Social Skills Getting Worse?

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It seems, as time has gone on, my social skills have gotten worse and not better. It seems my opportunity close as time marches on and other people make further and further gains. I continuously have a smaller share of life experience in comparison to people in my age group. I find my social skills get rusty with little practice, and what I have now makes sustained social interaction difficult not from anxiety or a feeling of being overwhelmed but from a shere confusion of what I ought to say or do. I just spout off what seems best, but people often look at my funny or ignore me when I do and are quick to end their conversations with me.

Invariably, I try to strike up a conversation with someone and I ask them what their name is, what their major is, if they live in the same dorm as me, what classes they are taking, etc. I don't find much in common to get things moving from there.

Worse overall no, worse compared to my peers yes. I think Im just slipping farther behind, which is why generally online I try to talk to people younger then me, they dont seem to care that I talk so weirdly.

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In my experience, I've had trouble defining social skills. At some basic human level, it's good to be attuned to some nonverbal stuff that's in all cultures and stuff. But then there's stuff that isn't so much there as it is that it happens to be, in a sense. Like the kids in my high school -- biggest bunch of jerks ever. Does my inability to get along with a bunch that deliberately excludes me because I'm not part of their whole entrenched cliquey circlejerk mean that <b>I</b> have bad social skills? These are the kind of things I've been tyring to figure out.

How do you define social skills?

Social skills are like any other skill. Some people are naturally talented, but anyone can improve with practice. I was never very outgoing in high school, but I ended up getting a job in the service industry that required me to interact with hundreds (if not thousands) of people on a daily basis. This made me familiar enough with making casual conversation that I've had a much easier time conversing with people in college. I mentioned this in another post but I think that many people with AS are caught in a catch-22: they are anxious in social situations because they have no experience, and they have no experience because they avoid social situations that make them anxious. In my case, I had no real choice- I HAD to interact with people to do my job.

NeantHumain, when you try to start a conversation with someone, who do you start it with? Is it just a random person sitting alone at lunch, or a classmate, or neighbors in the dorm, or what? My experience is that it's VERY difficult to chat with random people you see, since it's pretty likely you don't have anything in common, and the person may be by themselves by choice (doing homework, reading, etc.). It's easier to chat with classmates because you already know what you have in common and can make small talk based on that ("Damn, that last test was brutal" or "This professor seems to be a fairly easy grader"). Most, though not all, people are happy to chat, and even if you don't develop a relationship with them, you still gain valuable experience. Also good are co-workers, people you recognize from your dorm, people that participate in the same activities as you- people that you know you have something in common with.

I think I can agree with most of the statements above. Individually my social skills are getting better. As for social milestones, however, when my peers take ten steps forward, it seems I only take five.

I'm not sure. On one hand, I have doing better in social situations. Today I handled an unplanned social situation (a business lunch) really well, and I was proud of myself. On the other hand, I have much less desire to interact with people, which may be impeding my social skills.

I've noticed that mine are laregly contingent on certain biological things - that probably sounds wierd but it seems like I have all the know-how just that sometimes everything's lined up and sometimes I'm feeling too out of it to even use it right. I've also noticed that my AS hits me in cycles - I'll have a week or two where, in relationship to most times I can come off silky smooth and prettymuch pass as NT for the most part, wit and all. Then I have times where I really do come off as almost socially ret*d or just very disoriented. During those times I can literally feel it in my head like certain neurological areas of my brain are falling asleep on me, I know that no matter how much I try I won't be able to 'vibe up' as normal (I still make sense when I talk to people but my speech and angles I come from will seem disoriented), best way I can describe it is I feel like I'm extremely extremely stoned - to where my head just about feels like it's collapsing on itself, I just don't have my spit turning to cooking oil and don't have the munchies.

As far as the types of friends I make, they tend to be guys who are cool and all, sharp and witty, but who have the types of personalities that are real cognitive, kinda slightly on the ADHD/OCD tract of thinking, and their assessment of people is really based on their integrity, character, the fact that they like intelligence, don't like drama, etc. - in essence they have a more substance over form approach to people in general (same would go to the female friends I have). As for the types of people who usually do end up having a problem with me they usually are fine with me by the time they realize other people like themselves are, others really need a lot of time in close proximity with me to figure out that I'm ok on their own. Regardless, I'll still have the rare girl here and there giving me freaked out looks, telling people I'm crazy - grrrr!! ! It just happened again tonight in class.

The real tragedy for me in all this is that social skills or the knowledge of aren't any help because again, this is something that just claps down on me and I have to go into damage mitigation mode - act as normal as I can where it matters but sometimes I can't worry about looking all wide-eyed, wierd, and neurologically jacked because once I try to tackle that impossible task in that mode I've lost the energy it needs to keep myself socially composed as much. It seems like overtime that cyclical rollercoaster ride is getting to where the highs are just a shade higher and the troughs are low but not quite as low as the last time. Problem is that's something that's happening so slowly that it takes me looking back, especially at times of seasonal changes, to prior years to compare myself to how I'm doing now. It's like other people mentioned though - I"m making progress but it's like I'm going 30mph on the highwy while other people are going 70. It's excruciating sometimes to even keep at 30 and for me to really relax like other people I'd really have to be going 15 or 20, but in my mind and based on what I see of how this world works, giving myself no peace and striving like hell to get to 31 or 32 mph, even if the effort I put in is exhorbinant and is wrecking my health, is the only honorable way to handle things.

On the fact that lots of people don't see it at all with me while others are hypersensitive, it scares the hell out of me also because I'm graduating college, going to the professional world, and this kind of problem has absolutely no place there. Seems like questions of my competance are usually rare, far between, and the only people who really get creeped out are evaluating me from their own emotions rather than the facts of what I can or can't do, who I am, etc. On the other hand, that puts me right on the tight rope where technically I can get by, but my life is gonna probably wrapped in a sort of paranoia and dysphoria caused by that concern and that awareness that I may never be able to relax, and as lots of you know there's a HUGE other component that really seems to trump nuts and bolts social skills - how effortless someone is: that'll probably keep me out of the box untill I'm in one about 6 feet down pushing daisies. Yeah, it's f**ed but I've gotta accept that as my fate. At the same time, that feeling of hopelessness is the one thing that keeps me dedicated to never letting the war against my AS down, if just one more ounce of effort could have gotten me normal, to the safe zone, and living what I felt was a fullfilling life, I'd regret it to the end of time if I hadn't given just that one more ounce.

School imposed social life onto me. I didnt need to work for it, we were obligated to socialize. As i get older and i am less obligated to socialize with people i find myself unable to form more social ties. At least in the normal sense.


I can be just as social as i want, as long as i am allowed to do it in my weird ass way. And in my opinion the way i want to do it is more fun.

God, I love that feeling. Even right now as I'm talking about it I feel almost like some force is grabbing my brain from overtop and trying to squeeze it into sedation. I know it's gotta be chemical but what? Stimulants only do so much and only offer a narrow band of help rather then fully aleviating the problem...

Yes, sometimes I just get so tired or overloaded that I really don't give a damn anymore about trying to reciprocate.

Might be sitting and talking with somebody and I just get overloaded and finally have to say "Hell with it" and then I just end up saying things like "uh-huh", "yeah", "right" and maybe nodding a little. But I'm not paying attention at ALL.

yes, sitting in this dark room alone for 88% of the day, everyday, doesn't help me much either.