How is pandemic influencing social-skill concerns?

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* Can it be said that the degrees of social-distancing might offer rough indicators of just how well we are acquainted with specific people?

* Anybody feel that AS/HFA perspectives on social skills & making friends will be changed once stay-at-home orders are lifted??

Most people I know are actually MORE keen to keep their distance from (non-cohabiting) friends than from strangers. Fear of being responsible for infecting them? Between the arrival of the virus here and the lockdown, I did meet up with one close friend a couple of times, but dropped everything involving groups from my diary.

Wierdly enough, I've had more of a social life since I've been trapped indoors. Suddenly everyone wants to talk on the phone or Skype. I can do that. Really hoping that there will be some lasting social effects, and more people will talk to absent friends instead of clicking "like" on Facebook and meeting up once a decade.

I go outside for a walk quite often and I feel like if someone talks to me I will forget how to reply or even say my name

To the first question, maybe. It depends on what you mean. You could distance yourself more from the people you care most about to protect them or you could use this as an excuse to further distance yourself from people you merely tolerate.

To the second question, YESSSS. I went to Walmart for my prescription and started stimming hardcore in the store. I couldn't help it. When I noticed my boyfriend and his friend (our new roommate) looking at me oddly I felt some shame. I am worried that my social awkwardness will be exacerbated by the isolation and that I won't know how to approach people appropriately or act in public. I feel so spoiled being able to be myself at home and not having to worry about what others think of me. It is so draining working around people in an open floor office. I have to constantly be "on" and then am so exhausted that I don't have the energy to do anything after work. I just melt into the couch and then melt into bed. I really wish I could work from home forever now

The Autism spectrum e.g., AS/HFA may be characterized by that "stranger in our own (familiar) land" feeling!

Anybody mindful of just how "stranger in our own (familiar) land" sentiments are being shaped by the pandemic? How many are imagining how such sentiments might change after the 'stay at home' directives are lifted?

How many feel that the lifting of 'stay at home' directives might just transcend (albeit slightly) AS/HFA - regarding the mustering of courage to "break the ice" so to speak in boosting social-skills & making friends?

I mean, I spent time as a shut in for 3 and a half years at one point so this social distancing is merely small beans for me. I'm good as long as I have my games, anime and internet for the most part. Though one thing I will say is that when you go without social contact for a long time you do lose some social skills. If you're already autistic then its pretty much doubling down at that point.

I fall "in the middle" regarding the balance of at home times, and the need to socialize.

Personally, socializing is nothing more that 'small-talk' face-to-face at my local coffee house with a a couple of staff members (a business that has cut back both hours, and the familiar staff on account of current events). A part of me misses these face-to-face experiences.

I've aptly learned to make that balance of day-to-day life productive at home - though computer time, art activities, as a well as becoming even more resourceful (as challenging times require), and providing supplies to family who don't want to go to the store (sanitizing groceries,shoes, and even mail have become yet 'to-do' tasks).

By the nature of my work as a data-analyst, I have been able to work from home (as I live in a semi-rural region). I'm interested in reading about experiences stemming from so many more people being pressed-into working, and undertaking educational goals from home. I'm especially interested in how best practices in online work will be established to improve online experiences.

In referring back to my original post in this thread, I feel that my views towards social skills & developing friendships will be very much changed after 'stay-at-home' restrictions are lifted.

For me, the whole thing has helped me finally grasp how stressful and tiring regular attempts at social interaction on a superficial level with people I don't know are.

Within this context it has been helpful.

I will of course carry on with this kind of thing once things begin to return back to the usual but perhaps not as much and when I do without worrying to the extant I have regarding how well its going and if I am coming across as 'normal'

Where I live the neighbours have taken to sitting in their front gardens with a drink on Sunday afternoons and talking to each other. Mrs V went out yesterday. I didn't - as this sounded like hell to me. The good thing about her having insight into how I am and having read the psychology and psychiatrists reports re my ASD is that she just accepts this and doesn't try to coax, persuade or cajole me into joining in. Thank goodness. In my previous relationships and before I was diagnosed I was usually accused of being miserable, 'grumpy' and 'difficult' in similar circumstances. What is better for me now is to be living with someone who has a level understanding and, for me anyway, it demonstrates the benefits of having a formal diagnosis in relation to helping my family get a handle on things.

