Weird Experience Today

Post Reply New Topic

Today, in one of the school clubs I'm in, the two kids in charge pulled me aside and gave me about a half and hour lecture about how I'm a valuable member but how I need to improve social skills.

Their qualms were

1. That I interrupt people (but I don't know when people are finished, I mean they pause to breath or something, so I think I can chime in).
2. I go off on tangents (I have trouble gauging how related a topic is).
3. I laugh at inappropriate times (I have trouble with outwardly displaying emotions).
4. I say things that are either too informative or too personal sometimes.
5. I ask really personal questions.

I don't know how to fix these things, that's the thing. My mom got me a social skills book, but the situations in it are so specific, they're hard to incorporate into daily interaction.

Ask someone to cue you (say "hey (insert yourname)", handle signal) as to when your going off in tangents, etc. and eventually you'll catch on (warn them it might take at least a few months though). I asked my friends to tell me when I'm too loud or high-pitched so I can quiet down once I know I am too loud or high-pitched.

I've been pulled aside, once in the past.

Peko has it spot on. I had a nice little system arranged with my last girlfriend where if I was in a social situation and I started on the weird stuff she would ask me if my cellphone was vibrating. So, make a close friend at the club and arrange one or two warning signals. You'll do fine.

Vanilla_Slice

Wow. That is awfully direct for most people to be about this. Most NTs it seems skirt around potentially sensitive topics. This is rather refreshing. They've given you a list. The third one will be the hardest to fix, that's like trying to stop a sneeze, you may have to explain that that one will be very difficult.

Ask them to tell you when you do one of those things, though.

I don't think it's wise to lay a cartload of criticisms on somebody like that, though it all looks very logical and clear. If you're up for it, you could get a lot out of it, though they need to know that somebody with AS is going to do that kind of thing and recovery is likely to be slow.

I doubt that I'd feel much like doing a thing to respond to such a list of demands.....I'd just feel they'd got a bloody cheek singling me out like that. If I were wishing to influence somebody, I'd talk to them one-on-one, and I'd bring up just one of those issues, more as a matter of interest, and try to find out whether the subject agreed it was a problem. I'd use a much softer touch alltogether, and make the whole thing invitational rather than confrontational. If I got a good response with the first issue, then I might start the ball rolling on another one. If not, I'd just leave it be, and tackle the behaviour I didn't like as and when it happened, with as much warmth and reassurance as I could muster.