Would it be possible to turn being social into an obsession?

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So it has occurred to me that if I could turn the act of being sociable into something logical with clear steps to follow that I could (theoretically at least) turn it into something that I might become interested in and actually enjoy.

Has anyone actually managed to make being sociable into something enjoyable for them where previously (due to their autistic nature) it was something they couldn't tolerate?

Is there a list of steps you could follow that would make you more sociable?

Do you think the act of social interaction could be broken down into some kind of flow chart? Obviously I imagine it would have to be fairly rudimentary, I realise that there are probably a lot of subtleties that couldn't be fully captured.

Are there any good books/resources out there that explains this stuff and breaks down the social act into manageable and easily explained chunks? Sort of like a vulcans guide to people.

Thanks

I like Plutarch's works.

If one turns "being social" into a special interest or an obsession, one would defeat his/her own purpose.

Because if one has to think through every step of being social, one will, inevitably, come across as being awkward.

What I used to do: I used to play-act social roles with myself. I used to play-act conversations; I would take both sides of the conversation. This helped me to converse "properly."

I wouldn't "think through the steps" in front of actual people where they can see you.

I already do come across as being awkward.

Good idea to play-act conversations, if it can be done. I have tried this in the past, but I just get stuck. I don't even know what to say when I am just talking to myself...

If you were to come off as trying to be "social," your would probably seem MORE awkward.

It's better to just "be yourself" and be awkward--some people don't mind awkwardness. It's the substance that matters, that necessarily the style.

I'm not necessarily trying to change how I appear to other people. I'm not too concerned how other people view me.

Rather I would like to turn socialising into something interesting, something that I would want to do because it is interesting. I do generally see the use of being sociable and there have been times when I have really enjoyed it. Plus being married to a normal person means I am quite often pushed into social situations. So I have to learn to cope. I would also quite like to learn how to enjoy it.

For a while I was obsessed with emotional expression becaue I was learning to animate, and one of the new users said that he (or she, I don't remember) used to have an obsession with social skills. It's definitely possible, and given how much better at reading emotion I am then I used to be I'd say it well worth your time if you could manage it.

Last edited by mikeman7918 on 18 May 2016, 1:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Then, Mr. Plutarch, you're ahead of the game! You have somebody who can serve as sort of a model (maybe she even looks like a model hee hee )

Congratulations on your seemingly good marriage.

How well does your wife understand your autism?

I don't think it's possible to just turn it into an obsession, I don't think about things the same way you do so I don't have anything to say on that (I don't turn things into obsessions, they just organically occur, and analysis happens after obsession), but some people on the spectrum are already obsessed with social interaction. I'm not, I just have a natural social drive.

I'm not so sure, she is so far out there that me learning social skills from her would be like a preschooler learning manners by reading up on ancient greek ethics.

I ask her stuff like "how do you know what to say in conversation?" and she just says "oh I just say the first thing that comes to my mind." Simple. Except in conversation *nothing*, like absolutely nothing comes to my mind. Apparently she doesn't even have to think about what to say before she says it.



Our marriage is pretty abysmal. We were getting close to divorce when we kind of came to the realisation that I am very likely autistic. This is quite recently. So we are now processing this new understanding as it does explain quite a lot of the difficulties we have been having. I think she wants to understand and is trying to be supportive but we got a long road ahead of us.

When it comes to "what to say," probably the best thing to say is a comment on the weather. You can't go wrong with that! Great icebreaker. Relatively painless "small talk."

One of my "special interests" happens to be meteorology.

I hope things work out with your wife. She should want to be married to a Plutarch, rather than to a Hulk Hogan.

As for books, Improve Your Social Skills is a good starting point. At the very least, I suspect it will spark some questions to ask friends or ask here on this forum. The author has AS by the way:
https://www.amazon.com/Improve-Social-S ... B00NJNQ3U6

As for deciding what to say in a conversation, why do you suppose nothing at all comes to mind? Are you going blank because you're so nervous, or do you literally have nothing to say? I find that what I have to say comes from what they say, or I ask basic questions like what they like to do for fun or what they do for work or something like that.

