Do Aspies Have An Inborn Resistance to Socializing?

Post Reply New Topic

Do you think Aspies have sort of an inborn resistance that partly gets in the way of wanting to socialize with other groups of people? In other words trying to become more extraverted goes against your grain and you would rather simply not be around people.

in the context of me, i think it is merely the fear of doing something i am not as used to as the 'average Joe'. Fear and desire for my own company

I don't think I've got an inborn resistance to socializing, more an inborn apathy to it. I don't hate being with other people, but I don't really go out of my way to socialize either.

This may come across as "resisting" it to NTs, but I don't really care.

I used to be a lot more social, for a while. The repeated failure became too painful. The world didn't seem interested in giving me a chance to improve, and I got tired of their anger.

Sometimes I'd like to socialize, but I don't know how to. I was born with ignoring people and face blindness.

I think it's called autism.

Yes, We have, ¿didnt you know?



In my country its not called autisme, thank God

It's not all aspies, but for me.. we just get exhausted, i.e. it is a pain for us to expend energy and try to come up with conversations about things we aren't interested with other people. Also we tend to think in terms of our own interests or things on their own merits -- we tend to use communication to solve problems, most people use communication to BOND.

Aspie style communication is one of 'learning', where the typical NT uses it to tell stories about themselves to find common feelings and share those feelings amongst themselves. Conversation for a typical NT is about transmitting good emotions back and forth through voice intonation and body language while building a picture/story about the other person.

Where as for people with AS we might tend to be seen as approaching people as "something to be used" (i.e. we engage people to talk about our own interests or try to get them to give us information to solve problems). Now this may sound "selfish" or "rude" but it isn't it's just how we work, we see empathy and bonding as learning and getting s**t done(tm).

We simply tend to want to bond on our own terms, and we don't need to be "pet" constantly, I think of NT's like Cats that are always rubbing your leg and want you to pet them, where AS people are like Cats who are "too cool" to hang around people for too long because those kind of cats always want to go do their own thing.

Aspies suffer from several deficiencies, and such deficits make socializing difficult. I would not call that resistance. I would classify that as lack of talent.

ruveyn

Me too. I have periods of my life, though, where i'm much more open to being social. I do not think its like a person with Asperger's cannot learn social skills or be outgoing, its just going to be harder. I think the hardest bit about Asperger's is being emotionally sensitive, yet often being unable to articulate those emotions (alexithymia), this means social failure is taken very hard and its hard to cope with, its not something one just bounces back from as much as an NT person would, where there's less sensitivity.

I move between apathy, dislike and enjoyment of socialisng. Even thuough when enjoying it I cannot tolerate more than a couple of hours with more than one person. I do like deep discussions and can do so for hours if there is is no overloading factors. I hated socialising as a kid and as a youg adult I strted to enjoy it in my own terms. I tended to the and still even now i'm in my 40s prefer to be in my own world within social environemetns. ie. if at a club disco (the rare times I go these days) I prefer to be dancing all the time alone, mostly rather than trying to talk. I might socialise at these events by suddenly dancing with someone that motions that they like my way or when people want to dance with Bearsac. I also enjoy taking a walk into the town centre and having a few words with people that like the Bearsac thing. I sometimes sit outsdie a cafe feeling nicely invisable watching people go by. Of course I arn't invisable as some people come up and say hi and some are abusive to me and or Bearsac. It is not not a long socilaisation, just a short exchange or people wanting to be photographed with Bearsac.

I spend most of my time at home alone and am happy that way. I would love to live on my own little island from where I can easily get the the mainland from but only people can come to me if I want them (even if my want is not in fluu consciousness. I love the lyrics to the song An Occassional Man (I have put up a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ7na_4wwcg ) it depicts the life I'd like.

I am very socail for an ASpie though I think even if still lacking a lot of skills, I have learnt a lot manually. That has maybe made me dislike socilaising less.

PS - I can never seem to insert links or images. Clicking on the YouTube button it just says 'Error you didn't write the URL' but there is no sign of where you write it. I had already pasted the video URL in the brackets above. What do I need to do? Maybe it will work once I submit this!

My parents said I would scream when held or picked up when they brought me home from the hospital. The doctors told them it was colic but I think it was Aspergers and my reaction to lights, sounds, and touch. I was weird straight from the womb and I will be weird straight to the grave.

I enjoy being able to do something that is "normal" and that "normal" people do and get praised for doing.
I know how the NT's catagorize what is important and what is a "crap" jobs for the ret*ds.

It hurts to be thrown into a crap job because someone doesn't think you are smart enough to do something.
If I was stupid, then I probably wouldn't mind too much. If I could enjoy just being around other people
for the sake of the socialization-that's how my mother is-then I would probably be able to overlook the slights
and slaps.

It is a real pain in the butt for me to trust other people enough to try to work with them in a situation that
will require socialization. I tend to focus on basic getting to know each other and sometimes, I tell them my
life story like a total moron. Stupid. Interestingly, sometimes our lives have intersected at certain points and
they start talking to me and telling me things that they probably needed to talk about, but didn't have anyone
else who they thought would understand. Then, they get embarrassed because they have told something that
they didn't intend to let out of the box or-and I think this is more frequent-they are all walking in so much denial
that they experience feelings and emotions that they don't like to have. It never fails to amaze me how much
"normal people" are AFRAID of their own emotions and go out of their way to AVOID feeling intense emotions.
I know it throws me and it probably throws them too, but I really don't appreciate their mechanisms by which
they deny and avoid unpleasant emotions.

