Social issues/insecurity

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I have seen successful, cocky people say and do things that would normally be deemed unacceptable, but because they are famous or wealthy or exude incredible confidence, it is often the other person who is left questioning themselves.

However, if same issues are said or done by someone who is somewhat insecure then those things are automatically chalked up to THAT person's problem or issue. Then it becomes a vicious cycle of the insecure person becoming more insecure due to those interactions.

I wonder if some of the AS social problems could be averted or mitigated by the Aspie exhibiting an enormous amount of self-confidence. Not saying that they would necessarily go away, but if practice makes perfect, not self isolating due to lack of "friends" or some social network would cease to be a factor and could help in that department.

Thoughts?

You need to get a good reception from others to build and maintain confidence

Being confident in the face of unremitting negative feedback will soon destroy your confidence

If people who are confident got the reception off others that I do they would not be confident

they'd either be dead or in prison

People forget that the confident are like this because they have a positive feedback loop going on

I absolutely agree with your first two paragraphs. I've been thinking about that a lot.

I'm very aware self-confidence is a key factor in comfortably interacting with others and in not being blamed/not being made to look wrong. However, I don't know how I can show/have self-confidence. Now I know that if you are not internally feeling self-confident, your insecurity will show eventually. I've tried hard to control my behavior so that I will look self-confident, but never have succeeded. That was before I knew about autism/AS. Now knowing about autism/AS I even wonder if it's ever possible to feel self-confident in the non-autistic world. After all my brain is different by birth. Can that difference be overcome?

Any way, I know what you mean. If there is a way to get it to work, I would really like to know.

Exactly, to be confident you need to feel it

it can't be faked

I think there's something to that, although "super confidence" probably would seem weird. I've certainly done better socially when I was in a confident mood, I think both because it makes people more likely to overlook mistakes and because it makes me less likely to panic and make the situation worse if I screw up (just moving on or laughing at yourself seems like the best strategy most of the time).

Just to add -
I think it is possible to some extent to increase or decrease your self-confidence by what you tell yourself and how you interpret situations - of course, you have to consider the interpretation you choose at least possible.

Example:
What happens: They're laughing!
You can think: They're laughing at me because I'm stupid.
They are probably laughing at something else and if they're laughing at me they are stupid.

But this is only possible if you actually are able to believe it is stupid to laugh at you.

Ah I tried the confident approach and found that people just want to tear you down.

I tried the vulnerable approach and found that people just want to mock you.

I tried the midway approach but people will ignore anything that does not fit into their desired perception of things so that doesn't work either.

In the end I have decided that it is futile to try and be anything just to find friendships or a social network.

Whilst I won't go out of my way to socialise any more, I won't isolate either. if I do find people I like (and who like me for who i am not what they think I should be) whilst I am ambling along on life's journey then great. If not, oh well I still have my fascinations to pursue and that can be just as wonderful a way to spend time as socialising can (depending on the activity...ie I'd rather go to the theater or to a museum than just spend the evening sitting in a pub or at home making chit chat...the former I find entertaining the latter I find to be dull, although it does depend on what the conversation is about!).

Life is not always about arriving at a specific destination, sometimes the journey itself can be just as much fun (if not more sometimes).

I don't need people in my life to look after me, I never did, I just would have liked some companionship so I had people to share the joy of being alive with.

I am also perfectly capable of enjoying life on my own though.

The only downside to always being by myself? I miss sex and cuddles and intimacy and someone to laugh and exchange joy with....and yeah it helps to have someone around to listen when you want the occasional moan too, but I have blogs for that anyway.