Information Overload & Stressed out by txts, facebook et

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About a year ago I tried to improve my ability to talk and meet new people & friends.
I had some success and leart some new strategies to talk to new people, I still have a long way to go though.

But the problem is this. I haven't made that many really good friends, but I have added quite a lot of new contacts to my phone, facebook, various chat programs etc.

Now I find that the information overload of all this has added to my stress levels. And now I just want to stay at home for a while and not even pick up the phone. And like I say I wasn't really that successful at meeting new people.

Now I feel like I have many new contacts but I don't know how to manage staying in touch with them all and building a meaningful relationship with any of them.

Has anyone else felt like this situation, does anyone have any ideas or advice ?

How the hell do NTs handle so many contacts and so much info to process, just to stay in touch with friends.
I see NT friends doing it with ease, and some of them are building networks of friends and relationships that are helping them in their career. I am now more concious than ever of how this inability in me has damaged my career during my life.

I want to try to embrace the NT world and be a part of it. Although I don't understand the NT world that well, and I don't want to be embarrassed about being different, I don't want to reject the NT world either as a minority of AS people seem to want to do.

simple schedule time for facebook 2x a day. Text 4 times a day and the rest of the time turn your phone off if you can or just respond to texts at those times.

Constant connection is the reason I don't turn my phone on

I'm in a similar position, baodi. I recently deactivated my FB account because it was making me too stressed. But that was on top of being jobless and nearly broke. I find I can cope with social stuff IF all other stuff is going well. Now I'm working, I've started it up again and realised people did miss me.

I just keep a few close friends and don't worry about the rest. From a male with male friends, sending a message everyone month or two is sufficient. That's usually enough time to talk about the top 3 interesting things you've been doing. A few messages back and forth and then repeat in a few months.

Also, posting pictures of things you've done makes you interesting. eg. I post pic of Tower of London. People reply: "You're in London?!?! ! OMGZ LOLZ ME TOO!" Me thinking: "I told you this 5 times before I left for London..." This made me realise, people generally don't care that much to remember your life! I read an interesting quote that said something like "everyone is the main character of their own life's movie", which is how I help myself remember it now.

To maintain friendships you need to reach out to your friends. It may feel awkward, but think about if someone messaged you asking to go for a beer etc? You'd feel important wouldn't you? A large part of having friends is that your friends make you feel important, in a "it matters that I exist" way, not "I'm a god" way. Including people makes them feel important. Therefore, include people, they feel important, you make friends, they want to feel important, they return the favour and you get included.

Some people are just bad friends so don't waste your time on trying to be friends with everyone. Also, nearly everyone only has 1-2 close friends no matter what they say - people on Facebook with 1000 friends don't have any permanent friends, so don't bother trying.

I found some of these concepts hard to swallow, especially realising that my friends, or even family, wouldn't go to the ends of the earth for me, or that they didn't remember what was going on in my life. Maintaining friendships is more about advertising yourself first, then showing people you're a good person. Most of it's also trivial and I don't give a s**t, but that's the world we live in.

Edit: forgot to add, making friends with people you don't have anything in common with is nearly impossible. The internet also allows non-traditional friendships as well. eg. message boards, games. So don't rule those things out if you have trouble with face to face contact.

Edit2: sorry, rambling now. Regarding work, this is why I started making more of an effort. I went to a conference recently. I noticed most people didn't talk to each other (they were engineers though..) and it was mainly focused on meeting the presenters and talking to suppliers advertising their services/products. While I did see the whole networking thing going on at university, and for some it turned out really well having friends who gave them referrals, in the professional world, it's mostly professional networking. The benefit of this is that you always have a topic of conversation, such as the product someone is advertising, not "oh yeah it was so funny when we got smashed last weekend!". People are also keen to do business with you, so they're not so picky about your personally. I've met lots of odd people at conferences. No one cares because we're grown ups now, and working with people despite their quirks is a hallmark of professionalism.

I made an effort at the conference and spoke to people I needed to speak to even though I was nervous and didn't really say what I meant to say. One of the guys I gave my card to gave it to someone at their company and now I have a job interview lined up with no competition in sight. That's the power of networking!

Make small, controllable steps and you will soon see the results!

OP, you don't have meangful realtionship or maintain contact with all of your FB and text contacts. You have meaningful relationships with the people that you like and who like you and who you seem to hit it off with.

