Dealing with new people

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Hi everyone,

Since it is one of my biggest problems I wanted to know how you people deal with new people (and new environments).
When I meet new people I get really quiet and reserved. I won't take much or any initiative. I'm pretty sure people
who don't know me don't like me when we just met and think I'm pretty antisocial. After a while, when we know
each other better and I'm used to the environment, I open up a bit more and take initiative (but can take up to weeks sometimes).
People start to like me more and get to know my positive sides but in the beginning I'm just a strange loner (at least
that's what some collegues told me).

Recently i missed a new job because of this (would have been a dream job to me): they told me I have got some great skills
for the job, but there are some social issues. They told me to work on it and then come back and try again. Now that's the
problem. I think I can be social but I have to be used to the environment and I have to know the people. "Working on it" won't
help me further cause I know the same thing will happen when I return: I will "socially collaps".

Sadly it is getting a bit the story of my life... I've already missed/screwed up some great opportunities in my life because of my
ASD-personality and it just keeps on happening... To be honest it is really messing up my mood. I keep on working on my social skills
(also with a therapist) but some things just never seem to improve
My motivation to work on it and my hope to improve have really decreased since I missed the job (especially because of the reasons
why I missed it) and my life has really come to a standstill.

I'm pretty sure I can't be the only one having this issues. How are you guys dealing with this? What do you think I can do?

PS: any comments about my English are welcome, I'm not a native English speaker/writer

hiya Scoooob welcome to the club
the way I see it, you have two choices- you can quit, or you can get up, dust yourself off and try again. you have your whole life ahead of you for more chances at the game, but if you quit now you have got a long time to go before you can leave the game of life behind, time that you will be wasting by doing nothing. no matter how often you get up and fall down again, you will still be better for trying.

TY!

I know I have to keep trying to advance, it's just so frustrating! When I first talked to the director and manager I stated clearly that I'm introvert, shy and need some time to feel comfortable en be myself. At that moment they seemed to understand it and weren't making a big deal out of it, they seemed to be rather enthousiastic about me being honest about it. I tested 2 days and they started making a big deal out of it afterwards... They said they haven't got the time to work on it with me, but they don't need to! Give me some time and it will all be getting better. Also during those 2 days nobody said me anything about it, although I asked for some feedback very regularly. So disappointing

It also makes me doubt a lot if changing jobs would be such a good idea... My current job gives me a lot of stress: very much overtime (>200h) they refuse to pay or to give back (although legally they have to do it each 3 months), very high work pressure and absoluteley no career opportunities at all. It really stresses me out and I feel it is all getting too much for me. But I've got a lot of great collegues over there who I like a lot and who accept me for who I am. Maybe I should just try to focus more on that and my life outside my job...

I just hate all the trouble I'm always experiencing in those new situations and which are compromising my life :-/ I've made a lot of progression since I got diagnosed, except for new situations... Makes me doubt if I'm ever going to make some progression at all... It's probably also related to the fact I still haven't really accepted having ASD :-/

the sooner you come to terms with your ASD the better, so that you can sooner [rather than later] find useful workarounds.

Since I am 100% sure I have Asperger and Asperger explains my disabilities in social interaction I have pretty much given up trying. My number one problem with social interaction is that my energy drops to -100 after just 1-4 hours if I am surrounded by new people. It often takes a whole day to recover energy and I am a dead shell during that time.

I just do stuff that does not require a lot of social interaction. It's really depressing that I get so tired so fast but I am 100% sure it is out of my control. No matter what strategies I try I end up with the same end result. And that is in a coma like state without mental energy to even think thoughts. That's my depressing situation. But it is like it is so I just keep on rolling...