"just be sociable"

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It's like when Yoda says "Do! There is no 'try'!" As in, "Just socialize like an experianced prophessional. There is no 'trying' to socialize." Imagine if he had none, or too few of those mini-claroforms, or whatever they call those in Star Wars....

How is he supposed to 'do' it without at least a little help? Also, on either side there isn't anybody who actualy 'just knows' all the social clues in unfamilior places either. I find it a little ignorant.

I also think that kind of message is like saying "convince yourself that our happiness is your's", or "do what we want you to".

They do not realise that you are different, and find it hard. For them it is simple, and it is simple for most people, so they think it is simple for you. Even for aspies, it is difficult to comprehend being different from the way we are.

Yeah, saying 'just socialize more' is... not helpful. It's the kind of thing people who have a certain skill so well ingrained they don't realize it's a skill say to people who don't have that skill at all.

What I like to try for people I am interested in having a good relationship with is remember one or two interests or people of importance in that person's life to ask after. Like with someone who runs and does crafts I ask if he's been working on anything special, if there's a lull in the conversation I'd ask him about running, if he's training for something special or if all that frost isn't making it hard lately to train. I used to keep a little book with everyone's names, numbers, birthdays and little notes and read up before I went out to socialize. I really should dig it out of storage and start using it again as I keep forgetting birthdays.

There's also a lot of just flat out faking stuff, things like complementing someone's clothes or hairstyle and ask them questions to elaborate. Sometimes you get it wrong and they go "oh, this old thing, you've seen it a dozen times before!" but you can usually cover up with something like "It just never fails to look so great on you it feels new every time!" (times like that honesty is the last thing you want to use, admitting you weren't really paying attention is a very very bad idea).

Emoting is important too, I used to be awful at showing emotions that other people could use as cues but have gotten a bit better at that with practice. The problem for me tended to be trying to guess the emotion of the other person, so I could work on partially mirroring that. (the other part of showing emotions on your face people often don't mention - it's not just showing your emotions (as many NTs like to just explain it), it's also doing a slight mirroring effect when they're talking about something so that they feel you're sharing in what they're telling, giving a bigger sense of connection.)

Most of it tends to be very superficial, it's funny but grasping something that superficial feels much harder than having a deep meaningful conversation. Small talk is significantly more complex than deep talk.

It's a bit like asking someone in a wheel chair to "just get up and walk!".

My mom recently said to me that I should "develop a social life"....i don't know what that means either

Once I took my goldfish out of his bowl and threw him on the floor. I said "just walk." He flopped around frantically until I realized that he had no legs. I picked him up and put him back in the bowl and he immediately seemed more comfortable.

Wow, its a good thing someone didn't give me that advice. You don't want me to be chatty. I will talk forever about every little thing. I also don't seem to take any subtle social clues that you are not listening to me anymore. I am working on this though.