Connecting is natural, and bad social skills are a barrier

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This seems to be the consensus attitude among the resources set up to help people with Asperger's Syndrome. Is this actually true for anyone?

It's not for me. I know what good social skills are and can sustain them for approximately one hour. After that, I just don't have energy and so go too quiet. Then, I have little to say to those people if I meet them again and even less the third time. It's not about making a bad first impression; it's about sustaining a good first impression, and none of the resources available seem to even comprehend that this might be a problem.

One girl told me last week: "When I first met you, I thought you were very outgoing, but you just keep getting shyer and shyer over the past two weeks." This was not an insult because this was a shy girl who said she was the same way. But still, it's an accurate observation.

In my case, bad social skills are not really a barrier, unless what I just described qualifies as bad social skills, which they probably are in a way. And connecting is not natural at all.

*raises hand* I have had that same problem.

i get really bored of people really quick, i cant hold interest in a single data point for hours like others can..

It looks like you could be very introverted and thus can't spend a lot of social energy without feeling exhausted. This is just another way of being...not a bad thing. However, it would be to your advantage if you explain to the people you are hanging out with how your social energy gets depleted faster than the average person, and that it's not about the other people at all. As another introvert, I know that some people take "shutting down" as something being wrong, even when you are still enjoying the situation around you.

You also have to be more honest with yourself as to what people and situations you can tolerate without feeling really uncomfortable. If certain places or people are too stimulating for you, you should remove them.

I think someone can get good at small talk and entertaining banter. I think NTs aren't original and use a lot of the same jokes and stock phrases. To be honest I'm probably bad at it because I have no desire to practice. I'm also way too self-conscious to try humor on strangers before knowing if their sense of humor is the same as mine. I prefer telling jokes that I find funny as opposed to jokes a broad audience might find funny. I can see how if you get good at it you can go for an hour or so. My problem is I don't like to do that so what ends up happening is either them asking me questions I'm not in the mood to talk about or me asking them questions leading to a subject I have no interest or knowledge in. It seems part of being a social NT is being knowledgeable in certain common subjects. It seems NTs decide to learn trendy topics specifically to be able to have conversation. I only learn about things I'm actually interested in, which is pretty limited. So yea, I'm bound to have nothing to talk about pretty quick, especially if the topic of "what do you do" comes up.

To me this sounds like you do have good social skills, but you're not actually interested in sharing your life and getting to know the other person. I can think of a lot of questions I'd want to ask in such a situation in order to figure out if the other person is compatible with me. I'd also want to see how they react to things I say - that's the way for me to figure out if I like someone. If you're just putting up an act for an hour, then it's not suprising you get tired of it.

So, I can think of a bunch of reasons to go "mute" after a while
- you're not in the mood to talk (sad, distracted, feel insecure/nervous), which can happen regardless of interest and is often temporary (may also indicate a problem with social skills)
- you know something you'd like to say or ask but don't know how to express it (bad spoken verbal communication skills and / or social skills)
- you're not actually interested / don't care

The term "connecting" is a bit abstract, so it's hard to talk about - it can mean many things, and any discussion about whether it's natural depends on the definition.

Another thought: maybe you're expecting yourself to sustain the outgoing persona you use in the beginning, but simply fall back into something that is your natural rhythm of communication and silence. You can pretend to be someone else for an hour or so, but after that who you are is going to shine through. If that's the case, then this may be more an issue of accepting who you are. Maybe it would help to be less outgoing from the beginning, so you don't build up false expectations in yourself and the other person.

This could be true. There are rare exceptions to this, but I rarely encounter these people.

I also don't think I know the difference between loneliness as NT's experience it and feeling insecure or sad due to not meeting society's expectations as far as a social life. If I ask myself, do I actually care about these people? Do I actually want to get to know them? I couldn't answer these questions either way. I just don't know. But I still feel sad and am not sure of the reason.



Possibly. But why does this happen all the time?



This too. I'm sad, distracted, and anxious a lot -- often nothing to do with the situation I'm in but it surely affects it.

@Marshall: I also don't care enough to learn about sports and celebrities. I actually don't focus well enough to learn about anything I am not compulsively driven to seek out. Many have suggested ADHD, but I haven't gotten a professional opinion yet.

I'm the same way lately. People recommend books to read and movies to watch but I'm never in the mood. I made myself an OKC profile but I notice everyone else has a huge list of "favorite" books, movies, activities. I have 3-4 things I'm passionately interested in, but I don't have a myriad of "favorites". I never understood the concept of having "favorites" of everything. It seems like a lot of people's interests are identity/culture commodities. Even a lot of aspies seem to have them (libertarians into gun culture, "artsy" people deeply into a certain music subculture and dress the part). The things I like don't mesh into any particular subculture. I just don't care about those things. It just seems so hopeless. I realized by 5th grade that I would get no social validation being myself, so I looked for kids I could imitate and made friends that way, but got mocked a lot for being unoriginal.

