Social Skills Training for Adults

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And it all comes down to timing...

My experiences just seem to fly in the face of 'normal'. People who will call me on the phone, talk at me for an hour and then get annoyed because I won't let THEM go. I'll give the 'look around the room' signal, shift uncomfortably, excuse myself - but people keep on talking and I'm stuck and frozen because I think I've given all the clues but they aren't getting them... what am I doing wrong? Then the problem of not really communicating clearly - I'm just starting to realize the true extent of this. The words I say don't really express my opinion or feeling the way I intend them.

Despite my personal reservations, I am finding your experiences fascinating. Your 'ah ha' moments have been priceless. Every success story is a welcomed learning tool.

Agreed RE the sharing and why I will keep this thread going for as long as I can manage it.

Your examples is exactly why my Doctor/coach suggested that we need to have 1:1 consultations with people designed to help in communications. There are a lot of nuances involved in Body Language as well as timing and words. Right now he and I are working on just the "words" and he busted me for answering a question RE the trip that he posed to me with the word, "Fine". One of my tactics to get people to leave me alone is to be VERY "short" with them. His rules don't allow for many of my tactics and as of this session, "1 word" or "terse" answers are no longer allowed. There are really long pauses and "prompts" going on in our conversations and my Body Lang right now is to either analyze the pattern in the carpet or to stim on the second hand of the clock to my right on the wall. I need to be able to focus on words only for awhile... Like I said, we are nowhere NEAR smooth yet and I suspect he will work on these things too once the words happen with more ease.

The truth is that this whole small-talk/communiction thing is an issue to some degree for NTs as well. In fact, my research uncovered a number of "communication" coaches and executive communication coaching tools that I will also be able to leverage. That said, I chose this guy because I think that dealing specifically with someone who "gets" ASD is probably a better first step. So far, so good. He has been able to cut through a lot of stuff and I can feel somewhat okay with having meltdowns in front of him as he has seen them before. That said, I WILL have to send the obligatory "aplogize" email to him as I always do when I know there is a possibility/probability that I was rude or out-of-hand....

Yes, I've commiserated with a handful of NTs about small talk recently - one of whom being my therapist. It was eye-opening for me, to say the least.

I read the OP's post about small-talk training after having worked to move furniture to vacuum a dusty room. I sweat profusely and start to come unglued when said perspiration starts to drip down the arm of my glasses and onto my face. The sweat rolling down my face is maddening!

So I thought I'd relax by going to the basement to get on the computer and go to WP! I got lost reading that scenario indepth.

And then I wanted to THROW UP!! !!

In those situations, I tend to go silent and feel lost in a jumble of words - especially if there's too much noise and/or activity going on at the same time. Sometimes I do okay, but more often than not I don't.

HA HA HA! I am happy more because with some of these observations I am making very big leaps in several key areas.....

1. I am "accepting" my label by doing these sessions. It is very clear to me that I cannot "wiggle" my way out of the fact that have compromised abilities in the area of social communication.
2. I am learning that my "disabilities" are not something that is impossible to alter to some degree. Even though I have to accept my "label" doesn't mean I have to accept where I am today. I can continue to work on improving me and my abilities. This stuff may be hardwired, but I can resolder the chip to this motherboard of mine for an upgrade. It isn't as easy as just flashing a BIOS but still doeable.
3. In these discoveries, I see all manners of ways that I can improve whereas before my label I was just a victim to so many things. Before I learned about ASD, I always assumed that things like small-talk were just crap and I did not need to do it. I used to shun the whole concept. Now I can see how this little "preamble" of words can be used in so many areas. For example, I have 3 presentations coming up this week . 2 of them are to audiences that do not really know me that well. I am adjusting these presentations to give a short "BIO" about me BEFORE I jump into my work. Imma gonna hit them where the "feel" it. It sounds stupid and as I am pacing my living room right now practicing it, I am having second doubts but I am going to try it after the events of the past days. I think there is something to this stuff... People want to have a "connectedness"

Connectedness is my new "word"

Sorry and I completely know what you mean. I do do NOT do okay. This is why I am learning. Part of the reason we don't do okay is that we lack understanding. My hope is that through understanding, I will also gain courage and ability. While I have had some really amazing high points so far, the real data is not yet in at all.

I think that right there may be my problem. I did go through corporate communications training at two jobs. I thought it was incredibly insightful - secret knowledge that other people, in general just didn't possess. In a way it was but very much more so for me. I think learning NT social skills from the NT perspective may be my problem.

I learned the words but I'm getting the context all wrong.

I'm getting too old for this...

