AS vs shyness

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i completely agree with that. i was shy as a child, but not as an adult. i am not asd, but i am definitely introverted still. i dont enjoy socializing, and interacting with people at work, doctors, etc is doable but not enjoyable. i dont get anxiety from interacting with people, but i dont enjoy it either.

im socially ambivalent =P

Thank you fellow aspies and/or shyies (and other?) for your comments
and discussion.

For me shyness and AS are among the many things that I am proud of. This is
really an incredible combination.

This has got to be among the top ten most repeated questions in relation to AS.

The best indicator that AS is NOT just shyness is evident all over the forums here.

The FACT is, we are NOT all "shy." Some with AS are so forward that Aspies as a group are frequently labeled as a**holes. Just as frequently as we are labeled as shy.

That is clear evidence that AS and Autism in general IS a spectrum.

I have personally worn both the "shy" and the "a**hole" label many times in my life. The fact that I can be either contradicts the claims that I am either just shy, or just an a**hole.

The interesting thing is, times I have actually displayed shyness have been misinterpreted as being an a**hole. When I AM being an a**hole has never been misinterpreted. Unfortunately, this means I am more frequently labeled as an a**hole.

AS does not presuppose shyness. Given the opportunity, I can work a whole room of people. Glad-handing, joke-telling and outright alpha-ing. Hell, when I was getting my business off the ground, I spent weeks cold calling potential clients (that is scary stuff there, AS or not).

AS can lead to shyness if you let it get to you.

For my part, I just accepted that social is the name of the game. If I ever wanted to get ahead in life, I was going to have to crawl of my cave from time-to-time.

That said, the happiest day of my life was the day my business started doing well enough that I decided to quit coll calling people.

I can communicate and converse better when I just look off into the distance in a way, and generally not look at the other person I'm talking with. I would say that is aloof more than shy and probably a symptom of ASD.

I'm not sure that I understand what shyness is exactly. When I was a kid I assumed that I was shy because I found it so difficult to talk to people, and because I found other people disquieting, but now I wonder if that was entirely due to AS or if I am actually shy. When I am angry, all vestiges of shyness just melt away, and I am able to just go off on someone who is being a complete ass hat. How is shyness different from just not knowing what to say or how to interact?

In my "previous life" (before I came to terms with my AS), people thought I was extremely shy. I didn't speak much because I'm never sure as to what the right thing to say to people is, so I would say as little as possible and only if someone directly asked me something. Which was rare, because there was always that something about me which was offputting to other people (body language, apparently).

Now, I have a tendency to talk a lot, especially in large groups where I try to dominate the conversation. If I can't do so, I get exhausted REALLY quickly. I've found that talking and hearing my own voice is like a stim for me. I have a friend who has both AS and ADHD and he does the same thing... he does not care at all as to how other people perceive him, and has an incessant need to talk, albeit he has the problem to a much greater degree than I do. Now, people don't see me as shy... but they see me more as nervous and tense.

Basically, shy people are anxious but socially aware. (And introverts aren't interested in socializing.) It's also not a black and white thing. Everyone feels shy in certain situations (which differ from person to person).

I believe, at least in my case, that shyness seems to be a learned trait. When I was a teenager and into early adulthood (when I simply didn't know better), I was quite extroverted and outgoing. But then, as more and more people became dismissive, curt, sarcastic, and even sometimes overtly hostile towards me, I became "conditioned" to shyness. It is a form of learned helplessness, where nothing you can do changes the social situation for the better, so you are simply better off not interacting at all.

I'm not sure about what shyness is either. But I think that a non-shy person is someone who
likes to sort of go at it socially in both negative and positive situations. A non-shy person is
comfortable with open communication.



Shy people can get angry and go off on someone like those who are not shy. A shy person has to learn to
deal with the negative energy and turn it into something creative because the "rage episodes"
of a frustrated shyie can cause stress. I think the same goes for a frustrated aspie, whether
shy or not. It's hard for me to tell the difference though, because I am both AS and shy. I wonder
how I know that...

Shyness - being afraid of socializing
Introversion - disliking socialization

Note that I am not English-speaker, but my impression is that are the classical uses of the expressions; of course, these two traits can co-occur together (an extreme case of the two is the relatively common commorbity of schizoid and avoidant personality disorders). To make the things even more confuse, the two traits are practically indistinguishable to an external observer.

Thank you both. That clears it up quite a bit. I guess I'm both shy and inept at socializing.