Does aspergers get harder as you get older?

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I've just turned 19 and for the past couple of years I've had more difficulty than I've ever had with social interaction.

When I was younger it just seemed easier. I was always a little weird and introverted but could kind of keep a conversation going. Now it seems like everythings changed and I'm literally lost without no hope of ever having a "decent conversation" again. I think it might be due to the fact everyones getting older and people are doing more socially sophisticated things.
In the past I used to be able to just kind of chip in in group conversations, we'd all play video games and we'd play games and stuff that didn't involve any direct conversation.
Nowadays it just seems like every social gathering is about going out and drinking, going to town etc etc.

I can't hack it.

anybody else find their social difficulties get harder when you get older?

try revisiting the issue when you are my age.

yes. what we basically have is a social learning disability. everyone else is accelerating at speed x and we are accelerating at some fraction of x, so over more time, the gap gets larger and larger.

depends on whom i'm talking to. if it is someone i know well, maybe i'll talk. if it is a professional acquaintence i know well, i'll definitely talk. if it is someone i don't know, but we get on the same topic as my specialty, or about the locals, i'll talk until i'm winded, then keep talking. if it is to give information, i'll give the info, then shut up. otherwise, i keep my mouth shut unless the other person says hi, in which case i'll return the pleasantries.

It's my experience that it does get more difficult but that could be pessimism or my getting more used to being withdrawn and trying less.

Nah, I find it easier. It could just be the fact that the type of people I associate with usually have the same interests as me. It could also be the fact that older neurotypical people are less judgmental then people were in middle school and high school, where people would be like "YOU'RE WEIRD!"

I don't do alot of the awkward things that I used to do that used to make people not want to be around me, but another reason people didn't like me in middle school and high school was the fact that I dressed different and listened to different music then everyone. While everyone else was into mainstream rap and alternative, I was all about 80s thrash metal and hardcore punk, and I dressed the part too. Nothing's changed whatsoever but it seems like neurotypical people look at me now and say "This guys different, LETS PARTY WITH HIM!" rather then "This guys different, LETS PICK ON HIM!". It could also be the fact that I come off more as a "rock star who loves to party" now rather than "dorky kid who loves heavy metal"

I'm 26 and I feel that things are slowly becoming a little easier. I am female, so it may not be the same for men (or other women, of course)

In the teens and early 20s people seem to want to talk a lot about who they are, what they like and what they know. This is when people want to work out where they fit in society and who their 'tribe' is. As people get older, this tendency seems to wane a little. I find now that most people are happy enough to talk about work, their families and day to day things such as their housework, decorating, gardening etc. It's enough for me to look interested and ask a few questions such as 'How old are your children?' and people will talk on and on.

Of course, this isn't the same as having friends and talking to them, which is still a struggle. I have a few friends and I don't expect to make any more.

In some ways it gets easier for me, since I have learned to simply avoid other people and social situations as much as possible. I am retired now, but when I was working I was at a large hi tech company and associated with lots of other tech types, geeks and nerds, so conversation was never an issue. They were mostly just like me, therefore no problem. On those occasions where I do find myself in those uncomfortable social situations, I mostly just remain on the sidelines and watch and listen. Social functions are such a waste of time and effort and I always have better tings to do than to engage in idle chit chat.

Very well said.

I think there's sort of blissful ignorance in youth: "I may be weird, different, out-of-step, but when I'm an adult everything will be fine." Then after the years go by, and one looks at the opportunities and experiences they never had, which it seems like everyone else had, it can get depressing.

It reminds me of a verse from the song "Take the Long Way Home" by Supertramp:

Does it feel that you life's become a catastrophe?
Oh it has to be
For you to grow boy
When you look through the years and see what you could have been
Oh, what might have been
If you'd had more time

I am having greater difficulties the older i get. i have to semi interact on a daily basis as I have 2 kids that go to school. The other parents all kind of know how to talk to each other and interact but I have kind of missed the cues and the few times I have tried to talk, I am made to feel like a leper. I don't like being so differant but I am starting to get my son to meet me at the school gate instead of the class room and as unideal as it is, hopefully, he will walk to and from school soon. I also study full time and I am lucky the course I am in at the moment is self paced so I just do the work at home and then when it comes to group activities i leave the room because i have already completed the requirements. I am unsure how I will go in the workplace after i finish as I will be a personal assisstant but I just think of loud mouth donna and if she can do it, so can I.

yes, to me it does.

i'm expected to have a good job, already be married, have my own house, filled with 2.5 kids.

but i have none of those things, (though mum does seem to think i have a good job)
i prefer things like comic books, card games, cartoons and toys and computers.
and i'm not even interested in dating at all!

