Improving social skills is like calculus for us.

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As a person with ASD, improving my social skills feels like doing calculus, even though it is like basic math. Meaning that improving social skills should be a simple thing to do, but because I have ASD, it is like calculus. That is the best way I can describe it.

I hope my explanation about ASD and social skills is very good.

It just means we must work harder for the same result, but it is not impossible. Remember that.

Sometimes it feels impossible, but I agree.

Thank you!

I like calculus better tham social situations.

Calculus is easier

Calculus has rules. More logical. Can be put into paper. Is very linear. Not very multisensory.


Socialization isn't.

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To learn the more complex social skills all I had to do was learn from embarrassing mistakes I made that I got criticised for by my peers.

Now the vast majority of my social skills feel so natural that I surprise myself when I do make an occasional embarrassing social blunder.

^It would be great to hear of some social mistakes people kept making but then learned from. Anyone want to give an example? I personally find it hard not to be myself, but I realize to some extent life can be far worse in having to deal with people who don't understand us. They can be be devious and possibly dangerous.

American TV host Dr. Phil once said, "You wouldn't care so much about what people think about you if you knew how little they did." I feel this is true for an otherwise "normal" person who's overly self-conscious.

However, I've slowly begun to realize that people are actually more aware of me than I am of them. I think the opposite of what Dr. Phil purports may be true with Aspies, that our brain processing doesn't really include thinking much of others beyond the present time or current interaction; and NTs really do spend more time thinking about us (and people in general) than we think about them, and more so than we realize.

Example given above. Poster says she didn't realize how harshly she was being judged for being 'weird.' I think a key difference between NTs and Aspies is the amount of time and judgement they spend in evaluating other people around them. I knew they did this more than I did, just didn't realize the extent to which they did. Dr. Phil's quote doesn't apply in our scenario.

It makes sense.

TBF social nuance is more complex than calculus

Calculus is much harder for me than very basic math due to my symptoms of learning disorder.

Oddly enough I'd much rather work on social challenges than calculus.

I've found that with the right people I don't need to put much effort into "social skills." If the other people are fairly easy-going and friendly, it's usually just a matter of not being destructive, taking a bit of care not to bring them down with negativity or dominating conversations, and earning trust, being willing to co-operate with them and help them out. The right people won't get upset about a bit of eccentricity. If you do something they don't like, they'll talk to you about it respectfully and try to resolve the problem. They'll have a sense of proportion. If you like them and you're interested in them, they'll probably feel the same way about you.

Of course the flaw in all that is, there might not be very many people who fit the bill, and a lot of us get forced into groups of people who aren't that sound (like at school or in a workplace), with no obvious way out. Sometimes getting on with those types can be practically impossible, certainly challenging socially. Then it becomes a matter of who's strongest, and unfortunately it'll often turn out to be them. I survived a lot by ignoring the main group and looking for outliers. It was also useful to identify the kind of social gatherings that I was never going to fit into or enjoy.

I see.