Has anyone here gone from socially inept to socially suave?

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What is it like?

People still see you as eccentric, sometimes they may say bad things abou you, but they tend to shup up after giving them a lecture about what asperger is and how many people through history had it...

The key is money. If you're poor, you're socially inept, and people will hate you for it. If you're rich, you're just eccentric, and people will love you for it.

Hmmm, so, I ask myself which is easier: acquiring social skills or winning the lottery.

I have to say, I'm inclined to think that the odds of the latter happening are a good deal higher, given that I've been attempting the former my entire life with no success whatsoever.

Better yet, lottery tickets don't talk back, don't hold dinner parties, don't pay surprise visits and expect not to be growled at...they don't have children who will treat my laptop as a tennis racket (thanks bro', your brat just cost me nearly $2000)...

Giving up attempts to be socially adept in favor of attempts to become obscenely rich.

Ive gone to terribly inept to pretty damn good socially.

Up til 10th grade of high school I had like 5 friends and almost never went out on weekends.

Then I put myself thru hell with physical training because I decided if I didn't learn to be social or be popular in high school id be setting myself back a lot. I didnt want to be alone and friendless when i was 30. I could talk to other guys but they just thought I was weird....and girls forget it, i avoided girls except for a few who were nice to me. I kicked my butt all year long on the track and in the weight room so I could become a good football player and athlete, which i did. in the whole process I was befriended by the football players and cheerleaders and learned to be social like them, then with my new found social standing and new skills I was able to branch out in high school. Sports taught me confidnce and faith in my own abilities. ...now I'm in college, I have hundreds of friends and aquiantences and I have a beautiful girlfriend who I like very much...if you saw me you would think im just a regular NT college guy, thats what most ppl see me as although I can be weird sometimes.....but when your confident 'weird' just becomes quirky and ppl like it. I know this because I was weird up to 10th grade and some people thought i was kinda creepy, but once I gained confidence people viewed my 'weird' as just 'odd' and not necessarily as a bad thing. if anything it made me an asset because I was different and saw things very differently from my peers and friends

To me it feels odd that I have become more social. I feel like a lot of the time I am holding back on things because it is more socially acceptable. I act weirdly, and even though confidence does go a long way towards making things smoother, they still look at me and I sense their confusion, my words not making sense in the way that I choose them. It's just saddening to know that so often what I mean to say is not understood, but I prefer to think that is just because they don't understand what I mean because they can't, rather than that I am still choosing my words poorly.

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I understand that sentiment.. Lately I've been feeling exactly the same. All the years of effort and such and I wish I had of had those more 'crucial' years back (what i would do with them now). I wouldn't really take back everything I've learned, or the experiences I had but yeah.

But if it helps any to hear it, at least we have come this far. [/quote]

I did what I had to survive. I guess.....For me it was avoidance, denial, and withdrawal. I kind of chose this growing up, and I kind of didn't at the same time. I can't help that I was born with an in-borne temperament and a low-anxiety threshold or something like that anyways. I remember I tried expressing myself when I was very young, and my peers reacted negatively on, and ever since then it seems like everybody hated me in school. So I learned to withdraw inside myself

Most people didn't hate me, because they didn't know me, but I wasn't aware of that. I was very slow socially, and there was alot that I didn't pick up on. But really being depressed since childhood and teen years basically my whole life, I have learned to disappear frum my own emotions and become distant.

I basically missed out on everything. I mean everything from the ages 13-present. I would give everything to just have another chance on growing up. Another chance to have anywhere near a somewhat normal teen years, and experience the experiences that teenagers experience.

What has my life meant up to this point? Loneliness, anxiety, paranoia, avoidance, depression. I don't accept that. I reject that. f**k my past. it means nothing to me. But how can I have a future if I don't have a past? Those are all the things that I don't want to be. Thats not who I want to be.

but what I want to be I am not. I am not who I want to be yet in the slightest. whatever it is I need to go through to be myself, I haven't been it.

I am only really now starting to respect myself and care for myself, and really try to impruve myself. I know that AS people are supposedly supposed to be 6-8 years behind emotionally/mentally, and if I am AS which I am 95% sure I am, then this makes sense why I was so far away during all those years, and why I am JUST STARTING to really mature now. But its too late for high school and college. Those passed me by completely and now Im just left standing like WTF

I don't think that I will ever be socially suave. My social skills have improved a lot, but I will always be making social blunders from time to time. I have a couple of talents and a strong personality to make up for that small imperfection.

Ok, apparently I can't be aspie unless I'm a math genius (I get told this once a month at least). So, let's hack the lottery and become massively popular.

I can deal pretty well with most kinds of people now. I've found that generally a smile and a positive attitude will be well recieved and I've had to practice those often enough that they aren't too hard now - pretty much come naturally most of the time. I sometimes do the jokester thing too if I start to feel awkward - people usually like it. Allegedly I'm funny in a weird but good way.

The only comments I've gotten on my behavior the last couple years have related to the type of comments I make about sorroundings - apparently I make unusual choices in what I decide to notice/comment on - "very specific things". I don't really know what they mean but people seem to like it so i try to keep it up.

I've found that talking about what's happening immediately around you and another person feels like the least artifical kind of small talk - shared experiences are what make people grow closer and if you don't have a history with someone then the best thing to talk about is your current experience, I think.
I used to hate small talk - But I've gotten better. Instead of talking about the weather or whatever people usually talk about when they have nothing to say, I look around and find something that I actually do find interesting (even if it's very random) and just voice my (usually internal) thoughts on it - people seem to like it (it starts a conversation, at least)and I think that might be what they mean by "specific things". I have no idea.

Anyway, I still feel trapped inside myself sometimes but I think I can usually manage to come across outwardly as if I have above average social confidence now -it's taken so so so much practice though.