Sociability vs. Social Skills

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I was told by my therapist to work on my social skills. So I started going to more social events and being involved in things like playing cards. In fact, most days I now spend around people.

So I told my therapist this saying I'm working on social skills. She said no, I was being sociable, that is not social skills!

I sort of see the difference, but I don't really. I mean, am I working on social skills by being around people, or does it take more than that?

OK - your therapist recommended a course of action but didn't give you a referral. Or a description. That is fairly obtuse. If he wanted you to have 'formal social skills' training he should have followed through with a referral.

There are 'social skills' classes. Basically, its where they teach you the rules. But you are already doing what they recommend you do - and that is going out and trying those skills for yourself. you can learn some of this simply by being observant - really forcing yourself to pay attention to other peoples conversations. Anything that goes past you, a therapist can address.

Your therapist probably means "social skills" in the sense of learning how to carry on a conversation and display those meaningless niceties. My therapist gave me a whole outline of things I need to be cognizant of, like "don't interrupt, agree before disagreeing, and paraphrase the person's response." I always forget to introduce myself and I usually just jump right into whatever topic I want, so alot of learning those social skills is unlearning bad habits. Your therapist should have really elaborated.

Being sociable is going to parties and bars and having lots of friends, and I don't think anyone should have you do that on command. That is something you do only when you want to, but social functioning skills are necessary if you want to live in civilization.

Hm, I see a big difference, for e.g. My Social Skills are pretty awesome, but I'm not exactly a social person.

-social skills can be/are learned or as I prefer to use the term emulated by people on the spectrum. sociability is more of a 'I'm out there'. I'm actually a social guy. I find other people fascinating, but fascinating like lab rats. You know like watching 2 macho guys get into a bar fight and wondering 'oh look, violation of personal space, shoulder rounding, he just poked him, now it's on!'
-I live in Asia so I don't need social skills and play the 'dumb foreigner card' as often as I can.

I like to hang out with my dog at the dog park, so I like to watch and analyze how the dogs are interacting, like a playground perv but with dogs. I usually do the same thing with humans in my school cafeteria. I really do feel like an anthropologist studying a different culture.

I really don't like how it seems therapists and other mental health professionals, seem to use the 'you should perfectly adapt to what normal people do' approach. I mean sure tips on how to become more approachable and maybe not come off as rude is helpful. However If I understand right aspergers/autism means our brains are wired differently right? So energy a therapist might recommend we spend on learing how to copy the exact social style of NTs could probably be better spent elsewhere.

And well quite frankly I am fine with coming off as a bit unusual...keeps the people I don't want to associate with away, and the open minded tolerant people don't mind and will even laugh with me about some of the mis-haps I might have because of my unusual ways of thinking.

What I mostly notice though hanging out with people for a long time is they all laugh and poke fun and even playfully touch each other and they don't treat me like that. One person said it was because I was serious all the time.

Wow, this has already been pretty enlightening.

I've been wondering if i may have aspergers, and now I'm a bit more convinced, "agree before disagreeing" it sounds so simple written down, but I had no idea.

I wonder if you'd care to share a few more examples of social rules like these, maybe even create a thread?

And to answer the question, I think it'd just make you the "active but odd" type of aspie, as I'm assuming It's the lack of social skills, or sometimes even the over rigid adherence to them which would cause us (maybe not me, I refuse to say without a dx) to appear odd.