The rest of them are basically the same level of friendship you would have with a group of people that you waited at the bus stop with for 30 minutes every morning. You listen to what news they have they might want to share with the group (read their status updates), make small talk (comment on their status if you have something to say or click the occasional "like" if you thought a post was cute or funny), look at pictures in their wallet of their kids or grandkids if they pull it out to show you (always click like on pictures of anyones kids, unless the kid is in a hospital bed or something, then you put a " Hugs" in the comment whether you mean it or not, it's polite) congratulate them on good news they tell you ("congrats!" in a comment when someone is engaged, got married, got a raise, got a new car, got a prescription for Viagra, etc) and console them on the bad news ("I'm so sorry to hear that" will suffice for death, divorce, loss of job, etc) and so on.

You do not respond to every status update or even comment on those people statuses more than once or twice a week. Otherwise you are pursuing an actual online friendship with them, which can sometimes proceed to a real life friendship. They are acquaintances. You do not inbox them unless it's something important, like say you know they are a realtor and you have a friend who is going to buy his first house and then you inbox the realtor and tell him about that so you can introduce them if you think he is probably a good realtor. You can inbox them for things like that, but otherwise if they are in the acquaintance catagory, it's seen as wierd to be inboxing someone before you have several conversations on the timeline.

Just check the status updates of the acquaintances when you have time and are bored. You actually dont even have to check them or comment if you don't want to. It's not rude at all. People post statuses so that those on their page can read it if they want to or not if they don't. It's not a big deal. If it is important to them that you read it, they will put it on your timeline. You should respond to something someone posts on your timeline, even if it's just a "LOL". Don't sweat trying to maintain contact with that group. You are probably in that group to most of them as well, as are most people on FB pages, even those who know each other face to face. Occasionally checking statuses and commenting when and if you have something to say is maintaining contact with them at that level.

Those you want to keep or pursue a real friendship with, comment on their stuff two or three times a week, hit like more often, sometimes post a video on their wall. If you enjoy talking to each other, inbox them from time to time. Some people enjoy talking online more than others and so if you enjoy chatting online, you'll talk to some more than others. Some people rarely chat and when they do its brief. That's ok too because everybody has their own internet style. There is on one and only way to do it. That is how you maintain a real frienship on FB.

Save texts for people you interact with face to face on a regular or semi regular basis. You can touch base if it's been a while with a "whats up?" text and say you were "just checking in".

Save phone calls for people you actually do things with or want to do things with. The phone call is the most intimate form of electronic communication (I'm not even including THAT, so don't say it) so reserve the phone for actual friends.

That's all you have to do. Sometimes you'll have your inner circle which are actual friends that you see and hang with and talk to, your outer circle which are your acquaintances that you sometimes see socially but talk with more often on FB others, and your satellite circle which is just people you know who you "keep up with" because they are on your FB page. Sometimes people move from the satellite circle to the outer circle and vice versa. Thats just part of life when people are busy, relationship, families, jobs, football, all that.

To the other poster who said that those who have 1000 plus FB freinds have no real friends, thats just not true. I know lots of people who have that many and it's because of one of three reasons. 1, they just accept any friend request they get, even people who they have no mutual friends with who randomly friended them or friended them for an app. 2. they play apps like farmville and stuff and the more friends you have the more you can advance in the game, and 3. they just like commenting on statuses and could possibly be addicted to FB. There is no reason in the world that any of those three would mean they have no real friends. Their real face to face friends, and even good online friends may or may not be on their FB. I suppose there is a group 4, which is people who just collect FB friends as a way of avoiding actual socializing and tell themselves that even though they don't go out or actually talk to anyone or hang with them, that they are popular

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

OP, you don't have meangful realtionship or maintain contact with all of your FB and text contacts. You have meaningful relationships with the people that you like and who like you and who you seem to hit it off with.

The rest of them are basically the same level of friendship you would have with a group of people that you waited at the bus stop with for 30 minutes every morning. You listen to what news they have they might want to share with the group (read their status updates), make small talk (comment on their status if you have something to say or click the occasional "like" if you thought a post was cute or funny), look at pictures in their wallet of their kids or grandkids if they pull it out to show you (always click like on pictures of anyones kids, unless the kid is in a hospital bed or something, then you put a " Hugs" in the comment whether you mean it or not, it's polite) congratulate them on good news they tell you ("congrats!" in a comment when someone is engaged, got married, got a raise, got a new car, got a prescription for Viagra, etc) and console them on the bad news ("I'm so sorry to hear that" will suffice for death, divorce, loss of job, etc) and so on.

