Are there any "NT" things you wish you could do?

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Are there any things that you feel that you can't do because you are on the spectrum but wish that you could?

I bet dancing is fun. I bet karaoke is a real laugh with your friends. Being able to sing must be wonderful. Even things like roller skating look joyful

I'm so uncoordinated though that I could only dance and sing as well as that ASIMO robot.

I shouldn't moan. I do have some abilities so I should stop whining and develop them.

Just sometimes though I wish I wasn't trapped in this great, lumbering, dead-eyed hulk of a body...

not shutting down in a mall because of sensory overload must be nice,

i hear relationship and sex is nice, i find them overwhelming

the only thing id really like to do is read body language and have the ability to know if a person likes me or not.

I'm speaking in retrospect but when I was a teen I always wished I could have had friends. A matter of fact I longed for it. I used to go to the mall by myself and shop and I would see groups if girls and guys my age just hanging out and having fun. I took a city bus back home and I would sometimes sit near them and just pretend in my head that I was a part of their circle. I longed for friends and the high school experience.

Now at 25 and having gone through a nightmare of a time with health problems I have been so worn down by all that has gone on in the last 5-6 years I am sorry to say I have lost any desire for relationships. A lot if the time I'm just too bogged down to care about that type if stuff anymore and too busy dealing with other problems. I'm totally comfortable being a loner. I notice since I am "comfortable" with being by myself the previous social awkwardness I had dealing with people has really diminished as I'm no longer trying to impress anyone.

I used to wish I could drive too but I have long lost that desire as well.

I live in a city with a large University and at times I used to walk by the campus and wish I could be enrolled and be living the college dream but I know now that's not possible.

I can dance. I cannot sing though and never have been able to. I'm tone deaf, completely. Singing is fun though and if I get drunk and crank up the tunes I'll sing along at home, and I do sing in the car with the radio and the windows up when I'm alone in there. I don't think being tone deaf has to do with my AS.

As for being uncoordinated, I'm used to that. I'm 50 and wasn't diagnosed till about a decade ago. I've always been uncoordinated and that's just me. I don't know if it's because of the AS or not, my kids inherited it somewhat too, so maybe not. They are NT except for my youngest son who I suspect may have a little AS like me because of some of his traits, but he doesn't have social skills problems like I did. Just the extreme pickiness and rigidity about some things, but not all. Also he blows everything out of proportion kind of like I do at time.

I learned to twirl a baton in high school and was a majorette. I never thought I could do that and only did it just to do something. I never thought I'd make the team. Everybody in that damn school was surprised that I made it, and they were floored when they saw me twirl because I got sort of obsessed with practicing and got better than everybody else and even did several solo's with the fire baton, which was really difficult considering I was dressed entirely in non fire resistant polyester, had big hair with half a can of hair spray on it and was in close proximity to 7 other girls who were the same. I can still do some of it, which surprised me. My daughters friend had a baton and I said let me try something and I took it outside, did a few things and still managed a one turn and after about twenty minutes I did a two turn. I was pretty happy with myself about that.

The only other coordinated thing I can do is I can pile quarters on my bent elbow and straighten my arm quickly and catch them in my hand.

What skills do you want to develop?

I wish that I knew intuitively how to maintain a friendship. Maybe NTs actually want to be around people so much that feeling motivates them to be more outgoing, but then there's that whole saying the right thing at the right time and knowing what to do when your friend needs you or knowing which people want you to be included in their group. Am I meant to just go up and talk like I'm supposed to be there? I guess that's what others do. I always just suppose I'm not meant to be there and wait to be invited, but I think that NTs are more proactive.

I wish I could appear more normal when meeting new people. I have found that if people have to be around me (because we work together or something), then they fairly quickly get past the impression of "awkward weirdo" and get to know me and then we actually get along okay. It's in those social situations where the first impression matters a lot, like meeting new people at an event, where I wish i could act differently. In these situations I am often avoided in favour of people who seem more "right" at the start which makes it nearly impossible to form any kind of connection.
Maz

I would like to be able to convince people that I'm right without first having to pretend that I like and admire them; instead of having to wait until the spit hits the fan for the opportunity to say, "I told you so".

communicate properly. that would be cool.
not get disgustingly anxious about anything social related, and overwhelmed by social/noise heavy environments would also be nice.

Yes, I know, what you mean.
Our NT friends can feel confused about persons, who need to withdraw in periods longer than they. They think, that their company isn´t wanted anymore. I don´t blieve, being NT is anymore rosy than being Aspie. They´re just the majority, which gives them a better chance of confirmation.

