what does "socially awkward" mean? examples?

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I am NT trying to understand AS. I've come across this phrase thousands of times but it's still too vague. Can you explain it to me please, maybe with examples. Thank you.

I guess one can sum it up like this:
When I act out of the norm in some (public) situation or a conversation, it is socially awkward.
This can include:

• Saying nothing at all when someone expects me to say something just because I don't know what to say;
• Talking too much about a certain topic and not getting subtle cues that indicate that the person is bored/that I should stop doing so;
• Not comforting someone who is crying (because one has no idea what to do);
• Not looking someone in the eyes if they expect you to;
• Staring at someone;
• Freaking out for no reason for an outsider (by that I mean people who don't have AS and/or don't know the person has it);
• Retreating for no apparent reason for an outsider;
• Talking with an odd phonetic/pronounciation;
• Hating things that nobody else seems to hate or care about (e.g. being touched as a try to be comforted) and reacting in an inappropriate way;
• etc.

It can also mean responding in unusual ways in conversation, or saying random strange things. For examples:

At work one day, my partner ant I were driving back from a call discussing what we were going to have for lunch. After a pause for roughly 5 seconds, I said "Would you come to my funeral?" She just about crashed the ambulance, then asked where the hell that came from. To me, it was rather simple.
1. There was nothing to eat in town but the same fast food places we eat at every week
2. our diets in EMS work are pretty unhealthy
3. Actually, the whole lifestyle is fairly rough on the body. Three of our co-workers have had heart problems in the past 4 years
4. And its not like inward threats are the only problem. People fight us, shoot at us, hold us hostage.
5. 24 hour shifts are rough and can affect our ability to drive. Our friend Chris was killed only a year ago in a wreck on his way home
6. His funeral was the biggest I had ever seen
7. Would mine be that big if I died?
8. Would Linda be there? I should ask her...


And more recently (last week, well into allergy season) My husband and I were driving and he was talking about putting some of that canned foam insulation around the windows. After a few seconds, I said "I don't want to die from something respiratory." My husband, somewhat more used to my randomness, did not about wreck, simply asked where that came from. He seems to enjoy hearing about my weird trains of thought.
1. Yeah, I know that stuff
2. They killed a guy on an episode of CSI:NY with that, sprayed it down his throat during a fight
3. That was such a horrible death scenes, one of the few that really bothered me
4. That's kinda what it feels like when I have an asthma attack
5. Crap, I forgot my inhalor!
6. Suffocation would be the worst possible way to die... I really don't want to die like that

If a person doesn't know enough about me to expect things like that it can really freak them out. I try to watch doing that around people who don't understand, but the problem is that I usually don't realize that the other person doesn't hear my little internal dialogue. It makes perfect sense to me, but the other person is completely lost.

It means you don't do what's appropriate in social situations and/or are uncomfortable in social situations. So people find it cute, other people find it annoying.

It means being perceived as being either and or... weird, quirky, odd, strange, offbeat, shifty, aloof, goofy, mouthy, rude, humorless, monotone, inattentive, clueless et al.

To me it is someone who is uncomfortable in social situations and does know what to do in social situations.

It's hard to say really. I can sometimes be socially awkward, other times not so much. It depends on who I am with aswell.

Being socially awkward can affect different people in different ways. Personally I am quite easy to get along with, most of the time. Well, sometimes when I am with my mum or other close relatives, I can be difficult, like I am be aloof and stressy and say irrelevant things, which often annoys my mum. That's because I don't feel so socially phobic with my close family, so I can speak up a lot more and just be myself.