You do not respond to every status update or even comment on those people statuses more than once or twice a week. Otherwise you are pursuing an actual online friendship with them, which can sometimes proceed to a real life friendship. They are acquaintances. You do not inbox them unless it's something important, like say you know they are a realtor and you have a friend who is going to buy his first house and then you inbox the realtor and tell him about that so you can introduce them if you think he is probably a good realtor. You can inbox them for things like that, but otherwise if they are in the acquaintance catagory, it's seen as wierd to be inboxing someone before you have several conversations on the timeline.

Just check the status updates of the acquaintances when you have time and are bored. You actually dont even have to check them or comment if you don't want to. It's not rude at all. People post statuses so that those on their page can read it if they want to or not if they don't. It's not a big deal. If it is important to them that you read it, they will put it on your timeline. You should respond to something someone posts on your timeline, even if it's just a "LOL". Don't sweat trying to maintain contact with that group. You are probably in that group to most of them as well, as are most people on FB pages, even those who know each other face to face. Occasionally checking statuses and commenting when and if you have something to say is maintaining contact with them at that level.

Those you want to keep or pursue a real friendship with, comment on their stuff two or three times a week, hit like more often, sometimes post a video on their wall. If you enjoy talking to each other, inbox them from time to time. Some people enjoy talking online more than others and so if you enjoy chatting online, you'll talk to some more than others. Some people rarely chat and when they do its brief. That's ok too because everybody has their own internet style. There is on one and only way to do it. That is how you maintain a real frienship on FB.

Save texts for people you interact with face to face on a regular or semi regular basis. You can touch base if it's been a while with a "whats up?" text and say you were "just checking in".

Save phone calls for people you actually do things with or want to do things with. The phone call is the most intimate form of electronic communication (I'm not even including THAT, so don't say it) so reserve the phone for actual friends.

That's all you have to do. Sometimes you'll have your inner circle which are actual friends that you see and hang with and talk to, your outer circle which are your acquaintances that you sometimes see socially but talk with more often on FB others, and your satellite circle which is just people you know who you "keep up with" because they are on your FB page. Sometimes people move from the satellite circle to the outer circle and vice versa. Thats just part of life when people are busy, relationship, families, jobs, football, all that.

To the other poster who said that those who have 1000 plus FB freinds have no real friends, thats just not true. I know lots of people who have that many and it's because of one of three reasons. 1, they just accept any friend request they get, even people who they have no mutual friends with who randomly friended them or friended them for an app. 2. they play apps like farmville and stuff and the more friends you have the more you can advance in the game, and 3. they just like commenting on statuses and could possibly be addicted to FB. There is no reason in the world that any of those three would mean they have no real friends. Their real face to face friends, and even good online friends may or may not be on their FB. I suppose there is a group 4, which is people who just collect FB friends as a way of avoiding actual socializing and tell themselves that even though they don't go out or actually talk to anyone or hang with them, that they are popular

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

Thanks to you both for the advice, really useful to me, and thanks for the support.

It amazes me how much some people are on FB and how they write so many one liners to other people status. I guess just like I find conversation difficult I also find it hard to think of stuff to write in reply to status. I don't want to write things that seem empty or pointless. Just like I find small talk empty and pointless. But still I feel I should try to learn the NT ways, or at least try to learn a little of it.

I don't want to become addicted to FB or someone who has to make a comment on everything and anything. I just wish I could be about 10 or 15% more interactive. I almost never write my own status.

I also understand that I can only build meaningful relationships with people that I get on with and have something in common with in some way. I don't wish to build relationships with everyone in my contact lists. I just wish I could do it with the few people in there that I felt I could get on well with. But somehow they seem to get lost in all the noise of so many contacts.

And some days I just can't handle replying to texts and IMs and dread the beep of the phone !

Thanks again for your support. If anyone else has anything to add I would love to read your comments

I have an idea. You want to learn the NT small talk stuff and all, so try this. I know you have no interest in FB status but use it to practice clever, witty one liners. For real. Nothing mean, no zingers unless you put a winky by them and it's a light zinger, but when you are reading through the newsfeed if something occers to you or starts occuring to you, work on that and come up with a witty little comment. Pick one or two comments a day to reply fluff style too. By fluff style I mean stuff that is, in my head, in a catagory called "ridiculous sh*t that doesn't even need to be said but people want to hear anyway". Comments like; , Awwwwww, Ikr, WTF!?!?!, Congrats!, Emjoy! <that little FB heart that you make by typing <3 >, I miss you, I<3U, (Do not send those last two guy friend to guy friend or send the last one to anyone except in a supportive context or as a response to them telling you something so crazy and funny they did, where it means "I just love the stuff you do like this"!), You so crazy, etc.

