TV Mimicry - Useful?

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I'm an only child, I have no friends, very little family, and while I love Mom muchly, she is not really the best role model for socialization (she has a VERY distinct personality that only she can pull off, and actually irritates many people. She's got friends, but I'm *nothing* like her. LOL

Would immersion be useful, if I actively observed people around me, and people on TV? I know, if it didn't work when I was a kid (like it does for NTs), it won't work for me.

But maybe it will if I'm actively trying to carry myself and use similar social norms as everyone else.

This isn't about "being myself", it's about improving myself.

Will it work? Any experiences of yours to share?

I'm 25, and I use it all the time. Copying someone's way of speaking is a way of putting on your "normal" hat. I find people are more inclined to take in what you have to say if you say like someone else. Try not to emulate the person you are talking to, mind, they may get weirded out.
It helps to be good at mimickry as well.

Using quotes and song lyrics is another goodie, if you can fit them into a conversation appropriately.

Be careful how you go, as I have the problem/gift, whatever of being able to watch a comedy show, and recite later on word for word. Comedy shows are good because they have either a laugther track or music, which are useful tools for picking up reactions to emotions, body language and phrases.

Hope this helps.

Nick

I haven't really found TV to be a good source of how to act, since often emotions and situations are exaggerated or unrealistic. When in conversation people either dislike me or get on with me, and if I have talked to a person a few times I will generally explain that I'm blunt and don't tend to pick up subtle hints, and ask them to be direct with me.
For me, this has worked generally. I have offended a few people with my manner, but if they are people with whome I need to talk on a regular basis, I explain to them as well that its not intentional.

My point, amung the ramblings? I haven't found it useful. Real life interraction has taught me more than TV.

One thing I have found is that some shows like soap operas or some types of comedys are a BAD thing to inmatate as they exagerate behavior and reactions for dramatic purposes. But some shows and movies are very realistic and i have found they come in handy for how to act or react to a social situation. Just be carefull to not believe everthing you see/hear on TV.

I rarely come here becasue I'm really an in-betweenie, consistently scoring halfway between the average NT and the average Aspie in online tests. But, I thought I'd post here to offer somehelp. Becasue, I can remember mimicking Peanuts as a kid.

It was really helpful - for one thing, you can see facial expressions and things in the comics like that and sort of gauge what is going on. Fussy people, for instance, will act like Lucy; to this day (and I'm 38), I dont' like it if a person is being really loud and irritated, adn what seems to be nothing, but I cn cope becasue I imagine myself in a Peanuts strip and picture that person as Lucy. (I will, if it's someone I know very well, jokingly call them "Lucy," and they tend to understand, or at least interpret, that I'm just having fun with them.)

I find TV works sometimes, but not really well. Where it works for me is giving me a few more characters where I can say of a real person, in my mind, "Okay, I know how to think about this person, he's got this characteristic of A, this one of B, a few of C, etc."

So, I guess you can say TV is something I've used to understand others, more than to mimic.

Another reason the comics might work well - if the problem is all this stuff coming at you at once with no way to intrepret it all at once, you can immerse yourself gradually. You can see the expressions and sort of start to get those without having to put tone, etc. along with them, unless you want to. (NOt that it isn't obvious even to those with much worse AS when Lucy shouts "You blockhead" and the person does a somersault from the shock