The difference between genuine social skills and faking NT

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If you deliberately learn social skills like small talk and making correct eye contact (as opposed to acquiring them unconsciously), when is this something that helps you make genuine relationships/connections with people, and when is it trying to pass for or pretend to be allistic/neurotypical (ie not Autistic)? At what point does a conscious effort to use social skills become putting on an act of ‘normal’?

For example, when I try to make eye contact it’s purely so I don’t appear rude or abnormal and it feels like an act. But it’s possible that it facilitates the parts of the parts of a relationship that seem genuine to me, like offering help or exchanging information.

And I learned on this forum that the correct response to ‘How are you?’ is ‘Fine thanks, how are you?’, and not an honest answer, like I used to do. I think giving the correct response makes the other person less uncomfortable and can lead further conversation that is more genuine. But when I say it I feel like I’m reciting a well-rehearsed lie.

These social skills seem like they’re more about making the other person comfortable than anything to do with me. But I expect the allistic parts of me appreciate it when other people use social skills that I learned automatically.

What do you think?

I don't see any difference. People think anything is fake when they don't want to do something but have to or when something isn't natural to them. I never understood the term fakeness when it comes to behavior. Either you do it or you don't. Can you fake table manners or fake politeness or fake not being rude or fake being rude and so on?

Improvisation is one cohesive answer, eye contact is not. Yes, I've communicated a few meaningful things via my eyes, but along with them my reservations about the clarity of my messages and overexposure of my psyche to those who likely couldn't handle a minute inside it. I normally answer positively or neutrally when people inquire about how I'm doing, but matching inquisitiveness is a worthier challenge than the occasional white lie. This never works with my family, but it's taken me farther than I thought possible elsewhere in the world.

It's hard for me to distinguish where exactly I'm faking it and where it's just me. I haven't exactly got zero social skills so not every single thing I do is fake or forced learned.

I am my true self at home, so the things I don't do when I'm not at home is when I can tell I'm faking it. Like usually I get into a panic when snow is forecasted, but if I was at work and someone says that it's going to snow, I won't get into a panic so much. I will inside, but not show up on the outside. I will just sit there and be cool. I might calmly say something like, ''oh my God, I hate it when it snows'' but that's it. I suppose that's acting, because if I was at home at heard exactly that, I would be getting all panicky and overreacting. I find it harder to act at home than I do when I'm at work, out in public, or with friends. Probably because the social expectations are higher when I'm out than it is in the home. I suppose it's because people that live together grow used to each other, especially if it's your own family.

There's no difference.

Why do you think there is one?

I don't believe they're completely synonymous, as some have suggested. They're tangibly related but aren't exactly one in the same.

I'd define grasping social skills as cognitively grasping nonverbal communication (e.g. tone and gestures), understanding what is socially acceptable in different situations and having a greater likelihood of success in social situations as a result. Neurotypicals typically pick these things up naturally as they develop, whereas an autistic person has to learn them manually.

However, I think 'faking NT' doesn't imply any learned skills and perhaps also implies an aura of deceit. Faking being a neurotypical could mean remaining closeted about having autism in hopes of passing off as non-autistic. It doesn't necessarily imply that an autistic has learned a vast degree of social skills, it just implies they're consciously trying to look neurotypical without anybody picking up on the fact that they have an autism spectrum disorder.

I am like that. But as I've got older, I've learnt that people are going to discover that something is wrong with me, but my behaviours does not scream out Asperger's. I just know it doesn't because I have read up about the Aspie stereotypes and I know I have one or none of those. So I pass off as somebody with learning difficulties or ADHD. I don't know why but I am still ashamed and in denial about Asperger's, but for some reason I don't feel ashamed about saying I have learning difficulties or ADHD if I had them (which I don't think I do). I think it's because people seem more afraid of Asperger's because they know it makes a person different or they think that an Aspie person is going to be unpredictable or something, where as learning difficulties or ADHD can be more well-known, and the labels kind of explain themselves and so people just take you as they find you. Lucky for me I am not an Aspie with a high IQ, so I can get away with being assumed that I have learning difficulties.

The very fact that you HAVE to make a conscious effort to do it, is what makes it FAKING. If it came naturally to you, you wouldn't even think of it as "making small talk," it would just be a normal part of interacting with another person. It's not normal for us, that's why doing it is FAKE - it's not the REAL aspie - it's an ACT, a put-on, a social mask.

Everyone fakes though don't they? Because saying what you want to say/doing what you want won't always get you far in life. I'm NT (with a fair few quirks) and I pretend to be interested what people are saying sometimes when I'm not because I like them. It spares their feelings but also it helps me in that if I told them they were boring me every time I'm sure they would distance themselves from me. I say thankyou for awful gifts for the same reason.
When someone asks how I am I will generally say fine - even if I'm not as unless it's my husband or someone I'm really close to I don't want to have to go into the ins and outs of why I'm not fine just so they can then pretend to care.
Life is just a massive act really. The difference with NT's is that the tend to know intuitively when and how to act or bend the truth.
Purely my opinion but if you have the intelligence to have worked out how to do things that don't come naturally but make your life easier/happier then I don't think you are being untrue to yourself to use those things. It seems the logical thing to do.

Last edited by Rabbers on 26 Dec 2013, 5:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Real social "skills" means being able to simultaneously handle all aspects of communication.

