What is your most common social mistake?

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''Social'' doesn't just mean having a conversation with someone. Some Autistics might be really good at conversations, but can not recognise social cues in other social areas. Some NTs might be generally good, but may not hold a conversation very easily (I know an NT like this. She is really popular at work, but she's so hard to actually sit with and hold a descent conversation with). But because us Autistics struggle more and social interaction is commonly known to be our weakness, we're more likely to come to difficulty with certain areas of social interaction, so I like to see what others have come up with.

A couple of weeks ago I saw my friends who were running a market stall, and I stood chatting to them for 2 hours, without any difficulty, and the time went quick too. But when customers came along to look at the items on the market stall, I fell quiet and just stood there biting my nails whilst my friends had to interact with the customers. If I was on the stall too, I would find it really difficult to interact with the customers and say the right things at the right times.

I am quite good with recognising body language, facial expressions, ect, but I still struggle at certain things. Like with following. I never know whether to follow someone or to stay put. When I first started one of my volunteer jobs, the ladie at the till picked up a box full of stuff and walked over the other side of the shop with it, without looking at me or giving any sort of expression saying ''come with me'', so I stood there, and another ladie who worked in the shop was near me and said, ''do you want to go with her so that she can show you what you've got to do?'' And I felt stupid then. But I knew that if I didn't follow her, (murphy's law) I probably wouldn't have needed to, if you know what I mean.
So with knowing whether to follow people or not can get so confusing. NTs get a bit shifty if you follow them when not needed to, so following seems to be a very strict part of the social rules.

Filling the silence with lame jokes. I'm nowhere near as bad as I used to be.

Once I know a bad habit, I can stop it easily enough, but it can be years before I recognise them.

hah, i find it awkward knowing what to do if you're at someone elses house and they leave the room.

I'm OK if I'm already sitting down and they leave the room, but if I'm just standing there, I never know what to do. If I'm standing just inside the door with my shoes on, I stay there then, but when I've walked right in and don't quite know where to stand or what to do, I feel awkward. I think everybody gets a bit like that though.

I have trouble with following people, too. Unless someone specifically says "Please follow me" I feel uncertain of what to do. Also, hyperlexia gets worse the more nervous I feel. Or I start a monologue that gets away from me when I am not sure what is expected.

i do not have any interest in socializing, so i do not consider the fact that i have very few friends to be the result of a mistake.

however, i sometimes observe with hindsight, my personality traits that may have been unsavory to others i have dealt with during the day.

my biggest deficit is my lack of common grounding with humanity, i do not understand why they do all the things they do, and i feel nauseous almost at the thought of being swept up in other peoples concerns.

when i find myself engaged in a conversation, i generally see everything only from my side, and i think that nothing is as important as what i have to say, and i will rapidly construct my own mental appraisal of the matter, and i will very often become impervious to their input after a short amount of time. i then talk continuously until i am interrupted, and when i am interrupted i do not like it.

most often, people are left bereft after an encounter with me.

another "social deficit" i "have", is that i never ask how someone is. if they are well enough to answer, then their answer is moot to me.

i never ask what someone has been doing ("what've ya been up to dude" etc). i do not care what happens to anyone else unless they seem distressed, but even then, i tend to think that they are stressing over nothing, and therefore wasting my time with grizzling at me.

i am very cold and no one likes that.

What is my most common social mistake?

Confusing civility with interest. If someone is being nice to me, I usually think that they are interested in me instead of just being nice.

That is one of mine, too.

Also I have trouble with telling the difference between curiosity and nosiness. So when two people are talking, I'm always scared to join in, in case they might think I'm being nosy, when actually I'm just being curious.

I have trouble with not interrupting.

Also, recognizing when people are bored with what I am saying.

I think my most common mistake is thinking people just don't want to talk to me.

This. Caused some unpleasant (for me of course) situations, and now I try to never think someone might be interested in me (and it helped realizing I am not that much of an interesting person to begin with, at least for someone who isn't... well me). When someone asks me about my interests, I always keep saying to myself "Please, don't tempt me and ask about my interests!". Works most of the time. Other than that, I am really straight forward with my oppinions about everyone, including myself. Doesn't make me popular, but I have my friends that I keep close, and that appreciate my honesty, because they say they feel it comes from my heart. With other folks, I don't mind, but I again adapted a behaviour of just... well nodding and smiling and keeping my mouth shut. Works 99% of the time. Just nodding and smiling.

When I know I've made a social mistake (one noticable enough to make me feel stupid), I cry afterwards, and I'm not sure if it's because it's a way of expressing how angry I am with myself, or if it's because I'm so embarrassed at what people think of me that I cry to see if people like me enough to give me sympathy. Sometimes a little talking to after a major social mistake helps me a lot, and even helps to ''erase'' the social mistake. Sometimes emotion can create a sort of illusion that the social mistake wasn't all that bad, to me and other people.

Yea, I do that sometimes do....not knowing when to follow someone.

However, my worst social mistake is not knowing the timing of when to talk, some people are pretty obvious, and some people are more advanced. The advanced people take weird pauses and get annoyed that I am interrupting.

For the following, I try to stay busy, that way I usually don't fall into that trap.

Or I ask sometimes.

Showing up to anytype group or gathering.

If I knew the answer to that question I'd work on fixing it.

My guess is my body language is my biggest social shortfall.