Practice light and humerous conversation by engaing someone in a comment thread. You can comment on someones status, or you can comment on another comment in their status by putting @<the comment writers first name> I've had long drawn out conversations in comment threads like this and this is actually how the relationship grew with my best friend here in town who I met on FB. Ours were extremely silly conversation that looked like two crazy comediannes on LSD talking, but we enjoyed them and judging by the number of likes, so did a lot of other people.

Don't force yourself to do it too much, but force yourself to find something a few times a week to do this on. Not because you are expected to on FB, you aren't, but because it's good practice for you. Back in my day when I had to learn this lighthearted BS, I had to do it face to face. I had to walk ten miles to find the closest face to face person to me, and I had to do it barefoot in the snow, uphill, both ways sonnyboy! All jokes aside, I do think FB can be a valuable tool in learning to come up with those kinds of small talk things that NT's have just pop out of their mouths within the first month of learning to talk. It took me years before things would just become automatic for me, I guess my brain had to learn to rewire itself that way about that or something, but it happened.

As I've said before, there are plenty of really popular people who hardly ever comment on FB. There is one extremely popular boy around here whose got a couple thousand friends or something (he doesn't see all of them in his newsfeed, he has it set up to see the ones he wants to see) and he usually only puts up a status himself occasionally and rarely comments in other peoples stuff. Nobody thinks he's being rude. So, don't think you are required to do that, the only thing you are required to do is to answer personal messages and to put a comment on something somebody posts on your timeline when you sign on. You are only required by the rules of netiquitte to do that though. If you don't check FB for a few days, thats fine if you don't comment or answer, but if you do sign on and leave a comment on somebody's status or post a status and do not answer a message or comment on something on your timeline, it's considered rude and possibly a snub.

That being said, I hate it when my FB gives me that notification to check something and I check it and it's some fluff comment on my status like LOL or <3 or something, but thats part of it, and I deal.

Use it as a learning tool and a practice tool.

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

Thanks again OOM.

I will try to write a bit of fluff a few times a week Sometimes I come up with funny one liners to add to other peoples status updates, but not that often. When I see something really cool I will write something to say so. But I'm really no good at the fluff stuff, and I could try harder to write more funny things.

Strange, when someone leaves me nice fulffy comments I like it, but I can never think of fluff to write myself ...

I went to a networking evening today. Was doing OK, again upto the 2 hours mark. I left afte about 2 hours and 30 mins and the last person I spoke to felt like hard work, just felt totally stressed by thinking of what to say and remembering his name. He was a nice guy, not his fault at all.

Thanks so much for your ideas, its really given me encourangement and good ideas to try out <3

I got quite exhausted trying to read the posts. Its obviously all great info and advice, but I had to go into skim read mode for preservation of my wellness

Baodi, I think you are being very positive and noble in your efforts to engage with the NT world. I won't be following your example however

@Jabberwocky

thanks for your comment.
I had a quiet weekend, visited another city with a friend. She used to live there so met up with 2 of her old friends. That meant they all had lots to talk about and I let them get on with it without trying too hard to get involved. Then when it was just two of us I also didn't make so much effort to talk, but somehow felt too tired or awkward, even though she is a great friend and I had a good time enjoying the scenery etc. I guess I just got too into thinking about myself and forgot to make more effort to talk.

Anyway it was a nice relaxed weekend

Hey Baodi,

You're welcome. I really do admire your perseverance in the area of making and nurturing friendships. I just don't. However, I have a very full life with family and work so I suppose that is why I dispensed with friends a long time ago. That sounds terrible; I didn't dispense with them. The ones I had just floated away and I wasn't sad. They weren't real friends; mostly were just a passing parade of drunk people I met in dark and dodgy pubs. I reckon that one day when I don't work anymore and I don't have a mad gaggle of kids in the home that I will strike up some friendships again. Maybe one. Two would be too hard. Thats the trouble with friends, they spawn herds of friends and then I evACUATE.