are you a master of social skills and graces...

Post Reply New Topic

I would just call it wishful thinking. Wishing you were something you aren't.
Sure a lot of us would like to be smooth talkers, sauve and calm, but in all actuality I've not heard an Aspie speak outloud yet who didn't sound like a complete dork regardless of how much practicing they do in their minds. Sure I do the same thing too and go over conversations in my head and it still hasn't made me any better in verbal interactions yet even after 40 years of practice.

In my experience, the ONLY people who say "I don't see why it will set you up for anxiety and depression" are NT and have NO desire to understand and only succeed in adding to my anxiety and depression.

I went to a Halloween party once with the expressed intention to offend as many people as I possibly could.

My costume consisted of a real pickled ox tongue (none of that fake plastic stuff) sewn onto a neck tie. The back of the tongue was flared out like neck trauma and was hanging out from under my jaw. I covered myself in fake blood. It looked like a "Columbian neck tie".

The party was full of vegans and hippies.

I was full of offence and cheap booze.

Instead of thinking about the right thing to say, I vagrantly spat out either the opposite, or the wrongest thing I could possibly think of without any inhibition, hoping for the worst.

Guess what? - Life of the party! Made lots of friends of people I was trying to actively piss off.

People who I could barely remember from that night would run up to me and go "Ehhh Butcher!! !" in an appreciative and positive way for ages and buy me beer.

It always backfires for us Aspies...

I'm sorry that you took offense to my post, as I said I am just talking from my personal experience. Remember though, one key aspect of social skills, especially for males, is being able to take potentially offensive, critical and hurtful comments in a mature and graceful way.

I do. Sometimes I think what it might be like if I had better verbal communication skills, but I usually remind myself that people are very judgmental and most are usually as*holes. So I tell myself that my lack of social skills is a blessing in disguise really. It gets me feeling better about it when I think about it in those terms.

I hold conversations in my head very well. I'll split my mind up into objective viewpoints and debate things. Usually there's the vindictive, the sage, the innocent, and the willful. They all communicate extremely well. When I talk to others I'll take on a particular aspect I feel is best suited to dealing with them. I do better talking to people when I shut down certain mental responses. When I get comfortable, I start showing more and more aspects until, if I feel good enough around them, the walls melt and I can finally express my true self.

It's unfortunately rare that I get to be the real me. I sometimes have identity issues stemming from how long I spend acting as a shattered psyche.

I know what you mean...

This is fantastic!! You have the Big 4!

Vindictive - Warrior/Protector
Sage - Visionary/Integrator
Innocent - Healer/Child
Willful - Teacher/Pragmatist
[direct matches are approximate, however, all bases are covered by all 4 types]

Those are the 4 Basic Archetype Groups for inward splits (there are many titles), and the fact that you've identified them and work with them intentionally is totally healthy and wonderful.

My favorite thing about having Aspies as friends is their willingness to articulate what is going on under the surface of interaction. NT's don't usually develop this skill - mostly because it is unnecessary for everyday tasks. For us - "it goes without saying". For you it is a necessity. But for people like me who have been so traumatized by the projection and counter-transference of people with no self-awareness that relationships have become mine-fields, this kind of "work" has been a wonderful experience. It produces an effect similar to mindfulness or meditation because of the meta-awareness (or awareness of awareness).

I'm so glad to see that you have all 4 of the basic ones because in my interactions with other Aspies, I haven't seen their "Sage/Visionary/Integrator" come out much. Or if it does, I may be misinterpreting it's signal. It could be that they have trouble expressing this Archetype in Real Time, and find it much easier to do so after the fact or in the planning stage such as this thread indicates.

Thank you, Dentu, for your contribution here. This helped me so much!

I'm just glad I'm not crazy. I've been doing this since I was little, and likened it to hearing voices. Naturally that led to all kinds of psychiatric 'help' until I learned to just say I don't hear anything. Instead, I did some introspection, realized each voice was just an aspect of myself, and learned to use that as a springboard for self-discovery.

To be honest, it really all started because of how lonely I was growing up. Maybe it was like conjuring an imaginary friend that gained it's own sentience.

[off topic]
I suspect that many Aspies hear voices. My b/f does too. And I think you're right. It's just the way your mind contains or holds that alternate Voice so you can put on perspectives that are also you're own, but which may confuse others (or yourself) if you express them all at once. My b/f hears the Voices of important people who he imagines are upset with him - I think it's his way of holding their perspective or having empathy. It's a work-around. This may be considered pathological for NT's because we're supposed to have a functioning Theory of Mind which has a container built for this purpose. But I don't think it has to be pathological for us either. What's the big deal?

You're basically doing Voice Dialogue. Here's a cool article about the interactions between our inner Selves and the interactions between our inner Selves and the inner Selves of others: The Dance of the Selves in Relationship

This goes to another theory that I'm collecting about the sub-conscious. I strongly suspect that Aspies have either less Sub-conscious than NT's do or none at all. This could lead to alot of confusion. I've noticed it in their dreams also. Dreams seem to be more literal, less symbolic.

I would love to go to one of those workshops in Australia mentioned in the article you linked, but seeing as how I am in the Unites States, I don't see that happening. Perhaps I can find a workshop in the states

That's an interesting theory. It might also explain this 'poker face' effect I've noticed myself and other aspies can pull. While in the state, it's impossible to get a reaction out of me. My face doesn't move, I speak in a very flat, steady tone, my breath becomes rhythmic, all social worries disappear, I can ignore a lot of physical pain, and I can think about things without feeling any emotion. It's a neat trick, but I don't like doing it because the lack of emotion includes all the good ones too. It's also very fatiguing.

Yes, I have that ability as well Dentu. I don't find it fatiguing personally, though. For me, though, I like to imagine I am usually someone else while doing this. If I immerse myself into this "role" and I fixate myself on it to play it, then I can do it as long as I need to. When I do that, it takes the fatigue effect away because in essence, I am becoming someone else, and therefore not trying to be someone or something else.