It's been a while. A long while. You guys were supposed to nag me to keep updating!
Well... the novel thing never panned out. Last semester turned out to be a very busy one, and I barely kept up with my classes. But I got through the semester, and I managed a not terrible GPA in the process. So hooray!
Now, today's subject might be a little touchy to some people. Keep in mind that I in no way mean to be offensive, and this reflects only my personal experiences. Other individual may have entirely different experiences, and this in no way reflects on the nature of anyone except myself. With that said, here goes.
The things that I'm autistic. And being autistic... well, it can really suck sometimes.
I'm not good at social interaction. I don't understand it. All those subtle social cues, like body language and tone of voice, often go completely over my head, or I interpret them entirely wrong. And those are a huge, huge part of communication. So I miss a lot when talking to people, and because of this I tend to just not talk much. Which, I think, makes people feel like I don't like being around them.
I said I think that's how people feel. Because I don't know, no one has ever come up to me and said, "Neil, I feel like you don't want me around." Sure, I can figure out that, if person A avoids hanging out with me, then it's likely that person A doesn't like hanging out with me. But I get so many false positives that way. People who miss a regular hang out, or opt to go do something different this week... it has nothing to do with them disliking me, but I have no way to tell which people just having something else to do, and which people are avoiding me.
And even this one specific example leads to problems. There have been a couple of girls I was interested in, in the last few years, where I literally could not tell if they were sick of the sight of me, or if they were just busy.
It works the other way, too. I can't tell when someone enjoys my company. Again, I can say that if person B spends time with me, then person B likely enjoys spending time with me. But what if person B is only spending time with me because we both happen to enjoy being at a certain place? Or we have a mutual friend that one of us often tags along with? This can become extra confusing for me when I only see a person in one context (hanging with a mutual friend, going to a place we both enjoy/have to be at), and there is no opportunity to change this.
This is currently causing me problems. As I write this blog, several friends are sitting in the other room. This house is their convenient hang out spot (because my roommate owns the place) and they were hanging here regularly long before I moved in. Lately I've been feeling like they don't want me around... but I can't tell if this is because they really don't want me around, or because I'm misreading social cues.
Sure, I can just go and ask. But there are two problems with that. The first, and the lesser, problem is that it's embarrassing. Often times people look like I'm stupid for not already figuring things like this out. The second problem is that, if I just go in there and ask if something's going on, I learn nothing. They tell me that they either do want me around, or they don't, and I never figure out how to tell the difference on my own. Assuming they don't just lie and say, "Of course we want you around!" out of social politeness, which adds whole new layers of complexity that are entirely unhelpful to me.
Like I said, it kind of sucks sometimes.
I thought of an interesting analogy earlier today to illustrate how this feels. To me, trying to learn how to be social is like trying to learn advanced calculus. Except that everyone else already knows advanced calculus, and no one ever explains any of it to me, and everyone assumes that I already know it. And not knowing the right answers means I end up sitting alone in my living room, writing an angsty blog, while my friends hang out in the other room having fun together.
This situation is untenable. What happens when I have a real job, and I don't realize that my boss is upset with me over something I wasn't aware that I did? What do I do if I ever do manage to get a date, and I can't tell if she's enjoying herself or smiling because of social politeness?
Ah, social politeness, my old nemesis. I don't want to get side-tracked by it now, but remind me to do a blog on that some time.
Now, don't think of me as hopeless, I'm not. I'm high-functioning enough that I can learn all of these things. But that math analogy above was very apt. This is a skill that will take me time and effort to learn. To continue the analogy, right now I'm struggling my way through trigonometry without any guidance, and I'm still completely baffled by even the most basic calculus equations.
This is something that I can easily relate to (matter of fact I've already spilled my guts on a particular forum that you're familiar with). Everybody has strengths and weaknesses though. Social skills are incredibly useful, but then so are computer skills, and mechanical skills, and on and on.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I've observed is that people that are naturally social don't seem to think much about it. To some extent I think that they are somewhat arrogant by nature, assuming that everyone likes them by default, and when that falls through they just move on and find someone else to interact with. That is to say, they truly don't care. This has a number of strengths: they get a lot of experience interacting with people which naturally factors into future encounters and the more people that they interact with the more likely they are to find somebody that they naturally get along with.
I really like the analogy that you used. However, I think a more accurate picture is that others don't care about getting the answer wrong or failing the test. Social situations aren't really anything like classes or courses. A course is generally something you /need/ in order to advance in your education or career. When you fail one of those you generally have to wait months or a year and then do it all over again from the beginning; it is a set back. Social situations are extra curricular though. You don't need to succeed at them (at least not specific ones) and when you do fail you can always just try again right away with someone else. There's relatively little lost when you fail at a social situation. There are a LOT of people in the world and as special as you might think the ones you've met are, there are an unfathomable amount more that you can meet that are just as special. So really it's not worth worrying about at all. Just go for it. :)
Go hang out with your friends. Don't worry about how they feel about it. If they have a problem with you then it's their responsibility to do something about it. You can't read their minds (nobody can) and you aren't expected to. And if you do find yourself not feeling welcome with them then don't waste your time and just find somebody new. It's OK for people to not like you. It's normal. Everyone has some people that don't like them; even people that you might think everyone likes. The opposite is also true.
I think people that lack social skills often feel overwhelmed by the idea of meeting new people. I know that I do. My only advice there is to take your time with it. It's OK if you don't go out right now and meet somebody new. There are a lot of things to learn in life and you don't have to learn them all at once. When you do feel up to it, just introduce yourself to somebody new. Don't worry about what they might think about it or whether or not it's correct. Maybe they'll think you're weird, but then you can just leave and you'll all forget about it and go on with your lives. But maybe you'll meet somebody that you just click with and you'll become friends. The kind of friends that don't make you feel unwelcome.
The same basic principles apply to meeting girls too.
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