You may send the apology but I suspect you are already long forgiven.

I too, have been through a crap-ton of corporate sort of training in the past 30 years and it was all very useful to me. I am exceptionally different today than I was 20 years ago. So much so in fact that I have managed to climb the ladder pretty well. BUT the thing these courses did not teach are the things this guy is hitting with me. It feels so kindergarten and yet it is so beyond me. Still it is putting pieces together for me. Sort of like watching the 1st part of a series after seeing all the other parts and finally realizing that Darth Vader is the Father.

These "stupid little unwritten rules" are the basis of what NTs just somehow magically know and why we always stand outside the circle looking in. In these sessions, the little things are not assumed knowledge and we go over and over it. I wish you could see how simple and how very stupid these sessions are as I am sitting in them.

Yeah.

It is always weird for me to learn that some huge thing I was missing about the world, is something most people are either born with or acquire within the first few years of life. Keeps happening though.

I'm interested in how he identified the cues you have learned to show, and made them taboo.

"This doesn't do what you think it does. Try that instead," seems like the only way to learn social cues as an adult. Think of it: by the age of 30 you will have inevitably picked up a range of cues the hard and painful way, which all seem somewhat better than the default behaviour. Being terse does in fact communicate one's unwillingness to speak, in a more NT manner than simply wandering off, etc.

And all of them, in some way, are likely to be wrong in some way, a reflection of a bad habit or poor instruction. They work, in the same way that a self-taught guitarist can make an A chord that hits the right notes - but not in the same way as someone who has learned proper finger technique and ear training.

I think it may be like how a good music or writing teacher must, before actually teaching, de-teach the bad habits the student has accumulated.

It sounds like he is going through your repertoire, pinpointing the inefficient spots, and focusing on how to build it back up using proper technique.

I think the guitar or music teacher un-teaching bad learned habits is a good anology here for some of the session. He doesn't have to "work" too hard to figure out my cues. Some of them are obvious such as monologuing. How hard is it to guess that a person with ASD is going to monoloug at some point or talk about some inappropriate subject somewhere? For those things he has established rules such as "talk about safe topics" and "three or less sentences per turn". Others he just corrects as he hears them. The guy is a PhD level trained Doctor with well over a decade of dealing with the autisitc population. He holds social skills groups for teens on a regular basis and uses this game for that. This isn't "rocket science" for him by any stretch I'd think. In fact my guess is that he has seen everything I can throw at him and then a heck of a lot more already. If I am presenting in a unique way to him, he is not showing it to me.

In 1:1 social situations I think that largely I am "intentionally rude" to people. I am in a place in life where I can actually "bully" people and I do it to some extent to avoid small talk situations. To be fair, I did not recognize it as bullying until I started to go to therapy. My first shrink told me that I "abused my IQ" with people. This statement made no sense to me when he first made it especially since I did not realize at the time how gifted I was. Since then I have gained understaning where I stand and how incredibly blind I have been about this. In thinking things through over the past months I realize he is right.

When I am faced with 1:1 small talk I have several "rude" tactics I employ in my "subtle" but very consious way.

1. One is that I will just give them a "look" (like I cann't believe they are talking to me and how stupid they must be) and refuse any comment.
2. Avoidance works as well and is my most commonly used one. I can do it at events as well as in work situations
- by walking away or not looking at people coming towards you.
-Alternately you can just interupt their intro with a comment about how you have to leave now while apologoizing profusely
- At work, I will just control the meeting and tell people where to sit and launch right into the "work" part never giving small talk a chance
3. Being exceptionally "terse" in replys will make them squirm and eventually leave you alone
4. NEVER give eye contact lest they actually think you care
5. Here is my favorite... Go into a technical monologue and when they cannot keep up, make them feel stupid with replies like, "huh?" and look at them like they are stupid. Or better actually say that they are stupid. (I did this in the first session where he disallowed the monologue and then last week when I said his statement was "stupid" and he "coached" me through ways to NOT come right out and say that word. In doing this that tactic was taken from me on the fly.)

A possible explanation to the "charge" that the therapist got from finding out kfishers favourite places to eat: is that NTs are wired so differently than us that they may well get a charge out of that.

Ie, an AS person would view "Bob's favourite place to eat" as some information. Possibly having some usefulness if AS person is planning on eating with Bob at a restaurant. But without context like this, it is blank, meaningless information.


For an NT, "Bob's favourite place to eat" is flowing with implications, ideas interests, emotions. The NT would think, Why does Bob like the place? Did he have some nice memories there? Did he go with his family? Is his favourite food there? What does this say about Bob as a person?