Faking means focusing on one aspect at the expense of another aspect.

For example, imagine that there's a tightrope across a canyon. It requires two things to get across: balance, and moving across. If you know that the most important aspect is balance, and you focus on that, you never walk across, and you never get to the other side. If other people insist that the most important aspect is moving to the other side, and you focus on that, you may try to walk across, but you fall, and you still don't get to the other side. If you have an understanding that both skills are required, you can deceive other people into believing that you can do both things, but if you actually try and do both, you're only going to get so far before falling into the canyon.

Or imagine that you can't read, but that you've heard a story so many times that you know it from memory. If someone hands you a book you can pretend that you are reading it. You can move your eyes side-to-side and down the page, and you can turn the page, and you can say the words of the story, and if observing you, another person may believe that you're capable of reading. But if someone gave you a different book, if you can't read, you lose a vitally important part of your ability to convince them.

When experiencing an event, the more aspects of it that I have experienced, and the more outcomes I have experienced, the more comfortable I will be with it, because I make the assumption that if I respond similarly I can get other people to respond in similar ways, but if I respond differently I can get better responses. I know this "book".

But adding in unexpected aspects, like new people, or unexpected events, makes it very confusing and hard to handle.

The difference is between understanding something on a functional level versus understanding it superficially.

Social skills can be developed, yes. But doing so requires that things be done frequently enough to make responses as if they were instinctual reflexes. Memorizing extensive combinations of different social situations and trying to act out of recalling what was the appropriate action last time will give someone the ability to superficially function, but it's exhausting, and is not the same thing.

My answer:

Faking NT = Pretending to have an innate pack mentality.

Genuine social skills = Actually having an innate pack mentality.

The innate pack mentality is what makes social skills second nature to NTs.

The problem comes in when you make the effort so much a part of your thinking, it becomes at least second nature, and so the line between "faking" and just plain "doing" becomes pretty hard to see.

People who lack normal interaction skills may have to slowly learn such thinking and behaviours over a long period of time, with a lot of trial and error along the way. The person may not even be doing it deliberately. They're just trying to survive and find a way to interact with others, maybe not even knowing there's anything different about how their own brain works in that department.

The extent to which I've managed this myself is not, by any means, "normal". I'm still not doing it right, there's still that great expenditure of energy in interacting (which I seriously doubt NTs experience), and it's a simple fact my friendships are still not as well-built as those my friends have with other people.

Still, am I "faking"? I'm not convinced that's the case. I'm putting forth effort, greater effort than most people do so's to interact, but it's become so automatic how can it be "faking"? The lines of thinking and the reactions I have are things that have become "normal" for me, even if they don't work as well as what most people have, and are far more "lumpy" in their construction.

Faking? No? Not doing it as well as most people, for sure.

Last edited by Sethno on 26 Dec 2013, 6:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Very well put!

From my experience, when you keep on doing something, it becomes a habit it becomes natural you start doing it without thinking about it. I even remembering hearing an expert say this too to an ASD person. I can remember how awkward it was to learn table manners or having to make the th sound instead of pronouncing th words with an f and I remember how awkward it was to hold the scissors right or to hold a pencil right and my mom told me I would get used to it and I did eventually. I also remember how hard it was to chew with my mouth closed because it never came natural and I had to keep reminding myself to do it and making sure I had it closed when chewing so kids wouldn't think I was rude and gross and selfish and would like me. I always viewed social skills as the same too and I didn't even know what they were then. All these rules you have to remember to follow like before talking to someone, always say their name. Lot of people break this social rule because how often do I not hear someone say a person's name first before speaking to them? This was a rule I learned in speech therapy and you earned a speech buck for it or lost a speech buck for not doing it and she would always remind us if we forgot. Life is so full of memorizing.

My husband claims he acts different around people and puts on an act he does it automatically now without thinking about it and he doesn't know he is doing it.

I learned on here about a year back that doing something by habit doesn't make it natural so what exactly is natural then? I thought natural meant doing something without thinking about it like I would say it's natural for me to lock my car when I get out. When people on here say they do things but it doesn't come natural to them, do they mean they do it without thinking about it and they had to keep working on doing it until it became a habit or do they mean literally not natural as in they have to remind themselves to do it and make themselves do it and keep thinking about it?

What does having a "innate pack mentality" have to do with social skills? Does saying "good morning" reflect "pack mentality"?

That's reaching.

It is fake because you're acting. It's no different than Leonardo DiCaprio looking "lovingly" into an actresses eyes on a set. You would call that fake, wouldn't you? For other people, as hard as it may be to believe, eye contact and other social behaviors come naturally to them. I do, however, think that many people--including NTs-- fake small talk as a form of social politeness. Or they may be fake in a job interview. A lot of things are faked for the sake of politeness. But some extroverts do get off on talking to random people and interacting with them. As I have postulated on here before, for some people, socializing is the utmost priority in their life.

You faking being social will help you form relationships because that is the whole point of being social. It's just that in your case it is fake. I know I have befriended people simply by forcing myself to be more talkative. I did not personally form emotional bonds with these friends, but they seemed to take a liking to me. Maybe that's how sociopaths manipulate people? Luckily, I am no sociopath and do not manipulate people into murdering or anything.