I admit this is difficult to wrap my head around. It seems like a question like "do I want to get to know this person" shouldn't be hard to answer - even if the answer might change from time to time. What does loneliness signify to you, and how do you think "NT loneliness" is different? Just from reading what you write, it doesn't sound like you feel loneliness but something more detached.
Maybe your depression is overshadowing and dulling all those emotions, maybe you have certain beliefs about life, yourself or other people that confine your ability to fully engage.

I'd say that figuring out why you can't answer these questions might help shed some light on your issues.
Maybe it would be possible to approach it by answering questions like:
What would your description of an ideal friendship (or girlfriend, leaving things like looks out of the equation) be?
What were the things you valued most in friends/friendships in the past?
What have been reasons why you ended friendships in the past?



Is it something that "happens" or is it something you find out after a while of interacting with someone? Are you interested at one point but stop being interested after a while? Is there a common denominator to the situations after which you become less open? Could it be that you're simply approaching the wrong kind of people? Stereotypical example: are you approaching cheerleader types even though you're looking for someone with intellectual depth (not saying those things are incompatible, it's just an example for illustration purposes)?


Sorry, lots of questions. These are just meant as pointers - as I said, I don't understand what is going on either, and my approach in situations like these is to branch out in order to get my bearings.

I don't think you have to neatly fit into a subculture (and I suspect this is more of an internal identity thing where you just make a decision one way or another), and 3-4 things you're passionate about sounds great. There are a lot of people who aren't really passionate about anything, and they might even be talking about their favorite movies just because they don't have anything that feels important to them to talk about.
The whole "favorite" thing is just a crutch to make conversation easier. They're non-controversial, universal (because almost everyone watches movies), they can be gateway topics because they give you clues about what someone is interested in. You don't even have to have favorite movies - my answer to that question would be that I'm not that into movies anymore because they always have to be self-contained, and I prefer TV shows that allow for longer story arcs. Otherwise, it's not hard to just pick a few movies that you kind of liked and think about what you liked about them. If I had to, I'd probably say something like "Pirates of the Caribbean", because I liked Johnny Depp as a pirate (all the makeup and mannerisms were quite amusing). I don't really care much about the movie, but it doesn't matter.

Anyway, if you're passionate about several things, then you have a lot to talk about. You just need to find people who are also interested in one of the topics (and in general, it seems to me people really like when someone is passionate about anything, even if they haven't thought much about the subject matter before). There's not much point in being friends with someone who has no common interests with you, after all.
Admittedly, there are certain special interests that may be less suitable conversation topics than others (e.g. I wouldn't be suprised that if you were to talk about an interest in stem-cell treatment in Thailand, some girls might be carefully meandering away from the conversation and possibly you), but even those can be made interesting, as long as you don't drone on about them if the other person doesn't show any interest.

Also: this is a good example of a lesson that you should unlearn. This may have been true in 5th grade, because - let's face it - 5th graders are generally morons, but it's definitely not now. Be yourself. I remember reading a bunch of your posts and you're definitely a fascinating person.

Hey, look at me giving advice in social matters.
Scusi, I'm off to the basement to laugh two or three times (haven't decided yet).

I get that. I just have this stupid paranoia about what the "favorites" I pick signal about me. Maybe I make it more important than it should be but I can't help it. I have a general sense of discomfort with even the most trivial "identity" stuff. I just have this fear about sharing things that are personal to me IRL, like I'm reveling too much. On the internet it's much much easier.


The problem is stupid sites like OKC don't match based on shared interests. OKC matches me with all kinds of people, many I would have absolutely no clue what to talk about with.

This sounds very much like my experience; and I'm pretty sure it's not about introversion... or maybe I don't understand properly what introversion is. I AM interested in people; but does this necessarily mean that I should be interested in everyone?

"Good social skills" imply that you can effectively communicate with nearly everyone in any standard situation (= with colleagues at work, relatives you dislike, fellow passengers in a train, etc....). I'm not really good at that. I know I make an awkward impression, but at least I can be polite and keep the conversation going for a while. Anyway, it never goes beyond a few standard phrases. Talking about politics, sports, fashion, etc. makes me really bored... which can't go unnoticed.

On the other hand, when I meet someone I really like, I can be very active, I can show off, and be hilarious, and sometimes really inspiring; and, very often it's me who initiates further contacts. However, after a while I really don't know why I need those people and what to start with them. Maybe it's just because I soon run out of topics I would like to discuss and then I just get bored and drop the acquaintance... or they drop me as soon as they discover how limited my interests really are.
Anyway, I remain with the few friends I've had for decades.

I don't think they "decide" it deliberately (this would be rather stubborn aspie approach... I mean forcing yourself to watch the new episode of Harry Potter to be able to discuss it with friends looks more like conscious effort to improve the "social skills" ). Normally, people go watch the film because their neighbors liked it, or because it's advertized on the media, or because the weather is bad and they can't have a picnic. They're absolutely passive... kind of collective behavior.