This is something that is not so easy to answer. It depends so much on your situation and the general situation as well.

I personally think that It depends mostly on, how much you are isolated from the "real world" and what you do to feel comfortably with it.

AS can cause a lot of psychological problems. The hard thing to struggle with is to recognize them and to do something against it.
How well you are able to cope with them is one thing and this will most probably quite exactly make up, how well you will be doing in your future.

But there is also quite many positive things when you get older and continue to struggle honestly

1)You can choose the right environment and job, create safe surroundings to your self.
2)When people get older they don't focus so much more on nasty personal behaviour and tend to accept more that you are different (well depending on the social status of that people)
3)You can change yourself a bit to compensate some of your strange behaviour and will be perceived as more normal then
4)Be happy that you know that you have AS, because you can start to work with it right now (I didn't know and I managed to find out first quite recently what is the cause that I am so strange or different ).

I used to quite ignore that I am different and flow along with others. That worked quite well. But there was also the problem that I wasn't able to recognize my own weaknesses and didn't do enough to develop necessairy social understanding (understanding feelings of others).

Make sure you have at least some good friends and lots of people to hang around with or to just join into some activities, because this is the way you might get to know interesting people. (Friends of friends and so on). These lots of people still satisfied for me the need of being part of the social community, even though I was strange.



That is I guess not necessarily true. And that's because when you are a certain NT age you at least slow down learning social skills (you know enough). And that's where we have a good chance to come closer.
Quite many people (not like me, though) are able to develop from the standpoint that they want to be as normal as possible a pretty normal life.

Finding a suited partner, though, is really difficult. AS persons can but not must have traits that are difficult to deal with as NT. These traits you can fight with, but something of course remains. Whether this is ok for your partner or not is the big question. I have been in a 9 year relationship and my ex wasn't able to cope with it.
But, I clearly developed a lot and got rid of the one and the other thing.

Some aspies mange also quite well being without partners, but I think this is more an exception.

One thing is clear: you will have to invest lot of blood and will probably face the one and the other cutback. But I think it should be possible to work towards a satisfied and psycho-problem free life.

It is probably the golden middle-way that is the right thing. To socialize enough and to understand all the important dos and donts, but also to accept yourself as being different and not to get depressed about not being normal.
Lots of rational thinking, understanding a thing 10 times before it really goes in and such(for me many things were so against my own perception that I needed that)

That's what I think

Last edited by onks on 12 Aug 2012, 4:16 am, edited 2 times in total.

s**t I should really focus on writing not too long comments.
(So difficult to read them)

I have taken your points on board but I kind of feel that although it is good advice, I have learnt this already. I feel that I have already found that people are more accepting of me and my quirkyness. And I really do value these people that spend time with me and are my friends.

But even though I know that, I still have great difficulty with being socially awkward with literally everyone ever. There's people (including my friends and family) I just simply cannot/ don't know how to have a conversation with. It just gets so awkward and always peeters off into awkward silences. These are people I should get a long with as we have very similar interests, but can't.

I really don't know what is wrong with me sometimes.

Maybe at your age it's more difficult because around 19, everyone hits a new stage of adulthood while a "behind" person remains in adolescence.


I'd say it'd get easier in your 20's if you don't develop any psych issues.

I think it does, in the sense that everyone-else is growing up, naturally gaining new social skills, and you're not.

When I was younger, I had friends over everyday after school, was invited to so many parties, and was in the 'in' crowd. But as I got older, I started being liked less, and less, and many of my new friends at the bottom of the social ladder, didn't seem to like me much anymore :/. I started going off them as well, they kept being mean without realising it.
I have new online friends now, and, at-least most of them, seem to like me . Plus, they're lovely .