How about we brainstorm better ways to socialize
25 Sep 2020, 11:14 am
Yes. I read that Carnegie book a long time ago, during a phase when I was feeling my circle of friends was falling to zero and so I was studying psychology in the hope of fixing it (decades before I was diagnosed). I remember getting to the end of the book and thinking that his ideas were all very well but that really I wasn't interested enough n the trivial details of other people's existence to follow his instructions. There's a bit in the book that strikes me as ridiculous - first he explains how to deliberately feed people's ego by looking as if you really dig them and are fascinated with what they had for breakfast, then he says "be genuine." Nothing genuine about it, he'd just basically applied salesmanship tricks to the art of friendship. Maybe a better title would have been "How To Fake Friends And Influence People." I'm very thankful that real people, even mainstream NTs, don't quite fit his model, and that in truth most folks want a bit of genuine in their relations with others. I wish it was a lot more, and in some people it is, but I think it's a rare person whose social life is nothing but schmooze.
I worked for a highly successful person who had mastered the art of coming across to people in the way he wanted them to perceive him. Without a doubt I am positive this person was an Aspie, the very few one on one interactions I or other coworkers had with him they all had the same things to say about him, "wow, he is REALLY different one on one." Somewhat shy, kind of awkward, not the rehearsed, polished presence he gave off when he was addressing the company as a whole. I think of it sometimes like creating a social avatar, must be done because people are generally vicious and if I'm constantly just presenting myself as I am to the world as a whole it tends to equate to pain. But you can just create a social avatar out of thin air. It's draining if I have to be this person for too long, but it's ultimately in your best interest to control the perception and give people an image of you that works in your best interests. Trust me, I don't like this. I would prefer to just never deal with people except maybe a handful one on one talking about concepts that are actually interesting.
27 Sep 2020, 6:14 pm
^
Interesting that an Aspie could do that. Luckily for me, I don't often have to deal with people I don't like (one of the perks of retirement), so there isn't a lot people can do to me if I'm more or less straight with them, and I tend to restrict any tailoring of my words to a bit of self-censorship based on what I've learned is likely to especially hack this or that person off. I do feel the strain of curbing my natural impulse to be rather blunt, but it's a little like mastering any skill, i.e. resisting the temptation to go at it like a hammer and tongs and instead using self control and acquired wisdom to gradually refine my interpersonal style. Another analogy is computer programming where the right syntax is needed to achieve the desired result. A lot of it seems to be about using euphemisms and understating anything that might get taken as a threat to the individual's cherished belief system or ego. I always want to question people's assertions when I don't see why they think this or that, and when somebody hasn't made it clear what their point is, I want to simply ask "so what's your point?" Even though these things are to a degree seen as bad manners, I always feel I'm letting them and myself down when I don't inject that kind of healthy questioning into the proceedings, if indeed those questions occur to me.
27 Sep 2020, 7:01 pm
Interesting that an Aspie could do that. Luckily for me, I don't often have to deal with people I don't like (one of the perks of retirement), so there isn't a lot people can do to me if I'm more or less straight with them, and I tend to restrict any tailoring of my words to a bit of self-censorship based on what I've learned is likely to especially hack this or that person off. I do feel the strain of curbing my natural impulse to be rather blunt, but it's a little like mastering any skill, i.e. resisting the temptation to go at it like a hammer and tongs and instead using self control and acquired wisdom to gradually refine my interpersonal style. Another analogy is computer programming where the right syntax is needed to achieve the desired result. A lot of it seems to be about using euphemisms and understating anything that might get taken as a threat to the individual's cherished belief system or ego. I always want to question people's assertions when I don't see why they think this or that, and when somebody hasn't made it clear what their point is, I want to simply ask "so what's your point?" Even though these things are to a degree seen as bad manners, I always feel I'm letting them and myself down when I don't inject that kind of healthy questioning into the proceedings, if indeed those questions occur to me.
I very much understand. Most of my interactions with people are work related. I can read a person's tone of voice well enough to get at what they're actually saying, I'm usually unsure of what the appropriate answer is. I've found with women I work with this is a compliment. It is never really a compliment it is an opening to a conversation about something else and I'm supposed to delicately hint at a response. The general gist I've gotten is I'm supposed to just know I'm being subtly insulted and I need to respond with something equally subtly insulting or an indication that I am not affected by this insult to thus display my competency and dominance in the conversation. This is how I've read the basis of the subtext for all workplace conversations. It is a dominance game and everyone wants to demonstrate they have the upper hand. Yawn. So exhausting too. I would LOVE to respond to a person coming up to me at work immediately with "what is the purpose of this conversation, what are you hoping to achieve and what response are you looking for from me," but that is considered rude. I think their way is rude but that's neither here nor there.
He could only do his avatar version of himself when speaking to us as a group. His one on one personality was VERY different.
30 Sep 2020, 1:56 pm
^
I must have been spared a lot of that kind of trouble through my choice of job - science research. There were a lot of people there who had no time for one-upmanship or any of the other strange social games that I hear so many complaints about. I noticed that the clerical staff seemed to follow the mainstream NT pattern more than the technical staff did, and also that when a particular subgroup was relatively homogenous with regard to ethnicity, class etc., I would have more trouble getting on with them, and often ended up viewing them as rather "stupid" compared with my usual circle which was quite multicultural and non-judgemental. I've often felt that the skill of objective thinking tends to remove a person from game-playing antics, because most of that stuff involves making irrational judgements. I'd have probably sunk like a stone in an environment such as the one you have to tolerate in your workplace. My environment wasn't perfect by any means, but I didn't feel so much like I was some weird outsider. There was usually somebody or other who was more odd than I was, and sometimes there was some ganging up going on against them, jokes at their expense told behind their backs etc., but there would also be people there who weren't afraid to say "X seems to be becoming the butt end of our jokes, and that's not good," and they got away with expressing that opinion. There was quite a will among most of them that we should put some energy into being a reasonably friendly, healthy community, at least to a degree. Quite a contrast to some groups who seem to want a "catty" pecking order.
30 Sep 2020, 2:06 pm
Fitting in doesn't interest me. I don't care about quantity of friends. I've never been in a situation in adult life where i had nobody online or offline, except when I had my breakdown & that's cos nobody would've been good enough. Even then, I had mum.
I care about quality and how they can suit me tbh.
So I look for people I have common interests with. And talk to them about those interests and things around those interests.
Monologuing doesn't look like monologuing if everyone's at it on the same topic.
I don't invite for eg my painting friends out for tea or drinks. I don't ask my football friends (irl) if they like reading, only when they bring it up. If they happen to bring up other stuff we have in common, great.
If you do hobby classes or meet through hobbies, you can pretty much 'get away with' only talking to them about that hobby.
It helps that my football interest incorporates so much. Like politics and charity work etc and having shared roots. So I talk about that stuff with them too.
And I don't make friends with someone if we don't have shared values.
My last art retreat, we all met through one youtuber and we had loads in common like we were all some kind of artist and we were all left wing and many of us were neurodiverse. That was a great experience for me in terms of meeting like minded type individuals.
Being sober helps as well. I want to always be in relative control of what I say. Music and staying up late can make it a bit more like being 'drunk' but drinking at uni was a nightmare for me and I'm surprised I kept any friends doing that.
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