Can we develop social skills like a martial art?

Post Reply New Topic

I've just had a thought.

This kind of "one on one" computer game style social interaction doesn't always occur in real life.

What about modeling the behaviour of groups interacting or cliques?

What about social modeling the behaviour of groups of women?
That kind of AI script could get very complicated very quickly!

Practicing social interactions by moving about by yourself on some "virtual Starship" is all very well...

But, as I discovered when I was younger, if you're female and you wander about the real world like that alone, people start to ask questions.

They start to ask: "Are you lost?" because they wonder where all of your "girlfriends" have got to.

I suppose if you're male, then this kind of "lone wandering" style is more acceptable and common. You'd probably be able to talk to people one at a time in the style of the game and no one would mind all that much.

So this kind of "game" would probably be useful for learning basic survival skills (e.g. asking for directions or items) in public settings, but wouldn't be so accurate for modeling very complex female clique interactions.

I'm not maths guy but when I started looking into this stuff I found loads of related . For example there is stuff like the Flocking Alogriths which mimic the behavior of interactive swarms or flights of birds, little raptors. It would not be inconceivable to take this kind of idea and work up the evolutionary scale to accommodate complex social behaviors.

I spent a whole holiday once on a caravan site playing with woodlice watching how they respond, building puzzles for them They are real reverse and go round obstacles guys.. Amazing climbers as well. Trouble is they get stuck and don't seem to have the equal instinct to get down once they have climbed.

I tend to think about this stuff. Especially when you don't have a clue what else to do on a caravan site.

My ex-husband is a diagnosed borderline and undiagnosed sociopath. I see a counselor for recovery from that marriage and she suggested that I read everything I can get my hands on about borderlines and become an expert on it. With him, I saw the red flags but didn't know they were red flags, if you will.

This made me smile and laugh a little: it reminds me very much of my own woodlice herding days. The good thing about campsites is that there’s always wildlife to investigate.

I’ve had this horrible vision of an angsty teen computer game, populated by “mean girls” who clique up in “swarms” generated by computer algorithms ala the shoals in Finding Nemo.

Maybe real life is bad enough for some people without this sort of virtually generated “nightmare”.

That said, I think that a “Virtual Fieldtrip” kind of computer program could be useful for an Aspie to rehearse basic life skills such as using public transport and going to the shops, before venturing out into the real world.

However, I don’t think that the computer game title “Fred catches the Bus” would make for a very compelling storyline. For practical preparation for what to expect it could be good though. I found computerised “Virtual Fieldtrips” very useful for learning Geography: I knew in advance where everything was and what I was supposed to do. I think that this technology could also be applied to and used to simulate the geography, functioning items (signs, ticket machines, customer service counters) andbasic social interactions found in public settings.

I suppose that social skills and life training could be worked into a kind of “Augmented Reality” game. That is computer aided socialising in real life perhaps with small, portable devices. The game could be made quite fun with lots of different people taking part. This augmented reality would use real people and hence, complex AI and “flocking algorithms” wouldn’t be required.

A kind of computer assisted “martial art” for social settings?

When talking in a group you have to judge when and with whom to talk to. People often stand in a round or a horseshoe shape when they talk in a group. It's not the same as one on one social interaction: it requires constant monitoring and the ability to rapidly shift attention.


The key questions are:

How should you socially defend yourself if you’re female?

What “social martial” arts do you need to be able to navigate cliques confidently?

How should you assert yourself if you’re alone and have no other social back-up?

One way to avoid social conflict in complex group situations would be to avoid them altogether. That’s self defense.

But then, people would start to ask questions such as:
“Why aren’t you joining in?”

Some people might complain if you keep to yourself and “don’t try to cause any trouble”.

Should you risk social ridicule or "play it safe" by staring at the wall?


What if some people were never meant to “flock”?

What if some of these people are female?

On social and behavioural self defense: one thing is very analogous to martial arts. You use the person's own attitude against them, just like a good martial arts fighter can use the other fighter's kinetic energy against them.

For example, a problem I often had was that if someone was in any way dismissive of me, or made me feel I wasn't being listened to, I'd get more and more worked up and more insistent on making my point. The interaction would go like this:

X: Shut up, Mech.
Me: Why should I shut up? Do I get to tell you to shut up? No.
X: Oh, do shut up.
Me: I don't get to tell you to shut up. Why should I shut up? When it's you I have to listen to you. Nice bit of hypocrisy there.
X: Oh, don't take things so damn seriously.