Being with people outside my family, however, is different. I don't complain or worry or stress so much about things, although I do inwardly but I don't like to show that I do, only to a small extent. I would never have an outburst in front of people that aren't close family. It's embarrassing enough to do that in front of my family, so doing it in front of people that aren't my family would just be too humiliating. But talking to most people outside my family seems more awkward to me because that's where my social phobia comes into play. The things what make me socially awkward are:-

-Not asking as many questions as I should, in other words, not contributing in conversation, not because I don't know how, but because the social phobia seems to stop me from asking questions in a conversation for some strange reason. I suppose that can make me quite socially awkward, even if other people don't really notice it much, it still feels awkward for me

-Not using confidence in my tone of voice, just unintentionally sounding nervous all the time, no matter how much I try to not sound so nervous.

-Going ''yeah'' ''no'' ''oh right'' ''OK'' a lot, I know other people do, but I do it so much, then when there's a pause, I go ''yeah'' or something again, which makes me look awkward as though I never quite know what to say.

-Talking too quietly, like mumbling a lot of the time, so that people can't hear me and have to ask me to repeat.

-Never being sure whether to go with someone or staying where I am. I always think that going with someone might make me look like I'm following, but then staying where I am might make me look standoffish and uninterested. I usually go with their body language.

-Being unsure of telling the difference between joining in and butting in, which is why I stay noticeably quiet in group conversations.

OK, I´ve seen some nice examples, but no one probably tops mine:

Last year I was a member on a committee of a students associations. We were 8 people. We organized a trip to Iceland for students on the association. On the night of the first presentation, where we had to tell what the destination of trip was gonna be, everyone of the commitee was there. It was in a bar not far from the faculty building. So, we (the committee) had to be there at 20 o clock, to prepar things, but the presentation didnt actually start untill 20.30, when the others members of the association arrived. So after we had finished the preparations we all just sat at a table, or two tables. Everyone was talking to each other and I was just kind of sitting there, I didn't know what to say to them. After a while most went outside to smoke. I remained with two other people, that eventually decided to go chat up to another person that had just entered. So I sat there... A.L.O.N.E. at the table. All I thought was: omg, I'm here alone, everyone is going to think I am weird, crazy, socially akward, autistic. QUICK, I must grab my mobile phone and pretend that I am texting someone. But then I couldn't find my mobile phone. I had forgotten it at home. At that moment I just felt like dying. I just wanted to kill myself. I sat there all alone for like 10 minutes, just staring at the rest, at the table, not knowing what to do. I could see the smokers gossiping about me outside.

This was so afwull.

-whoops-

Well someone close to me told me how I'm not longer socially awkward and I asked what they meant by that. He said that I used to creep people out because it was 'obvious' I was trying too hard to be nice, especially to women. I certainly am not aware of that as I always try to treat everyone equally.

Go figure that I know a guy who basically tells girls to "go down" all the time and they complied without hesitation every time, so it's obvious it must be something I am completely unaware of that I was doing.

Hello, Im Tom and I have the same trouble. Being social awkward in my situation is me trying to strike up conversations with random people in the wrong environment. For an example going to the gym and trying to strike up a conversation with people.

There's a rhythm to social interactions and conversations. Being off timing and not getting the rhythm results in social awkwardness. Examples
* talking out of turn...when there's supposed to be a pause
* interrupting at the wrong time
*not knowing when to shut up -going on and on too much about a topic/not letting the other person talk
* not knowing when the other person's trying to end a conversation so continuing it

The above is what I think of as social awkwardness. Also you could include awkward mannerisms.
* weird facial expressions - try to fake smile and look creepy/ try to make eye contact and stare intently so look creepy or no facial expression/not enough.
* weird body language/ talk a lot with hands but not the way normal people do/more like just waving arms in front of face in an awkward looking way or no gestures
* weird prosody -too high too raspy, too loud , too quiet, too much enunciation or no or not enough inflection or too fast or too slow
* not making eye contact/ making too much (staring)/making weird eye contact like looking at one person while talking to another, too much looking at and then away from people ect.
*startling and jumping when someone touches you

There are also things like hesitating and not knowing what to do because you don't know whether to follow the other person or say goodbye and walk off on your own (like someone else mentioned-I do that too). So many things it could refer to...jus being socially off.