I´d like to be more able to decode subtile social exchanges here&now.
I would like to be able to detect humor and jokes better and be able to answer instead of being swept around and become the subject myself (grumble).
And I´d like to be able to answer faster/move to a new subject faster. I´m allways too slow, like I have to open a new drawer and do a search on the subject, even though it is something, I have opinions about. I´m often left outside the discussion because of that. That is when I feel a bit handicapped. More bandwidth, please.
I´d like to be less literal and less in need of being told in a precise language.
(I don´t feel quite so stupid, now that I know why).
Otherwise I´m very ok with my special/unique strengths, which I am about to give extra space for development.

Working full time without getting overwhelmed or frustrated would be nice. I want to work in retail dealing with customers all day, in a busy environment, because it looks like an interesting job. But my social anxiety and stress levels won't let me. Maybe I could get some further training and gain some confidence-building, but that's hard to come by in the area I come from. It is making me depressed and fed up.

To those of you saying you have trouble with social situations, I'm right there with you! I feel like I'm always too "clingy", so then I try to back off and my friends wonder why I've suddenly become distant. But then when I try to initiate get togethers or even just to talk, they are often busy with other things.

I think the problem is they all have groups they like to hang out in, where I prefer one-on-one situations. I don't even know the best way to be part of a group, unless it's work focused.

On that note, I greatly prefer more introverted people. They are usually the ones that like hanging out together without being a part of a larger group.

Being able to naturally and spontaneously make friends. I have actually experienced that on some rare occasions when I was working and living in some peculiar community - But it rarely lasted vary long.

I wish I had the NT ability to make friends and keep them too... I haven't had a real friend since high school, and I don't even know if I could count those friends as real either.
It is very hard to meet people when you're an introverted loner with no social skills. I've come accustomed to my own company though and much prefer it as I tire of other people's company quickly and I don't have to worry about what other people want. Still, it would be nice to be able to meet people and befriend them as easily as NT's appear to do. But I tend to dislike being friends with someone who has 20+ friends...I mean, super social people bug me. I'd like to have a close friend or two at least.

- Riku

Dancing - I can almost dance. I'm hoping to learn enough to do that credibly in public one day. I got good at playing the guitar and piano, so as my hands have learned to dance well and I've acquired a good sense of rhythm, maybe the rest of me can get there too.

Screening out unimportant data from the senses such as minor physical irritation, background noises, etc. - I really wish I could.

Intuitive sense of emotional state of others - my learned, deductive way of working out what others feel is often too slow.

Ability to self-advocate and get the help I want from people - I can kind of do that if I really have to, but not without feeling like I'll be onto a hiding for nothing, and my success rate isn't good.

Intuitive grasp of bureacracy - I'm getting there, but I still fall down by expecting the bureaucrats to respect reason and arguments based on human values, e.g. a disability application failed because I focussed on explaining my difficulties logically and plausibly, and never suspected they would be require (but not ask for) a statement from a member of the Great and Good. As the eminent one would only have been repeating my own words, without being able to check their validity, I couldn't imagine the bureaucrats would place any value on it.

Feeling comfortable in the company of others - I'm OK with loved ones and familiar friends, but with everybody else I get tons of social anxiety which spoils all the fun.

Maintaining friendships - I wish I could be more proactive and invitational in seeking out company. It's as if I'd rather die lonely than risk being anywhere I'm not wanted.

Immediacy - I wish I could trust myself to come straight out with things instead of having to do a safety assessment first. But experience tells me I can't.

Executive function - I wish I could pull myself away from the detail and onto the overview without so much trouble.

Boredom - I wish I could tolerate it better, instead of my brain balking at anything that doesn't happen to interest me naturally.

Perfectionism - I wish I could accept that I can't get things perfect, and that it didn't annoy me so much to see minor flaws in things.

I wish I could do things without the disabling anxiety. Like, most of it would be cleaning house, cooking... stuff like that. I have a hard time with most tasks because of my poor executive functioning issues and severe anxiety too. It's worse when my parents fail to understand it as well. :/ That's kind of why I wish I could do more things so they wouldn't make a scene over me not doing something I should be capable of doing. ><

Another thing would be drawing. I want to become a better artist, but I feel like having autism and physical limitations holds me back from improving. You have no idea how much I want to make my senpai proud either. It's really hard because I just can't seem to grasp the idea of shading, drawing hands or anything that most people can do within at least a few days or so. D:

Not having severe sensory problems and meltdowns would be fantastic, as would the ability to maintain my speech regardless of how stressed I became. I'd also like to enjoy social gatherings and group projects; there are so many of them in college that not despising them would be extremely useful. Not being afraid of or uncomfortable with physical contact or sex in an intimate relationship would be nice too.