I'm so socially ret*d it's ridiculous...

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Yet another name to add to the long list of people I thought I was friends with.

I hadn't been to any kind of social gathering since Summer (a family thing) so when 2 friends of mine from uni asked to meet up, I thought, "Great, that'll be fun". We got on pretty well at uni and since then I've been e-mailing one girl quite a bit and the other girl a little. I thought that perhaps I had finally found some female friends that i didn't feel uncomfortable.

So we went to manchester and i thought, "Well, this isn't so bad" and I managed to get away with not ordering drinks because i had no ID (I'm 22 for god's sake!) and we got chucked out of one place. I get pretty anxious about stupid things like that. However, at the end of the day, the girls I was with agreed that that was "The worst outing we've had". They go out together all the time and have great fun and they I come along and they say it was crap. At first i thought I was just taking it to heart for no reason but I haven't heard from either of them since.

What I don't get is, how come I can make friends in work/school situations (well, a few anyway), and I can make friends in written form (I have a great pen-pal), but when it comes to purely social situations, people don't like me? I'm not aware of doing anything different to them. The only time when they looked at me funny was when I talked for a minute or two about Mythbusters.

It's frustrating because what I'd really like to do is just ask them, but last time i tried to do that, the person i asked kept as far away from me as possible because he thought i was so weird.

Well, never mind...at least I have my boyfriend, which is more than some people have.

Anyone else have this huge gulf between written friendship and face-to-face friendship?

That I do.

The social anxiety gets in the way of potential real life friendships.

This same thing has happened to me! I go out with people and have a fine time, but later they complain that they had no fun. This really scares me, and makes me more nervous about socializing. The rest of the world has such high expectations, and I can't figure out a.) what exactly these expectations are, and b.) what to do differently to meet these expectations...

Screw them. The average person, never mind the average Aspie, soils themselves several times on any given day. You've nothing to feel bad about. To whine about a spoiled evening AND let you know that they think it's your fault is beyond classless. You're lucky you were spared. Move on.

I think the reason we find written communication very easy but social communication very difficult is because we don't seem to realise that social communication involves a lot more than just the words we use in conversation. There's also the matter of tone, facial expression, body language etc on top of things, and I've come to believe that it's these where our (by which I mean aspies) problems lie. On top of which I don't think it helps that so many of the social norms in society, to me at least, seem quite ridiculous, although the vast majority of people accept them without a second thought.

The best way to cope with it, I believe, is to use that oh so analytical and critical side of ourselves to interpret these other memes of communication - a raised eyebrow here, a high vowel there, and in true memetic style, try and replicate these in the same manner. Basically, learn these same skills other people learned a lot earlier and without question.

Yes, it's a kind of conformity but it's not as if you're letting yourself go, you're just adapting to a strange situation

Plus it's also important to remember, as others have said, that other people have exactly the same anxieties as we do to some degree - most people worry about whether they're perceived as funny, or in the right context, or if people like them or not. I like to describe myself nowadays as a man of few, but well chosen words - you don't have anything to prove to people.

Above all else, the one thing to remember is that there are people out there who will like you for being who you are The best way I think to interact socially when faced with this kind of problem is to start small and work your way up - if you get to know people on a one-to-one basis first, then the group social issue becomes less frightening.

I might be making a fool of myself saying this, but I think that might have nothing to do with your personally. If they were really good friends, it might be a third wheel on the wagon thingie. . I wouldn't know, but i beat myself up about these thing aswell.

Thanks for all your replies.

I sometimes feel that it would be helpful to actually see a video recording of myself to see where I'm going wrong, but when I'm in the situation, I feel like I'm doing everything right!

I do prefer one-to-one situations but then there's the problem of awkward silences, which seem to happen a lot with me. Also, I think most other "normal" people prefer not to spend lots of time with one person, especially not one like me!

I guess it could have something to do with them being closer friends. Or maybe because I don't drink they felt uncomfortable really relaxing and enjoying themselves.

Either way, it feels good to know that other people have the same problems. It'd be nice to find similar people to me but they seem pretty rare. Apart from my boyfriend and my pen-pal, I'm yet to find anyone willing to be my friend for longer than a year.

Thank god for the internet!

I can relate to your experience. I have very few, if any, "social friendships".

I have friends at work, who I can go out with to a "work-related" social event, and seem to get along fine, but as soon as the "work context" goes away, I'm stuffed!

Same at school - had a couple of pretty good friends at school, but never saw them out of school, or since we left.

