What do you find most challenging socially?

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I'm hoping to get a picture of how similar my own difficulties with autism are to others with autism (following on from some of my previous threads about being part of a team hoping to build some technology that might assist people with autism: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt213047.html).

What do you find most difficult socially and which social difficulties (if any) impact your life the most?

Remembering the social conventions and normalities is always a problem for me as well as talking to people I don't know. (I'm a young adult and I still run upstairs when the doorbell rings) And of course eye contact.

I don't think there's a better name for it than "riffing". That's what really messes with me in social interactions. It's when people abandon logic and meaningful communication for some kind of light-hearted and superficial saturnalia that everyone but me finds easy and amusing.

Most people would call it casual small talk. For instance, a lady I work with was showing me the location of a certain room. Some guy asked her, "what are you, a hall monitor?" And I got tense, because I knew this was a kind of challenge to see whether I would answer right, with something funny or amusing, as a test by which they will judge me.

I got angry and scared. It's like not being allowed on the bus until you correctly answer how many bell peppers can fit up a harp seal's ass (during rainy weather, of course... It's Thursday).

The lady replied with something that he wanted to hear... I'm not without wit or a sense of humor, but little challenges like this just drive me nuts because, well, what is there that's interesting to say about hall monitors in an office building? I bought my hall pass with a cup of coffee? I angered my boss, so I need to be escorted around now? She's earning extra vacation hours with it?

I just have no intuition for this crap, and the correct answers are DESPERATELY UNFUNNY to me. I'm pretty sure she said something like "yes, I'm a hall monitor." That's it. I mean, and the guy laughed and the tension was defused. Does she cleverly take into account a hypothetical office hall monitor? No. Think of something AMUSING to say, like a comedian would, like "I confiscated three bags of weed and a bottle of Quaaludes?" No, she just says "yes". I don't get it.

The things I find socially challenging are:-

Asking the other person questions during a conversation
Knowing the differences between joining in and butting in
Giving good advice and suggestions to a friend who has a problem (does not mean I lack sympathy/empathy though)
Making eye contact with strangers, unless I have to specifically interact with them (then eye contact comes more naturally)
Hiding things that are supposed to be ''private''
Standing up for myself/being assertive
Being ''chatty''/joining in group conversations
Being confident in my appearance/posture
Jokingly insulting people
Knowing the differences between things that need and needn't be said when out in public (in other words, I say things that make me sound like I'm ret*d or something)

There are so many social cues I find easy, yet there are so many that I find hard.

focusing on what someone is saying and understanding them, being able to hear them over background noise.

Teasing
Saying something funny
Talking to women

And above all:
Facing people when they are becoming pests.
There is a strong chance that I will end up looking like a ret*d.

Things I find very hard:

Striking up a conversation with a stranger; when it's okay vs when it's creepy and how to start it/what to say

Small talk with strangers (usually with friends I just skip it and go straight to the meaningful conversation)

Knowing how much information to give concerning a situation when asking someone for information

Getting into someone else's conversation; when it is/isn't okay, and how to do it

Eye contact (with anyone, even family; I find myself staring at the ceiling and realise I must look psycho)

Introductions; I never remember to ask the other person's name and stare at their hands rather than their faces when they offer them to shake, never know when/with what sorts of people to shake hands

Remembering not to stim or monologue (rare; they have to get the conversation started around my interest but when they do, there's no turning back)

Exiting a conversation; finding a graceful excuse to leave and whether or not to say goodbye if they're strangers at a bus stop or if I'm just going across the room.

All the little stuff mostly; it's sooo annoying. For a while I sort of wondered if social anxiety was my only real problem, but looking back at my list it turns out it's probably not.

Actively participating in a conversation with NTs, whilst trying to appear social; I struggle with 'accurate eye contact' and facial expressions, and my focus is so much on these things that I end up saying nothing, at all.

EDIT: Plus, I find talking to strangers and new people hard to talk to/understand; I cannot easily start a conversation (do small talk) with them, and I am never sure of the impression I leave on them.

I also don't know how to end a conversation or ask questions to continue a conversation with someone.

For me, it's when people expect me to interpret their silences and then reproach, blame, ridicule, badmouth, dump, fire and/or become all offended when I don't. If there's one thing I despise in humans, it's this kind of passive-aggressive tool they love to use because they can always claim, if it suits them later on, that they didn't say anything and it's all in your mind. I.can't.stand.mind.games, period.

Conversation in general, unless it has something to do with my interests. Then it's only mildly uncomfortable.

I also have a VERY hard time remembering names. Someone can tell me their name, and 5 minutes later I'll have no idea what their name is!

greetings are no fun. i pass people at work. whether they are in the hall or at their desk (because our whole office has no walls) i dont know what to do. i wave like a dope sometimes, i have come to realize. i end up calling a lot of people 'sir' as well. along with this is greeting someone who has been away for a while like on vacation. how happy am i supposed to be that they have come back?

outside of work, it is a different story with romance topping the list.

Initiating anything when I'm supposed to.

People misinterpreting me processing my emotions and getting accusatory.

For me responding to jokes and small talk appropriately is very difficult and it often makes me very nervous and tense. In that way I tend to spread my awkward tension to other people and make them uncomfortable. Eventually people stop greeting me not necessarily because they dislike me, but because they just find it awkward to talk to me.

Eye contact is another issue. Compared with before, I think I can make eye contact with people a bit better, but I still seem to manage to cause discomfort to other people by probably staring or making unnatural awkward self-conscious eye contact with them. I can see other people suddenly become tense and self-conscious as a result of my unnatural eye contact.

Eventually people start bitching and laughing about my awkwardness and I become more and more isolated. That's always the pattern.

One of the things I have problems with is accepting a compliment. The other day someone I work with said they liked what I had done with my hair. Instead of just saying thanks and moving on, I gave a nervous sarcastic-sounding (I think) thanks and proceeded to babble before my mind just going blank. It's ridiculous.

Also, knowing how to start and end conversations can be a challenge - especially if I don't know the person very well.

I have found what Nostromo posted strikes a tune.

My anxious moments are not being fluid in novel social settings. I get tense, but this varies dramatically. Something can set my anxiety level off at the dinner table: I remember my wife and I sitting at the dinner table as guests and the usual small talk and banter comes around; I can find myself wordless. Huh???? Passing the food trays around and sensing I'm being tested as people sum you up..... a character test..... The sounds and the newness are distracting. One time I knocked over a gallon of lemonade on the table......... I was reaching over for something and was "distracted." Too much going on around me.

Other times it's a complete flip flop, a 'jim- dandy'. I'm relaxed and can be fun and funny.

I think it's overload.