Walking up to a complete stranger the aspie way.

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I'm at the stage where i think being able to approach utter strangers and casually chat to them in a friendly manner is my only hope of finding close friends in my hometown. The only problem is...i'm an aspie! How do i get from being a socially anxious unskilled nutjob into being able to accomplish this feat which, as far as i can see, is perfectly simple for the average NT 16 year old?? All advice on how to go about this, both in terms of psychological preperation and social skills, will be welcomed.

well first off dont just walk up to people in any situation or it will just be weird. For example dont just walk up to someone in the grocery store and start conversation, wait for say someone you bump into at a book store or at the movies (idk what you do in your town) over a random comment like "oh its so hot today!" and then go into agreeing with them. you can take that into something more personal and then the conversation can start from there. idk you can do it however you want, it really depends on your personality and how quick on your feet you are. I'm not quick on my feet so I am only friends with people Ive met thru forced environments like school or sports.

I dont have forced environments in my life right now. I was thinking about walking up to someone one night in these club/pub nights that play music that i like and just casually chatting. Maybe even approaching a lady. I am pretty low on confidence and dont have a lot of experience in this regard.

oh well if its a club or pub that type of thing is totally acceptable so go for it!!

I feel pretty hamstrung in my ability to just go for it. I am normally pretty awkward in social situations! I go quiet and i feel just wrong. Not really able to do proper eye contact and give proper body language i dont think.

Same here! My arms feel wrong, my face, clothes, my very existence feels wrong when I'm in that type of situation. I'd love people to come to me and start a conversation, as long as it's not a boring one. But I just can't start one.

When I meet eyes with somebody it feels the worse, I instantly change the focus of my vision, it's even funny how fast I can sway my eyes from a person when our eyes are met.

The experiances i've had is everyone in america is nervous so if you go up to a complete stranger and just try talking to them they will think you are:

A) wierd
B) want to rob them

Especially women. if you go up to a dude and try talking to him he will think your a homo.

just draw a face on your hand and pretend its a person for all of your socializing needs.

and yes i'm serious

hmmm. I am thinking there is possible a middle ground here between the advice given by tangomike and richardbenson. Not quite ready to start talking to my hand like the kid from The Shining i don't think!

I remember walking behind this woman awile back and she clutched her purse and kept looking to the side everyonce inawile to see just what the heck i was doing behind her.

I dont know? walking perhaps. or maybe i was gonna steal her purse! or grab her butt, who knows dude. but i'm saying

Gees! That annoys me like heck! Every time there is a woman walking in front of me, I get that! I hate it! I dress ok, I comb my hair, I shave, I smell perfume, in other words, I'm just a normal person. But I get that all the time.

Also in the bus, if I'm seating at the window seat, and the corridor seat is vacant, my vacant seat will ALWAYS be the last one to be taken, and usually by a dude. I stare people in the eyes when I first look at them, I guess it scares them. But I'd rather look into people's eyes in that case, than to be blamed for butt or boob staring.

That happens to me on the bus also. When i was out at the gallery yesterday some chick even said out loud to her mates "What's wrong with that guy"? This makes me think that NT''s will always be able to spot that you are a little off centre and that ultimately there's not alot you can do to change that.

It's so true. Do they have some sort of weird-o-detector that we are not aware of?

It could be called social intuition i think. I think if you are in a pack of people it is less noticable. Unfortunately due to the nature of our condition we aspies tend to be solitary creatures. People instinctively fear the loner i think. I guess us loners must have been a threat at some point in our human evolution.

It makes me uncomfortable if I'm pushed to act sociably. When I was 19, as a young mormon, ( no longer religious at all ), I was sent as a missionary to Massachusetts area. Because it made me so uncomfortable all the time having to talk to other people, I got Crohn's disease, as my nerves were boiling all the time.

So I preffer - just like any aspie - to stay on my own. Except when I'm with my family or close to friends, then I have no problems with being with somebody. But unacquainted people make me feel uneasy.

I am envious of people who find a degree of comfort in the solitary life as i cant quite grasp that myself. I think the reason being that unlike alot of aspies i was actually quite a sociable child and able to make friends readily. This all changed when i had my breakdown at 13 and my twenties in particular have been hellishly isolating.

Isnt this topic supposed to be for advice on how to approach people? Because thats exactly what I havent seen yet. And I was looking forward to seeing some useful answers in here.