Social Dormancy

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Today I spent 4 hours with my friends at a movie theatre. Three guys, G, T, and me. G and T would talk to eachother within at least 15 minute intervals throughout the movie, usually longer, but they generally ignored me for 3 hours. I think this is mostly my fault for not making any effort to communicate with them, they always had to talk to me before I'd say anything, and half the time I said something they didn't even respond.

I'm fairly certain they like me, because they did invite me to a theatre with them, they seemed happy throughout even though I was basically following them and said maybe 20 sentences in total. I really have no idea how to talk to people, and half the time I don't even want to talk to people. Half the time I was there I felt like going home to play chess and read. When I did get home, I felt completely contented out of my boredom from being with them.

I know this whole post is entirely self-indulgent, which could turn off some readers. However, the point is the illustrate a certain type of situation. I really don't see how my circumstances for socializing could have been better: I was with two of my closest friends, had nothing on my mind, I was watching a movie I genuinely wanted to see, they don't even mind if I stim in front of them. Absolutely no anxiety or stress, yet I still manage to actively alienate myself and become totally dormant socially. Does anybody else suffer this sort of symptom? Or if anybody can relate, how do you yourself to actually talk during social outings? It was the first time I'd gone out for anything social in weeks, too.

I have been in the EXACT SAME PLACE! I didn't know about AS, and my friends, such as they are, STILL don't know about AS, etc... If your friends are so close, and know about your problems, try asking them why they ignore you, etc... MAYBE they can help you. Still, I have that SAME sort of problem. Just a week or so ago I was IGNORED in the MIDDLE of a conversation, another INTERRUPTED and when I "interrupted", some JERK said "Let him talk". As a kid, EVEN if they were the last employer on the planet, I would have said "THEY interrupted, I didn't! And WHY shouldn't I try to restore order? After all, I heard everyone ELSE out and waited my turn!" Alas, I was silent.

People have wasted MANY man months, some may have seen TOTAL PROJECT FAILURES because they didn't listen to me. I speak VERY RARELY! MOST meetings I never say one thing! I am always seen as the goto guy! I always try to wait my turn. Sometimes I am interrupted at every syllable, and interrupt every pause with the next syllable JUST to make it clear I have something IMPORTANT to say! You would think they would listen, RIGHT? EVERY thing I say WILL save them money! EVERY man hour saves them about $200! Several projects probably lost as much as 9 man months because they DON'T LISTEN! My last project lost twice that! 9 man months cost about $216,000 USD! That is a lot to pay for bad manners!

Maybe you'll have better luck with your friends.

Steve

I don't get annoyed about ppl not listening to me and then having to come back to me for a solution. Makes me feel smart as it's satisfying knowing I was right in the first place

Aha. That I do have a problem with. For instance, my mother was going on holiday and I had to house-sit for her. As we only have one key, and she was due to leave early in the morning, I suggested putting the key underneath the flowerpot in the front garden, much to her dismay. She started suggesting some random thing like giving me the garage door key or something, which was so completely illogical I've blocked it out, and THEN proceeded to suggest putting the BLOODY KEY UNDER THE FLOWERPOT. My boyfriend looked at me bemused behind her and I just bit my lip. Bloody annoying.

For continuity purposes, the illogical part you blocked consisted of:

"I dont want to give you the front door key, because you'll only lose it. I was thinking maybe if i leave you the car keys you could pull it forwards and unlock the garage door and go in that way."

For the record ladymacbeth cant drive...

Yeah, I never liked not having my advice taken either. As a kid I tended towards giving my family simple advice towards goals, but of course I was a kid so it's impossible that I could know anything. As a kid I was prone towards error, but there were several occasions where my advice ended up being taken after the adults screwed up. Of course, never to my credit.

The same happens in other group projects, especially with large groups. I'll suggest something, but it'll be completely ignored. Then when the original ideas have failed, my ideas are either further ignored or adopted because there's nothing else to be done. Usually my solution to this is to immediately and aggressively take leadership. Even if nobody likes me, I'll concoct plans within minutes, start passing out jobs, and begin making notes to ensure success. Generally my motto has become that if you want to screw something up on your own time, that's fine, but not on mine. However, this usually only works for math and tech projects, because I'm usually in the top of those classes so people take my advice.

But for me the real problem lies in just not being able to talk to people. I'm not nearly as close with G and T as they are to eachother, so that's probably why they prefer to ignore me and talk to themselves. However I think they've just gotten used to me. Despite this, I still wish I could socialize rather than just doing nothing and wanting to go home.

It might not be simply them ignoring you. I've noticed over the years that groups of three are notorious for two to interact more with eachother than the 'other one'. It's the third wheel complex. Possibly if you were with just one of them, it wouldn't be so bad. Have you tried that?

its the basic rule of group dynamics really. in any group of three the conversation is likely to predominate around two of the participants. Its quite possible, especially with NTs that they dont even realise they are ignoring you as such. If two of the participants are particularly close then its almost a surefire thing that the third wheel is going to get frozen out a little.

Hmm... this is very true. Thanks for the advice. I'll keep it in mind, although with only two guys things become even more awkward. I have a tendency towards silence, so the silences become interpreted as awkward. So basically I have to force myself to talk about random things, or just make the other person feel weird.

BTW Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth, I've just noticed you two must be a couple. How exactly is it that you both respond within 5 minute intervals of eachother?

We're in the same room

I'm on a laptop, he's on the desktop.

Hooray for aspie relationships.

Awesome. In the future, I hope that my wife and I can talk about the same website, in the same room, at the same time, browsing on different computers. You guys definitely give me hope

Come to think of this, I already do it with my brother.

"MIKE!"
"What?"
"Goto your computer, I want to talk to you."

His room is to the direct left of mine.

Having more than one pc is definitely a bloody good thing lol. Having a partner who doesnt mind, in fact actively enjoys being online, is a godsend. Having an aspie partner has been, for us, perhaps the greatest thing ever.

PBNJ, your post is the story of my life. I have been in, literally, the exact same situation. I know I'm SUPPOSED to be out there socializing but when I do things like this happen and I'm itching to get home and decompress, but at the same time when I don't go out I feel bad for not "participating" in life. Especially since I used to overcompensate for my social awkwardness by being the loudest, funniest kid in the group/school...up until relatively recently. Then I stopped embarassing myself and decided they can like me or not but I was done with that, and what happened was I didn't fit in as well just being myself. I guess these are just the cards we were dealt...I wish I could help you but I'm guessing most of us here are living this every day and we all have the same amount of knowledge of what to do about it (aka 0)

"supposed" to socialise is an NT myth. I've never found forcing it to end up with anything other than an uncomfortable situation and me feeling like a tool. A degree of human contact is a good thing, but its not the be all and end all of things. It was by being stereotypically anti-social that I actually met ladymacbeth, and made several solid friends along the way. In a typical social situation its highly unlikely we would have ever met at all. Dont put too much credence in the idea that hanging out in crappy pubs engaging in almost animalistic tribal rituals is a good thing