For the NT, that piece of information also means that they know Bob a bit better, as NTs consider information about likes and dislikes to be personal information, whereas an AS person would just view it as fact.

Anyway perhaps this is what was happening with that therapist. NTs are such mysterious creatures... : )

The sad part is, I know people have these reactions, I just cannot logically wrap my brain around way. Basically, in that two way conversation about favorite restaurants, I would have been excited and engaged - I love exploring new food. I may very well have gotten that charge too but for very different reasons. If the conversation were about computer software, Karla may have gotten a charge out of it but the therapist wouldn't have - in a prior session he had asked her to move on from the subject. This 'feel good' feeling of connection he's talking about seems to be an internalized process. It's not about making ACTUAL connections but perceived connections.

This is the process players use when trying to pick up women. I can sit back and watch that conversation and see this guys line clear as crystal... but the girl is swooning. he's simply tellnig her what she wants to hear - with words, gesture, body language, adjusting to her cues. It is very much an act and - in that case - a scam.

Applied to regular conversations, it still feels very much like a scam to me. It is very much a type of game and it just feels disingenuine and forced even if those are the social rules of their game.

And, I also realize that I place way too much meaning on words. I'm not sure how to not do that. I'm of the mind if someone is going to bother to speak the words they have to share must be important. I know for fact this is entirely not so. I might wonder for hours what angle someone was trying to pull just from a question about my family life (becasue that is personal business - they wouldn't ask it if they didn't genuinely care, right?) where as to them, it was just small talk. It would be questionable if they even remembered the information shared. I dwell on things said much much too long and assigning much more meaning to them than was ever intended because that's how I operate.

The phrase 'Oh, you're just saying that..." always bugged me. Because, yes, other people do just say placating pleasantries. I don't. I mean what I say.(whether or not I'm saying it CORRECTLY is a whole other matter.) To me it's like an accusation of lying. To other people, they just stack more placating pleasantries on top it to make the obviously insecure person feel good. AND IT WORKS even though they KNOW they are being lied to.

Okay- I'm just going to sit back and listen for more of Karla's wisdom because I'm obvious nowhere near my lightbulb moment yet...

Thats the thing though, that aspies dont understand. For an aspie, they are having an exciting conversation, about food.

An NT is having a conversation with someone about how they feel about something, it doesnt matter whether it is food or not.

For the aspie the subject matter is the point of the conversation, and for the NT, the subject matter, though it can be interesting to discuss, serves the dual purpose of being a vehicle to discovering what makes a person tick, what that person is about.

Aspies are too busy thinking about black holes, or horses, to really be thinking about what their conversation partner is thinking. NTs are able to discuss the topic and scan the conversation partner simultaneously, very well. In fact they have far less interest in topics in their own merit, they seem to flick so fast between topics often that it seems that the topic plays little part in certain types of NT conversation.

I can understand what NTs are doing sometimes, but truth be told, I understand little about what they do when they are talking to each other, I have a feeling that the things I know are just the tip of the iceberg.

You could explain this more? I have OK social skills, the issue fro me is that they are a "second language" to me, i feel like i'm playing a game rather than being who I truely am. Only in the past few years have some elements of NT thinking started to become my own. The real issue is i get overwhelmed by this stuff and DO crash, and start to regress in terms of autistic symptoms. I can get overwhelmed by the complexities of NT socializing and trying to come up with a "theory of mind". I either tend to assume other people are positive towards me and be too open and get hurt emotionally, or I tend to be negative and miss oppurtunities. Still, i'm not high functioning, i've only had one job in my life, and i'm 35 years of age and on disability, currently working through vocational rehab but may just not be employable.

Having some kind of spiritual or religious faith and practice has helped me alot in my life to deal with some of the feelings of inadequacy and finitude that socializing can bring up, and avoid meltdowns . Its tough being bisexual and a Christian though, its an uneasy thing at the least esp. as i'm drawn to ritual heavy traditions (I currently attend Eastern Orthodox and was a catechumen for over a year before i was diagnosed, then my chrismation/reception process went on hold). At one time i also was deeply interested in Buddhism to deal with the mental anguish- it actually might be a better choice for somebody with Asperger's who knows...

Tomorrow AM is my next appointment with the Dr. He received my apology and while accepted he asked me to try to "not take it out on him". (whoops) I spent the whole day today in CA (on a whiirlwind business trip) doing small talk so am already full up from it. Hopefully I can pull out another hour of it tomorrow. The "good" news is that I actually felt pretty comfy in the all day meetings yesterday. Not bad all things considered. I am completely pooped right now but will get lots of sleep and try again tomorrow.