How to improve my social skills?

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Hello people!

I am now 24, recently diagnosed with AS. I really want to make friends, but my social skills are extremely bad. Let me write something about my "social history".

As a child, like up to age 12 I lived in my own world, didn´t belong anywhere but i didn´t mind. I had my interests, my routines and I was happy with that. I sometimes passed time with neighbor children, but never related to them or was initiative with them or formed relationships with them. I guess I had no idea what "friendship" was or how to approach others, but didn´t mind. I acted really weird, but people tolerated it.

Then, around 12 years things changes and I realized that I want to make friend, but had no idea how. I also started realizing that everybody around me is so different from me. I felt like an alien left on Earth. I couldn´t understand why my peers acted the way they acted. Nothing they did made sense to me. I started feeling sad, depressed and extremely anxious. I didn´t know anything about AS at that so I though I am weird, defective and dumb. I never made any friends at high school, I never met people outside school. I was absolutely alone and lost. I clung to my routines and interests (movies at that time).

Then I started studying at a college and really hoped things would change, that I could regain my self-confidence and make friends in this new environment. I became an editor of school magazine to meet people, I tried to help others with school stuff to socialize, I went to every lecture to be with people. I eventually managed to have some meetings with people outside school, but it didn´t work much. I didn´t know how to make the relationship last so it always ended. Then I read some books on how to make friends and tried to ask people about their problems, ask about their interests, show empathy and everything that is written in the books on how to make friends but whatever I did the relationship (?) never lasted.

My social failures make me so sad.

My social skills are poor and I really do want to improve them. Please, could you, fellow aspies, give me some advice how to improve my social skills? By the way, does something I wrote make sense to you? Have you had similar experience or it´s just me having such problems with relationships?

My social skills aren't very good either. Really, I just fake them most of the time. There are some classes you can take to improve your social skills to a large extent. Some of them are for people on the autistic spectrum, some are cognitive behavioral therapies for people with mental illness and some are just for regular people who want to know how to interact better. Sometimes examples work better than books so you should give it a try. I've noticed that communicating with people on the Internet helped me better make conversation with real life people but that doesn't work for everyone. Also, as painful as interacting wrong is, just interacting at all will improve your social skills. Getting out of the house and talking to people will improve your skills. It's best to start with places that are designed for socialization such as groups and then move on to other places where you can socialize.

I have a definite lack of social skills.I have real bad social anxiety or phobia I guess you'd call it. I don't really know if it's because I don't know what to say or it's the anxiety. I seem to have trouble knowing what to say. I have never been officially diagnosed with aspergers but I strongly suspect I have it. I have been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder thought. Does anyone know the correlation between that and aspergers? I've heard that they can go together.

I've thought about working to improve them but decided I really didn't care to. Just because I'm good at something doesn't mean I will suddenly enjoy it. I just didn't want to put time into learning about and practicing something I really don't like only to get good at something I really don't like and wouldn't want to do anyway.

The hardest thing to do is ask other people what you can improve upon with your social skills. More than any book, this will help the most, because people will give you things to work on that directly affect YOU. A book will just give you a general idea. I remember once asking people with a pen and paper in my hand, "What can I do to get along with people better?" Then I would write it all down and literally study it. I feel it helped a lot. Also, you just can't give up if you really want it. Just keep diving in and do things that scare you. When I say "diving in" I mean put yourself in situations that seem overwhelming. Like diving in the deep end of the pool, when you only kind of know how to swim.

No amount of 'trying' will make friendships. Friendships occur naturally when you begin to interact with someone with whom you share common interests and ways of thinking.

Exercises in social skills can help you function somewhat more smoothly in social situations, but that alone will not make you 'click' with people with whom you have nothing in common.

Most humans don't think like you, so you won't ever form lasting bonds with them. Just being 'where the people are' isn't enough. You need to consider the things that are important to you, and find ways of meeting people who share your passions. If they share your fascinations, they will be much more likely to be like you in other ways as well. That will increase your odds of making friends significantly.

though i completely agree with willard, i would add that practice i.e. interacting with other people can help in gaining new insights and sometimes result in new interests. it doesn't happen often but it can happen and then it is a major gain.

If you can make yourself do it: exposing yourself to social situations will do you good.

Something I'm going to try that I hope will improve my skills is to make goals more specific. Instead of trying to have better social skills I try to think more along the lines of 'I'm going to say thank you to people today' or 'I'm going to initiate saying hi to people today' (I don't do too bad at replying but there are very few people I think I initiate greeting).

Good thread. I'm sure it will help me and probably others as well.

The way to improve social skills is to of course be social. Now the best way to do this is to find a friend who is like a 'really cool' social-butterfly that you could model your behaviors after, and with some time you will begin to adapt to that. Once you become more adjusted then you should meet their friends, I met most of my friends through other friends. Continue networking and at the same time work on your self. You can improve coordination by running and swimming. You can improve your speaking skills and charisma by speaking to yourself in the mirror. You can improve your humor by adjusting your jokes and 'comedy' to a more general audience.

It all takes practice, A LOT of practice, the only way to master something is to invest at least 10,000 hours worth of practice. That is approximately 417 days of continuous work, or 60 weeks. You have to spend over a full year out of your life.

Since I do some things 8-10 hours a day or more I can 'master' them within a mere 3 or 4 years or less if I adhere to that schedule.

I think you can do it, just go out and observe people and just see what you have not seen before, view from a social perspective