There is a certain logic to basic conversation. Lots of people talk about the basic guidelines on this forum. To summarize an example, a good rule of thumb is to ask a casual question, listen to the answer, respond briefly, and perhaps ask another question. Lots of books discuss what to share, when, ETC, and a lot of it is noticing patterns in the way the other person speaks to see what sort of conversation they might want at that moment. Maybe if you asked a question here about where these loose guidelines break down? All this stuff is far from black and white, but there's logic in there. I think that the prospect of even one close friend is worth the risk of a whole lot of lousy conversations, but maybe that's just me. There must be something you like about talking with people.

Not quite the same as just socializing per se, but I did turn becoming more popular into an obsession in high school, which definitely involved socializing. I reasoned, that if I was as smart as I was, that I could figure it out, or at the very least, figure out how to stop getting beat up and made fun of.

Basically, I turned into a game/science experiment:

I had a notebook in which every day after school I would write down my observations: Incidents that happened to me, how I reacted, how other people reacted. Then I would watch the other students and look out for similar incidents - how did other students handle similar situations? Did they have better results than I did?

I wrote down hypotheses of how I could behave differently, practiced in the bathroom in front of a mirror what I would say, the intonations I would use, the expressions I would use, how I'd move my hands and body, taught myself to speak slang, etc., and then I conducted experiments at school, in which I tried out my hypotheses live with the other children, and then recorded and compared my results.

An example would be: Trying to initiate friendly relations with someone I didn't know well. My natural way would be to immediately start talking about something I am interested in. Result? Fail! No one else at my school liked the things I did! But I saw other kids did it differently: they would comment on something in the immediate vicinity, going on right now. On the lunch line? Everyone making faces at the gross food? Then join in - make a face, or a comment about how nasty it was. Result? More positive responses from other kids.

That was a simplistic example, but you see what I mean. Sometimes I would get terrible results = More bullying! Everyone laughs at me! But even those negative situations were oddly satisfying, now that I had my system in place, because I knew I could write it down later in my notebook and cross off that incorrect hypothesis. It was all a game, and wrong turns were just lessons that would lead me closer to my end goal.

And the end goals I set up were concrete, measurable: How many friends did I have (at the time I measured it by people who gave me their home phone numbers, people who invited me to sit with them at lunch, people who invited me to their birthday parties)? How many times/month was I being bullied now, versus in the past? Every milestone was checked off, until I got to the point were I felt I had "won" - sometime around the beginning of senior year - no more bullying, and friends with the most popular girls in my grade. And then, I confess, I lost interest and became introverted again! Ha! But it's not like I immediately lost all my friends - some are still around today. So the benefits of my 3+ year "experiment" had lasting results.

But the point is, making socializing an obsession? It CAN be done.

I think, OP, if you also like taking on challenges, and planning out logistics and conducting experiments, you can do something similar. Just set concrete goals (say, get invited to one party by the end of the month? Or, have a 10-minute phone conversation with a new friend in the next 2 weeks?), and turn it into a game!

Good luck

things can become an obsession due to the need to dilute anxieties that propagate around their irresolution.
anxieties can grow as weeds in the cracks of one's uncertainties, and they gnaw away at the attention that one would normally freely have to allocate to contentedness of fluent thought.

I've been practically obsessed for a while with studying body language and non-verbal communication. Fascinating stuff and very complex. It proved pretty useful too, it taught me not only to read others better, but also be more aware and control the way they perceive me.

"obsession" means an unhealthy diversion of attention that results in difficulties in other aspects of normal development.

ArtGeek, I wish I would have done a little more purposeful experimentation when I was in school; great idea. I could do some of it now, but reactions are so much more subtle in the the everyday interactions of the adult world. I like the idea of watching others purposefully also; I might get some insight into people who are different from me, and also be reminded of all I do correctly. I tend to put myself down every time I become aware of even a minor social mistake, which doesn't fix the problem or acknowledge what's going right.

B9, I love your analogy. Elsewhere on this site, I think it was Alex who said that we have to "find our own certainty." That also struck a chord with me.