I am Empath of a sort and can pick up on nuances and even adopt
the emotions of others just from proximity. I often function as a barometer. Unfortunately, with the NT's around
and boy are those people constantly lying to themselves and everyone else about their actual emotional states;
I have a lot of ups and downs that wear me out frequently. There are some people that I just have to avoid altogether.

The one's I have to avoid are the ones who are angry &/or driven to succeed and take their aggressions out on those they deem are "weaker" than
they are. There are ever so many people like this and they usually don't even know what they are doing. I am unable to
respond quickly to verbal "bombs" being lobbed at me, which increases their perception that I am an acceptable target.
They will talk to me in a condescending manner and actually believe that I don't know or am not catching it. Unfortunately,
my husband is one of these, even though I think he is like I am. He was raised by people who taught him to act "normal" in
social situations in order to gain acceptance by the NT's. He is capable of doing so for short amounts of time, but uses
a set of false "fronts" in order to socialize. They look very seamless to people who don't know him really well. To me, however;
it looks incredibly irritating because he does this with me and I know better. Aspies would be surprised at how many so called
normal people are actually doing this very thing and totally overlooking the deceit that is implied. They are taught to do it as
young children and do not question it. This must be part of their "compartmentalizations" that allow them to blindly do one thing
or another without seeing the conflict in the social rules that it causes. We see it though. Straight lines, people, straight lines.

I really and honestly believe that most autistic people are in fact EXTREMELY TALENTED in picking up on nuances in behavior.
I have lived it and watched my oldest son for so long. He always knows when he's being slighted-even a slight slight. He
may not know how to react to it, but the emotional hurt and turmoil is very real-it may be a delayed reaction that doesn't hit
for minutes, hours, days-sometimes he can't react to a slight for months, but eventually his reaction comes and the pain is
horrendous. I tend to react much faster-within hours or days at the outset. I will also tend to find myself unable to continue trusting
the person/people who hurt me in this manner. The problem with the NT understanding of this problem and the reason I believe
that so many autistics/aspies think that they don't understand emotions/non-verbal language correctly is because the normal NT's
go out of their way NOT to admit to the rudeness and mean-spiritedness of their socially acceptable-socially agreed upon method
of verbal sparring and being cool. To them, it is whoever is powerful, fast enough, witty enough and can get in the jab or slap-they are allowed
to do so without being questioned as to whether they should be jabbing, lying, mocking, ect-whatever they think will make them
cool and able to get the "JOB DONE" so to speak, if they have something to accomplish for others-that can be permission to them.

There are stories of people who have gone to live in the jungle to study animals for months on end. They eventually find that they
can read the animals non-verbal communications quite handily. They also find that the animals may engage in certain types of
deception, communicationally speaking, but they DO NOT LIE. If they are cornered in a deception, they will tell the truth.

Humans specifically do the exact OPPOSITE of this behavior. As autistics/aspies, we are literal often and society teaches to NOT LIE,
NOT CHEAT, NOT ENGAGE IN THIS BEHAVIOR. Then the NT's lie, cheat, deceive as a matter of normalcy without giving it a second thought because
they learn it in the form of language communications and power pecking order establishment behaviors. They sometimes call it "white lying" in order
to save someone else's feeling, but I believe that might also be a means of concealing their own personal judgementalism against another.
How do we know that they are correct when they say-well, you just want everyone to "agree' with you? I don't know how we would know that is correct.
I have had people tell me this and I really don't think that is what I was feeling. Now, the Nt's say not to let someone else "define" you! How interesting
that so many of them think it is perfectly wonderful for them to do to me what they would take umbrage at something they would be angry/hurt about
someone doing to them?Sometimes they say they just didn't have the time to do this or this, but they expect us to take those slaps
and be silent-as though we deserved them because we weren't fast enough or smart enough or capable enough. Possibly, they just didn't prepare to lead enough.

Perhaps, my friends, we are not incapable of picking up on non-verbal clues as so many want us to believe. Yes, we are gullible
and often believe what we are told-most of the NT's do as well. Perhaps, because of the hypocritical nature of the above dynamic-which
in Truth-It hurts so many NT's just as much as it does us because we are by no means the only people who are considered fair targets
by those who wish to play such power and control games within the constrains of socially acceptable behavioral guidelines.

I prefer doing stuff that is usually on my own. It amost always involes academic stuff/reading or strength trraining. I feel addicted to it. I like people but only some of the times when I'm really bored. Not very often.

I've always been disinterested in others.
I think I only try to socialise because I'm challenging myself and when I don't socialise people complain. 'Oh, what are you going to do with the rest of your life?' Hmm, maybe I'll pursue a career from one of my special interests that I have because I rarely socialise.
But I have friends that accept my differences and I care for them.

But back to the original question. AS is on the autism spectrum and scientists have found lower activity in certain areas of the brain that NT's would have light up when they look at faces. We're also sensory oversensitive and interested in our own thing.
It's in our wiring. That doesn't mean that we're all going to be disinterested. Some of us want to socialise but can't, while some others can do it for a little bit then have a long cat nap. And some of us make progress and some of us that were good at socialising hit a brick wall and would now prefer to be on their own.

I think I've been through all of them. It goes around in circles for me. The last time I was with my friends we all had a great time but since then I've become much more withdrawn socially. I know it's what happens when I become overwhemled. It's like a long term shutdown. I regress to a state when I felt less anxious about the world.

I would say that I put the physical world over the social world on my priorities of interests list. Even when I do feel like socializing, I'm usually confused about how to do it and end up not doing it out of fear.