That can be counterproductive to becoming more social. These occasions are usually spaced apart enough that it is manageable. Otherwise, retail sales has helped a lot. The structured nature of it, I agree, is the key.

Yeah. Busy times are horrible. The city i live in is sort of small, so it's usually not that fast-paced as long as there are enough people working to take care of all the customers.. But the holidays can be pretty bad. When there have been crowds i've become overloaded a bunch of times and end up mentally disconnecting from it all and sort of shut down. I've had a few major meltdowns at work too, and i'm lucky that i haven't gotten fired for any of them. Despite that, i would actually highly recommend this kind of work to other aspies who need a job and want to get some social interaction within a more defined structure than usual(sort of like social "training wheels")... That is, as long as it's somewhere that is going to usually have a relaxed low to medium flow of customers.

Being brutally honest, I was once part of social-skills group for people with AS but, more or less it wound up being a disappointment rather than something helpful still, I try to be social within my daily life simply offering a gesture of niceness by merely saying hello or good-morning even if such seems absurd and stupid....

Nice Zunni fetish doll you have for an Avatar Professorx

Don't really want to be more social. Have enough trouble avoiding social occasions as it is.

The best thing that my parents did to help me improve my social skills was giving into my whims about getting a bearded dragon. It's never made me want to make an effort to socialize.

Last edited by PunkyKat on 06 Jun 2010, 7:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Working in a library at the checkout desk probably helped my social skills, but didn't really make me more social, though I liked the people contact.

Finding a local musician I really like with a weekly gig I've been going to for 7 years now, that has made me more social. Seeing the same people week after week, and with a basis of connection, that's been very helpful.