How do you deal with family get togethers?

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I have a family like that AmberEyes and I really appreciate them. Every one has a special interest and all are reticent but they all also function way better than I do.

My family is really small so I eat dinner over there Xmas and Thanksgiving. If it were with the extended family, aunts, uncles and cousins, I wouldn't go. I never wanted to go to their gatherings when I was a kid and I won't go now. So I guess I handle them by not showing up.

My family gatherings are very large so I only have to speak to like 10 percent of the people there. I let them come to me. It really isn't that bad. I find a spot and eat food most of the time and listen to other conversations.

Immediate family gatherings are fine. Now, when my brother got married, i was to see all my aunts, uncles, cousins, etc that i haven't seen in years. I felt very uncomfortable. Usually with both, i walk around and mingle...well, i walk around to each group, listen a little and move on.

I love them!! !

Oh man I hate family gatherings. It's getting harder and harder every year now that grown. That shy lil kid routine doesn't work anymore. People expect you to act like a adult now. This thanksgiving i'm actually thinking about going for a walk the whole day in order to avoid eating/socializing with my family. I feel like they more they see me the more I let them know something is wrong wit me and gives off the impression that im "crazy". Christmas is hard too. The last year i've been drinking alot to deal with my anxiety. It seems to be the only thing that works "short term" because medication don't seem to do much.

I don't really have "family get togethers" since my family are all anti-social hermits (my immediate family anyway). I do see my family quite often seperatly though, like I'll go to one uncle's house or stay at my nanas or my grandad visits alot. But I don't usually see them all together. but the ones I have had I've enjoyed in a way except for all that "how much you've grown!! !" crap and I don't even remember them. The last big get together was a few years ago on my late uncle's 70th birthday, that was pretty good and I just ate the buffet whilst standing around while a queue of old people wait to tell me how much I've grown etc, then I got bored so I went to the other living room and watched some music channels. I've had mini getogethers like meals on birthdays and stuff like that with close family and I like those.

My genetic family gatherings can end as train wrecks, so I pretty much avoid that now (there is evidence of AS with a lot of them and it isnt particularly mild either )

My wife's family more than makes up for this.

Warm, accepting, patient (they have been very patient with me), appreciative, kind...............oh wait a minute...... isn't that what families are supposed to be like (at least in those apple pie movies )

I can actually connect with them.

I am still on the outside, but I edge a little closer with each encounter.

One of my very young nephews may have AS. He is hyperactive and he is clearly intellectually very gifted (he taught himself a foreign language by reading and he is 3)

You should see us together; we dont have to say a word to communicate.

I could sit and listen to him telling me the the color of everything in the zip code all day.

They are truly a blessing.

I posted earlier that I had no trouble because my family was used to me and enjoyed talking about topics of substance but also I am at the age when my nieces and nephews are starting lives of their own and getting married and starting careers. I know and enjoy these new family members but since we are so spread out we don't get together often so the easy familiarity is not there. I feel awkward sometimes because, as far as the nieces and nephews are concerned, these are people I used to say cootchie-coo to and now they have advanced degrees and real jobs. I have a job considered very low skilled. When they talk about their lives I start to zone out and eventually I start to feel like a 10 year old at the grown ups table.