But a useful behaviour I discovered, was to adopt the same attitude. If they're being dismissive then be dismissive back. If you react as if they matter you give them power over you without realizing it. But if you treat them the same as they're treating you, you show them they don't have power over you. Now I try and respond more like this:

X. Shut up, Mech.
Me: (laughs) Shut up yourself.

It works in most situations.

These are seriously far reaching questions .

Firstly I am male. So I can't answer them to the extent you can.

I suppose the question that immediately presents itself is how much a female can " join in" ,
at the same time being honest to herself and the social group about her social capabilities.

My first concrete question would be does a female have to join a social clique to survive that environment or can she be affiliated to it without having to enter fully into all its social and hierarchical complexity?

For example: I only learned today that women ( in the same way as men body build) wear makeup more to express/communicate with other women than signal towards men. If our kids get into a clique we are talking face paints specifics, dress, body posture, speech codes, attitudes etc- would an Aspie female even want that?

If so, could she have/be that to a degree without being a full part of the clique, enough to get by. Is that more effective than wall staring ? (I like walls sometimes BTW, you notice all the imperfections and brush stokes.)

So - what extent does female Aspie have to enter clique to be A) left in peace, B) bond to applicable extent.

Also.most of my closest friends have been/are women who were on edge of social groups as teenagers. One or two of my female friends still wear no make up, wear woolly hats and buy second hand clothing, are sincere , genuine , totally unbreakable, and these women walk down real corridors of real power ,where face paints and fashionable clothing wouldn't even begin to know how, or be able to tread. Something paid off for them in the long term.

Last edited by memesplice on 13 Mar 2010, 4:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Social Aikido Mech. Effective defense against particular forms of attack. What doesn't it work against though?

The "shut up yourself "+ laugh is good. If they are bright they will figure out a way around this.

Well some people are just determined to piss you off and even if you shrug them off they'll try some other tactic.

I think this technique is called social "blending".
I've been reading about this.
I've used it a few times too.

It's sort of like saying "Me too".
People like to identify with people who've had similar experiences to themselves.

I've actually known several people (female) with the "gift of the gab" who are incredibly bright and articulate.
They don't let people mess them about.
They speak very rapidly and issues put-downs faster than I can deflect and "block" them.
I think that one would need a "blackbelt" in social self defence to handle people like that.

Maybe sometimes it is just better to calmly walk away than to escalate the confrontation.





Um okay...I'm still trying to work out the answer to this.




I think it depends on the social environment.
I've found that "low key", quiet and uncrowded environments are usually more understanding.
Someone usually notices if you're by yourself, especially if everyone's "looking out for each other".

In an overcrowded environment, it's easy to become stranded and "invisible" in the throng.
It's easy to be "drowned out" by the noise and forgotten about.
I can see why it would be tempting for people to clique up in these kind of situations.

I think that there must be some kind of upper bound or "threshold" for group size.
I think that there must also be sorts of "personality matrices" at work also.
Complimentary personalities balancing each other out?
Perhaps, someone could be ostracised because his/her personality would destabilise the social order of a group?
If you have an extreme personality and you want to join a group, it could be problematic.

As an analogy, it's a bit like if a heavy child wants to join in with the other kids playing on the seesaw.
The other kids would probably flat out refuse, not because they're inherently "bad" or "mean", but simply because the heavy child would unbalance the seesaw and thus "ruin" their game. Perhaps the other children are afraid that if the new child joined in, they'd all be "catapulted off into outer space".

Perhaps, after being rejected, the ostracised child finds another seesaw in the playground. Here, the weight is distributed differently. The group of kids on this seesaw are having trouble because there isn't enough weight on one end, so they welcome the new kid and all play happily together. The teeter-totter is now balanced and in equilibrium because the new kid joined in the game.

I think a similar thing happens with adults and "weights" of personality.
I think that cliques have to have and maintain a kind of "personality equilibrium" to ensure social stability.
This never gets mentioned in "anti-bullying" campaigns, but I think that this kind of "social correction" mechanism is central to the whole issue. Perhaps bullying occurs during group destabilisation and disputes?

