The autism social rule book.

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I read the first ten pages of this thread, but not pages 10-20 so forgive me if I repeat anything.

* Most people aren't interested in deep philosophical analyses on things. Simple responses work. Perhaps, online and in emails, you may have acquired a lofty verbose writing style, but in real life, people generally prefer short responses. Often, no more than three sentences and in some situations, no more than a sentence. Don't give them everything at once. If they want more details, they will ask.

* If you ask a person to do something with you, they say maybe, and they never ask you, and you are the one who keeps brining them up, they are probably not interested. No, they didn't forget and you don't need to remind them, if someone really wanted to something, they would have made it a priority. Some people are not interested in you, and have better things to do. Don't take it personally.

* If you want to get someone's attention in a crowd of people, call their name or tap them on the shoulder. If you just say "Hi", you're not going to get a response, because no one will know who you intended to speak to.

* Learn to tolerate slang such as "dude". Don't be pretentious or professorial amongst people you feel are less intelligent than you.

* Just because you are interested in something, does not mean the other person is. If a person is not showing interest, don't push it on them or try to persuade them that they should be interested in it; just give it up. Some people don't want to talk about your narrow area of obsession or interest, especially for a long period of time. A relationship of any kind is mutual. An autistic person who is introverted may unknowingly think that the world revolves around them, but if you want social success, you have to be in the interest of the person who is in your interest.

* Think of someone who is socially successful (who is similar to you in standing, values, and goals). When in doubt, think "what would that person do". Don't feel guilty about this, and of course be yourself, but this is an invaluable tool.

* Don't try to please everybody. If you do, you are slowly destroying yourself. Don't care about what strangers think of you. You will make social mistakes that will harm or ruin relationships and friendship, but this doesn't mean you should give up altogether. Just get up, dust yourself off, and move on. People are replaceable. If some people don't like you, theres millions of other people you can befriend.

* Lastly, don't take judgments personally. Some judgments in life are conducted with the sole purpose of accurately assessing you, but other judgments are a means to something else. Even reasonable open-minded people may misunderstand you. People cannot make perfect sets of decisions - only optimal ones. If someone, rejects 100 people (95 of them are bad, and 5 of them are good), it may suck for you if you are among the 5 good people, but they still made an overall optimal set of decisions, no?

if your a kid/teen and your at home alot, play xbox live, or ps3 online, or any computer game online. If you make a mistake, it wont be akward, and theres almost always something to talk about.

Don't gossip about people online for the whole world to see.

Be careful what you blog about or put on your myspace or profile

Anything you say gets translated into something else

If your a girl, 1 easy way to "kiss" up to other girls is to compliment their looks and whatever their wearing, or this and that is cute whatever

Try not to question peoples social norms/ conventions even if it makes no sense to you, you have to understand this is what they grew up with, questioning why someone tries so hard to be agreeable even if they dont agree is like asking why someone lives in a house as opposed to on the streets(sorta), they just do it. People will eventually get annoyed in many cases or even mad at you. You by no means have to agree with it or live the way they do. Be aware if someone admits to be conservative, then really dont question their social norms.

Be aware that people will say a lot of "flowery words and language" to sound sweet and likeable, dont take them too literally for one and dont call them out on it if your a heavy skeptic.

If you're tired at school, don't tell your teacher. If you do, you sound like you want to escape from schoolwork.

I think that conforming to social rules is trying to be someone that you are not. People will see into this and the result will ultimately be a failure. I believe that you can get your point across with some success using diplomacy but sometimes I annoy people no matter how diplomatic I try to be because most people do not want to change.

Politics and religion are commonly controversial topics, stay away from these topics with everyday conversations with people unless your at some convention/event revolving around these topics. Its reasoable to tell a friend that you wanna stop discussing this controversial topic to keep the peace between you 2.

Ive probably put this before, I can emphasis this enough, dont put your trust in a person unless you feel their completely worthy of it and you know them well enough. Sometimes if you put your trust into the wrong person, things can backfire in ways you didnt expect it. Even if that person seems super nice and sweet...you never really know.

Don't spend more than two minutes in a public bathroom. People are waiting to use it.

Don't ever tell a mother of four she has three kids just because one is dead or say she claims to have four when she really has three just because three are alive. Don't ever say someone claims to have three kids when she really has two just because one is dead. People will take offense to that and take it the wrong way because you said "claim" and don't ever say someone has three when they really had four because people also take offense to that too.

When you come across a picture of a miscarried baby, don't ever say gruesome. People take offense to that.

here are two tips for not telling the complete truth:
1: Instead of lying it is often possible to squirm around the words, especially when asked questions (and specially when you know in advance that you can expect the question). This can often be done by parsing the sentences VERY literally. The added benefit is that because you're technically not lying you can get away from making some of the usual signals which suggest lies.

Q: "do these pants make my ass look big?"
A: "nope" (unsaid: your ass makes your ass look big, those pants have nothing to do with it)

Q: "have you taken illegal addictive substances?"
A: "nope, doesn't fit my lifestyle" (oh, you meant ANY illegal substances, including those that are non-addictive? well, too bad for you)

This is basically a game of lawyer-ese, at which an analytical mind can become extremely good.


2: When taking psych tests it is possible to role-play. If you're familiar with old school RPG games (D&D may count, based on playing style, more serious or unserious games often had more character playing), or are experienced with live action role playing, stage acting or improv theatre then you can make a character which is basically you (same name and everything) but is different in whatever characteristics you want to hide.
Worked for me, and worked for Grant Imahara (of Mythbuster fame) when confronted with a lie detector using brain scanning (fMRI, if I recall correctly)
Practice this on online personality tests, psych tests, whatever you can get your hands on.

This is more tricky than the lawyer trick and requires more training, but is well worth it. If you do try serious role playing games then you may also find that they help you understand other people's motives better, and so eases the interpretation of their actions.
It won't help you with reading faces or realizing when the conversation is over, but understanding at least one aspect of those crazy NTs is good

i did the role playing for many years
then
had some dangerous experiences
and
decided to just be me

still don't know who that is
but
it is way easier to play

Roleplaying to play a character instead of yourself= ONLY for limited (and preferably one-off) situations (and of course when gaming).

As SpideryMusic points out, playing pretend all the time is not good.

I just meant that the technique is good for certain situations, especially those where our characteristics (or a misunderstanding of what an aspie is) could have bad consequences. Not getting a job because the HR person interviewing you feels uncomfortable around someone with such different communication skills is one such scenario. Interviews are play-acting anyway.