Same at Uni - had an OK time with people at uni, but never saw or heard from them in vacations, and have never heard from anyone since (bar a couple of times when I contacted people).

Unfortunately I've no easy answers, because I just can't figure it out myself. I don't know why the contexts are different, and I don't know what I do that's so irritating. Or perhaps it's not that I'm not liked - I wonder sometimes whether my lack of social input just means I just get forgotten, not maliciously or deliberately, but because I don't fit into any of their mental boxes. Don't know if that made any sense.

I hadn't thought of that. I always think I'm more likely to be remembered because of my oddities but maybe people don't notice at all. I probably remember people for being really funny or really nice or really horrible, and I guess I'm none of those things.

I just watched Robin Hood. I thought I was the only person who likes it!

I think we're long lost twins. LOL

I can type up a storm and make friends through words... But in social situations, I'm complete crap. Drives me absolutely batty. I mean, I seem to be doing exactly what everyone else does and yet... I come off as strange.

I've actually worked with the same people on some projects for the past 8 years. 8 YEARS! And only recently when I moved on to a new area did I "hear through the grapevine" that they don't like me and wondered why I always talked to them between shifts and about the things I did (work related things, of course!) 8 years! And I never knew. In fact, I was pretty dang proud of myself for socializing so nicely for such an extended period of time! Humiliating, I tell you.

It's enough to make you wanna be a hermit.

Oh yeah, this is something I can definately relate too. In purely social situations, I came in one of two forms. Either I'd be real quiet, only piping in occasionally, or I'd dominate the conversation asking a lot of questions.

I was originally the quiet person all the time, which was fine in a group when other people led the conversation, but in small groups or one-on-one, I was a total bore. This led me to try a more active role, only it seemed to backfire even though I thought I was doing great at the time. I feel I'm being the fuel for the conversation, but only find out later that I just grab a hold of it and argue pointless things to the point of being really annoying. Then I decided to be quiet again. Go figure. lol

However, I discovered that when I'm doing an activity that takes my focus off social interaction, people later tell me how great I was to be around. If we had a group project at work or school, was playing a game w/ others, or had some other kind of group task, I did fine. I've found my focus is undying, and if I am to be around other people, I have to make sure something task oriented has the majority of my attention. My days of just trying to "hang out" like u see everyone else doing have ended, and I'm much happier after I've come to accept how I am.

MFN1378 - That reminds me of all the people I thought I was great friends with at school. i spent 5 years with these people who appeared to like me. But as soon as we left high school i never heard from any of them again, despite trying to stay in contact. I guess I just don't notice when people dislike me unless they say "You're a tw*t" or whatever. I know I should say to you, "Well these were obviously horrible people", but if that were true, 99.999% of the people I've met must be horrible. I must be doing something wrong! I suppose being able to make friends on-line is better than nothing!

deadeyexx - When I started a postgrad course I started off really quiet and seemed to be getting on okay with people. Then I decided to try and come out of the shell a bit, and everyone hated me! I feel a million times more comfortable if I have something to do. Every once in a blue moon (I'm talking every few years here) I agree to go to the pub or something, and I can cope okay if it's 1 or 2 people. Any more than that and I just freeze, thinking, why the hell did I say yes? How is this fun?

Update: Still no word from the people I went out with. I'm resisting the urge to badger them.

I too have more than once been shocked to suddenly, and painfully, realize that people I thought I had been playing the social game with pretty well, actually actively dislike me. And I had times as a schoolgirl through the first half of college where I was clearly a total social outcast. But I could never muster up the nerve to ask anyone why I was disliked. I think I figured out what it was for me though, at least one of the things:

For me, it's that I get upset and angry when things don't happen the way they are supposed to. Even something little like unexpected traffic making me think I'll be late can sometimes be pretty upsetting. I've had countless little (and big) meltdowns and (sometimes explosive) expressions of anger. Then I'm better and I think nothing more of it. But anyone who's seen even me angry becomes afraid of me (I've never hurt anyone, but I guess I look and sound pretty intense) and anyone who's seen a meltdown thinks I'm psycho. So I try to catch myself and stop if I can - or leave so people don't see. Even just a complaint is "ugly" to NT's so I try to stop myself even doing that - or I make my complaint into a joke or sarcastic remark. Also, when I practice yoga regularly, I don't get upset as much.

Doesn't sound like that was your (the OP's) situation, but I'm thinking maybe other people on WP might do someting similar. I personally would love to hear more ideas of what specific things we tend to do "wrong" and how to avoid them.