As for the whole concept of "joining in", I don't think that forcing everyone to metaphorically all dance around in a circle and sing "Com bay ah", is very helpful for some people.

I have been criticised many times for "not joining in", when in reality, I was joining in the way that I felt comfortable joining in. The way that felt natural to me. For instance, when I was little, I was criticised for studying and fiddling with fascinating sports equipment such as bean bags and balls. Perhaps, instead of being constantly forced to throw these objects to people, I could've been put in charge of equipment inspection and storage or better still, I could've designed a new catching toy for my friends to enjoy. So I would've been joining in alongside people and felt like I was contributing something.

Yet, I was often made to feel like a failure because I wasn't socially cliqueing up or throwing beanbags in the expected way. There wasn't even the understanding that a situation can be approached from many different angles. Nobody even appreciated that I knew how a beanbag was put together. I was told off for taking a scientific interest in the mechanics of the zip.

In a theatre, the lighting technician "joins in" a drama production by illuminating the stage. He may not be up on stage singing with the chorus, but he still has a very important job to do. It's a job that requires a specialist skill. He doesn't work with the players directly, but works alongside them.

This is what I'm talking about: working alongside others.
The EQ (emotional intelligence quotient) tests don't take this kind of "individual skillfully caring for the community" into account.

That's why I think that forcing people to all get along by "holding hands" is sometimes counterproductive.

Some people perhaps, were never designed to hold hands.
Perhaps, they were instead designed to help other people hold hands, sort out other people's hand holding issues and monitor group cohesion from a distance.

I think that someone like this who knew everyone, but wasn't tied down to any particular circle, would be important for the social health of the group as a whole.







Okay. This is all new on me.
I didn't know that I had to signal like that.
I wouldn't want any of it.
It would seem like a waste of energy that could be better spent doing more productive things.

What I used to try and do was adopt/sympathise with some of the attitudes of the groups that I encountered without becoming a full time member of any of them. This gave me a much more wholistic social picture of what was going on. It also meant that I could step back and notice things that other people weren't aware of. Sometimes, I used this "overview" knowledge to help people (when they were supportive).

I learned how to manipulate situations with things like positioning (ever seen a group of people talking, while one of them is sitting on a fence, standing on a trash can, lounging in a tree?), directing subjects into my areas of expertise, or raw physical interaction, be it flirting or controlled violence.


Not methods I would recommend to others though, honestly. Much better to learn how to fake social behaviors, I didn't realize what the behaviors were, as I was a free-range Aspie most of my life.

A better way to deal with them is to simply calmly point out that they're abusing their verbal and social skills, out of personal weakness, and leave it at that.

Something I worked out the hard way.

I used to see a lot of this guy who was always putting me down for not being 'feminine' enough. He'd say things like 'I think you have an adrenal disorder, you've got too much testosterone' (ironically, he'd invite me to do Muay Thai kickboxing with him and his friend, then give out to me for freaking going, saying I only did it because I was trying to be a male...go figure...) or, his favourite comment 'I'll always be stronger than you, because I'm a man.' I always reacted by getting freaked out and angry and being aggressive back. Now, I think I would simply say 'And you feel the need to continually lord it over a female half your size, why?' and leave it at that, leaving him looking very unsavoury and a bully in front of his friends...

You can use that tactic in most social situations. If someone is putting you down and won't shut up, instead of engaging by trying to think of a better comeback, you can simply say 'And you feel the need to put me down, why?' making yourself look like the mature person and them the petty little kid.

Now, if I only hadn't taken until age 19 to learn that one for myself...

I think that's called "Being Assertive".


I don't know.

Perhaps a "Social Defense Toolbox" approach would be better than telling people how they "should" behave.

Perhaps different skills from this toolbox could be learned...but that would require applying these skills to different situations.

Perhaps ways of keeping calm during stressful situations could be included as part of this "toolbox".


Basically, emergency and survival skills, like a "first aid kit" for social situations:

How to use "social currency".
How to "block" hostility.
How to get social back up.
How to survive on your own if there is no social back-up.
How to "stand your ground".
Basic obtaining goods and services.
How to get out of difficult situations safely.
How to apologise.
Ps and Qs.


Possibly with musical training to teach the rhythm of conversation.


Anything that doesn't treat learners like "helpless victims".

Something that teaches people to look out for and look after themselves.

Pity (however well meaning) doesn't help anyone: practical advice does.