The only social interaction that I miss is with my daughters and grandchildren.

The other night, I had a (sleep) dream (or dreams) which seemed to go along the lines of favorable / unfavorable notions of whom to develop (or not to develop) acquaintances. In the dream(s), I was one of a few people in a group outdoors.

In the group, I had viewed people who were conscientious about wearing face-masks, and social distancing as favorable to meet - whereas, the people who were not wearing face-masks, and not social-distancing were (in a quiet, tacit understanding of sorts) motioned to "go away!"

Again, whether or not people are applying social-distancing, or wearing face-masks represent only one indicator of favorability / unfavorability. Yet, in my waking-states (just as in dreams), I've increasingly felt that such adherence to tasks important in a pandemic are VERY important indicators of personality / behavioral traits.

Increasingly, I feel that my (sleep) dreams are reasonable barometers regarding real-life sentiments to social environments.

^That's very interesting. I've heard that dreams can work through concerns from our waking lives. It sounds like yours are much clearer about it than most peoples'!

How has a pandemic re-defined just our perceptions, perspectives, thoughts etc. etc. on friendships?

So for most of my life I've registered to "normal" people as an eccentric, a beloved oddball. It's actually only in my adult life where I'm finding it damn near impossible to forge connections with people because the rules of social conduct are considerably more rigid and typically revolve around professional lines, competency, and net worth. I find people to just flat out care about you less because the categorizations of people only become more and more narrow with age.

Anyhow, I have found that my dear god I have gotten stranger since quarantine. I say that intentionally self-effacing, I genuinely find it amusing as do my few good friends who are my friend primarily because I am this amusingly odd figure in their life.

I went to the post office the other day and I most definitely came across like I was just off the spaceship in every conceivable way. I just felt like my mannerisms were unusually different, I was trying to make eye contact with the postal worker and ask him questions that other humans would ask but I felt like that made it verrrrry obvious. I really got a heightened sense that most people are these nice neat little boxes, and I am a wild vortex that is expanding and swirling energy everywhere I go.


Another encounter that a split second after it happened I couldn't help but laugh. So my license expired, the DMV is not making new appointments - that's the back story it's incredibly frustrating to deal with. There are these third party remote businesses that contract with the DMV for very simple tasks. I just have a form to submit for my vision. That is all. No big deal. Really should be able to fax, email, mail this to someone but that would be if the DMV functioned like a business or for that matter functioned at all. I go to a AAA membership center and ask the woman do they only help AAA members. When she said yes I just turned and left and she went "uh oh? Oh? K?" I makes me laugh thinking about it but I legitimately forgot that you're required to exit a conversation like that with something pleasant like, "oh, thank you for letting me know. I don't have a need for becoming a member no thank you I'll be on my way." Not just immediately turning and leaving without saying anything else.

I feel like I need to start recording my interactions with humanity because I find them to be hilarious.

Interesting questions.

The first one I guess yes, if some people just disappear it shows it wasn´t so close anyway

The second, people might be more use to hang with each other online then in reality, some might learn how to like theor own company

Just bumping-up discussion-thread - anybody reconsider how social-skill concerns might evolve after pandemic is under control?

I really hope huggy type people will stop hugging without permission after this is over - I find it creepy to be forced to hug a guy I don't know.

I think being aspie massively helps me. Esp living with family I like. I don't miss anyone.

This two metres apart rule is what I want to be the norm. Not sure if that's an aspie thing. It's certainly a dyspraxic thing - no more bumping into people or being bumped into.

I won't have to do a difficult Christmas with relatives who have very different personalities to me this year. They mean well and I love them but I find the constant small talk/gossip really difficult.

I hope my social anxiety isn't massively affected by a year of no just going to the shop and buying stuff. I don't think it will be because I talk to the postman and the supermarket delivery workers at the same level I'd talk to a cafe/shop person.

I haven't actively socialized anything since March so whatever little social skills I had back then have probably already deteriorated to nothing