What is your difficulty in socializing?

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Small talk - now that's where I'm lucky. My special interests are what people mostly use in small talk. I'm obsessed with the weather (which people are always talking about), and I'm obsessed with buses (which people do talk about). I know not to talk about these enough to bore people, but I can get away with bringing these things up at times and NTs seem to like it because they are very common topics. It's also nice to be obsessed with celebs or TV programmes involving celebs, because then you can become quite popular within that particular conversation.

I enjoy small talk anyway. It's easier than full-blown conversations where you have to keep asking them things and staying on track with what they're saying. I've always had trouble with asking people things in a conversation. I really don't know why. I know when to ask them something and what to ask, but I always seem a little afraid to ask. It's always just been the main social cue what I should really work on. Otherwise, I'm OK with communication.

At the age of 30, I was VERY surprised to discover that my manner of never asking even remotely personal questions was regarded as being cold and indifferent.
Man, I thought I was being discreet and allowing people to decide for themselves whether to tell me something or not. But no, turns out that they do like their personal information extorted out of them.

I feel like I am bad at asking about the person I'm talking to, i.e. reciprocating when they've asked after you.

Also, I just get fed up of all the noise and things, especially with young children around, which makes it hard when I have to spend time with my boyfriend's family. Like many others, I'm prone to mutism when I get overloaded by social situations, and people think I'm being moody/rude/a b***h.

I only have a hard time socializing with certain people. I find some people MUCH easier to socialize with than other. I'm in Grade 10 and find it easier to socialize with Grade 11's and 12's for example. I find it easiest to socialize adults though.

I don't mind small talk to get a conversation going, but I don't like it when it goes on for too long.

Well I know some NTs who are difficult to get on with. The manager at my volunteer job is NT, but is so awkward to get along with. I've never really heard her have a proper conversation with someone, and I can tell that she doesn't always realise she's being rude. Sometimes I can't always tell if she's being sarcastic, or joking with me, or just talking, or actually telling me off, because she doesn't use the right tone of voice of look in her face. Even other NTs have said that they don't always know where they are with her.

Yet she's so popular.

I genuinely cannot spot hints or cues unless it's glaringly obvious, like a sudden change of expression (bored looks & gradual shifts go by unnoticed).

Also, I seem to have a hard time knowing when someone is finishing a statement, so I'll interrupt a lot.

Like someone said, I, too, have a difficult time with small talk. Either I'll get stumped beyond the first statement (e.g. - "How's the weather?") or it turns into a one-sided interrogation.

I have a hard time looking people in the eye. I can from a distance, but the closer I get, the harder it is. Someone on a Yahoo group I'm in compared it to looking at the Sun w/ the naked eye.

Joined: Jan 07, 2011
Age: 47
Posts: 9

Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 8:05 am Post subject:

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I've got several problems in the social area:

--First, I often don't recognize people I've met before, and so I try to play it off, but they invariably realize I don't know who they are, and they get insulted. This is especially troublesome in my waitress job, when I introduce myself to people I've waited on ten times.

--I can't do small talk. At all. I never know what to say. After "So, we're supposed to get a lot of snow tonight, huh?" I've got nothing. I had to quit bartending because I couldn't talk to the regulars, and they stopped coming in on my shift.

--When in a group of people, I think the things people are talking about are usually boring and stupid.

--If by chance they actually are talking about something I find interesting, I can't ever seem to find a good moment to break into the conversation. I usually end up interrupting somebody and looking like an as*hole.

--In a one-on-one conversation, I never realize until too late that I was supposed to ask the person something about themselves. For instance, if somebody asks about my kids, I'll go on and on about my kids, and never ask about hers. Then I'll realize she probably only asked about my kids because she wanted to talk about hers. Or she was just being polite and didn't really want to know about my kids at all. But, seriously, who really cares about anybody else's kids anyway?? I sure as hell don't.

--At parties, I drink too much and make an ass out of myself because I feel so excruciatingly uncomfortable sober.

--Most people don't get my humor.



OMG SAME

If socialising in class, I do it very well to the point where people say "OMG you have autism?" [which I quite like!] However, ask me to go to a nightclub/party sorta thing and I can be pretty much "WTF do I do?"

Preferably, socialising is not an option for me.

I seem to have trouble remembering what other people say. I am a good listener at the time, but if somebody asked me later, ''what was so-and-so talking about with you?'', I would not remember. Well, I might remember what subject we were talking about, but I wouldn't remember what they actually were saying. For example, if we were talking about boats, and the person said she had travelled to Iceland on one - I wouldn't really remember that the person was saying where's they've been on one or anything, I would just remember that we talked about boats. You get the picture.
Like I used to work at my volunteer job with this woman, and I told her that I fancied this bus-driver who drove my bus. I only told her once. But then she left and had a job somewhere else, and I hadn't really seen her for 2 years (saw her the odd few times working in her shop and I said a couple of words to her), then just last week she came and worked in where I did my voluntary work (just for a day because it was her day off), and we could talk more, and she suddenly said, ''do you still see your bus-driver?'', and I thought to myself, ''how did she remember that one little thing I once said, 2 years ago?''

Yet, I remember gossip very well. If somebody were gossiping about somebody else who I know, I would remember that. But when people talk about their own lives - it goes straight out my head. That's where sometimes people think that I'm ''not interested'' - which I am at the time, but it's not my fault that I don't always remember.

For myself, I have difficulty in compelling the other person. I suppose I can entice them to begin to converse with myself, but I cannot continue an engaging conversation, due to the monotony of the subjects I discuss. My Mother even informed me yesterday that frankly even adults do not listen to my discussions anymore, as they are so tedious. I also have difficulty formulating comprehensible sentences, subsequently confusing my peers. Lastly, I have a reputation as being eccentric and too mature, deterring others from conversing with me.

I also find it hard to talk to people who just sit there on their mobiles all the time, hardly making eye-contact with anyone else in the room. Although texting is a social thing, but I consider it anti-social when you're supposed to be interacting with others in a room.
My cousin is NT, and is very popular among friends, and enjoys socialising at bars and clubs, but when she comes round to mine and all the family are sitting in the lounge chatting, all my cousin does it sit curled up in a chair, with her head down and her back to everyone, constantly texting on her mobile phone (or Blackberry, or whatever it's called). Even her mum looked at her and said, ''you never join in - you've always got your eyes on your phone!''

Personally, I think that's being rude, someone coming to your house and you barely get a ''hello'' out of them, and then they sit there on a mobile, not even speaking or looking at you the whole time. Even I know better than that!