The Flow of Social Interaction

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Ok I think Ive made several posts about this by now. And I can never seem to articulate myself very well.

Imagine a social event. You walk in by yourself and you have some acquintances, a ton of familar faces and strangers but no friends you can lag onto in the social event. Do you know how to go up to people, who do you go up to, how do you start up a conversation smoothly to someone you dont know, is it ok to start up a conversation, or should you just say hi? Then imagine its not just a social event but everyday life in all situations. Sometimes you have friends you can lag onto other times you dont.

Does this ever confuse the s**t outta anyone. I swear this is one of my biggest problems with social interaction. Ive picked up some skills overtime which has helped. Eye contact is key, wave/say hi to people frequently even if you dont know them, if your with someone and they acknowledge someone who you dont really know but there a familar face, acknowledge them too. One of my biggest complaints is that NTs seem to smoothly go thru social interactions like its no big deal. And for me, its a friggen big deal and it always is and I hate it. I understand how for an NT, its a big ackward when they go somewhere new and know no one. For me, the social situations never get comfortable. Im always stressing over everything and I cant ever sit back and relax because I need to be social. Make myself open so people wont write me off readily. Its so stressful. And I need to be on top of my emotional capacity to perform like this. Lately Ive been so emotionally exhausted and burnt out that I cant do it as well lately. Sometimes when I see an acquintance, I get so nervous sometimes cause I need to say hi or should I say hi?

Like at a social event, its so much easier to lag onto a friend because they do the work for me. All I need to do is make those social interactions along with them. I dont need to initiate them, my friend will know how to smoothly navigate the social event even if they dont know the people any better then me. I notice, in classes, social events, activities: my chances of social interaction increase by 5x with a friend vs alone

It's daunting, all right. And, lacking the metaphorical finger to keep on the pulse of a conversation, it's fraught with danger. Saying the wrong thing, or the right thing at the wrong time can permanently kill the prospect of relationship with most NTs.

I think this is a pretty common experience, at least for those of us that haven't completely given up on socializing. For me, talking to people is always hit and miss. Sometimes it seems to work out (ie I may just be oblivious to the mistakes that I make or the other person is forgiving) and sometimes I just say and do all of the wrong things. Since learning about AS, I've learned not to beat myself up over it too much. Not every encounter is gonna go well and the best that you can do is just keep trying and keep learning.

There are times it has fustrated me to no end where I just dont know what to do in a social situation. Put it this way...if I never had to intiate social interaction and all the social interaction came my way...I do know what to do for the most part. Intiating has always been a challenge. One thing i notice is that NTs just know what to do, like they dont think about it once they've gotten used to the social enviorenment. For me its like Im constantly trying to perform and I dont do a good job at it either. It would be so much easier just to recoil into my shell, avoid people, and not interact but I dont want to do that. Thats why its so hard for me to make and keep acquintances. I may become acquintanted with someone, I lose that acquintance quite easily. And its hard for me to take those acquintances into friendship unless I try really hard. Friendships rarely come "naturally", if I didnt try, I wouldnt have friends. In the NT world, sure theres some trying, but theres many friendships that crop up naturally, at least a good share of them. Ehh....that dont happen for me.

I am not diagnosed with an ASD (although I suspect one) and am diagnosed with social anxiety, but you just described my social anxiety problems exactly!! !!

I am the same as you except I still rarely make eye contact as personally I find I get more information from watching their mouth. Watching their eyes really does not always tell me a lot.

What I tend to do is wait for someone to come over and start talking to me first. I am trying to explain to my therapist that even if I do relax in social situation I still have no idea what in the hell I am supposed to be doing! Unfortunately they just don't listen and can't seem to comprehend the fact that some people have no natural intuition for socialising and can struggle with it and knowing how to do it effectively.

For me socialising is complete burn out.

Yeah for me, if I try and relax in a social situation it equals talking to no one or barely anyone and just observing people and listening into conversation, maybe making a comment or 2. I dont know what Im suppose to be doing, I dont know how to bud into conversations properly with people I barely know. And people have accused me to not trying hard enough in the past. I used to get the message, you dont try. What the hell? Ive worked my butt off this past yr, while I did get somewhere. I never could make it so I could get comfortable in a community and socialize naturally. There was barely a time in a social situation where I wasnt trying where I could completely relax and not think and socialize naturally.

I manage to make a friend in a class last semester. I swear, if it wasnt for that friend, I would have talked to no one in the class. He was new also, Id watch him, he'd just naturally communicate at times even tho he knew no one either. Infact I was more familar with the people then he was.

I never enter into a social situation or gathering of people in which there isn't someone I know very well that can sort of act as an escort. It's always a time of pretty high anxiety for me, even then, especially when dealing with crowds. When entering into a repetitive social situation, ie going into a new workplace, I stay as quiet and unobtrusive and deferential as possible so that I can study the people around me and figure out how they interact with one another through observation. Give me a few weeks to figure out the rules, and eventually I can slot myself well enough into the group, even if knowing what to say in conversation and how to respond to people's behaviour is still a constant challenge.

Luckily my observation skills are keen. It's how I managed to avoid being diagnosed until 23.

yeah i have yet to get this s**t right, professionally, or personally. and its only become apparent in the past 3 years that i have lived on my own in 2 different cities. like for example, i just got my license renewed today. and i was thinking what i can say has changed in the past 4 years. and sure i have been in and out of school, have had a few different jobs, joined a gym, tried to socialize with meetup groups, have gone from non-believer to believer back to non-believer with religion, and have made plenty for the moment acquaintances mainly at work but no stable friends. and i feel like i am missing out on a lot but through it all im still oblivious on how to be the most normal, friendly, funny, cool person or something like that.

and when i did go get drunk with my work acquaintances or got drunk with my sister's friends off and on in my early 20s, i always had these same thoughts/problems in these environments. sure alcohol is a great social lubricant as they say but in the end i came to find out that all those cool party people were essentially the most uninteresting, f****d up, stupidly lame as*holes when they were sober. hence i understood why some of those people were such alcoholics. plus when you're drinking, do u really expect to have an intellectual conversation? no, its all about tits and ass and how much of a cool f****d up ass you can be and still be able to drive home with the end goal to be getting lucky.

but lets also say, that say if i went bowling with a group of people, my quiet nature is firmly inplace and since i dont have the luxury of rapidly decoding all the required fundamental social skills and rules of socializing im usually remembered as just that guy who hung out but never really got to know. and since i wasnt as extrovertedly loud and crazy and full of witty comebacks and awesome putdowns and be able to shoot the BS with the guys, well then my social life is dead.