What's a socially challenged adult to do?

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Hello:

Please excuse me when I come into this forum with a new question without having posted any answers of my own beforehand, but at this point, alas, I have more questions than answers, and maybe my story might be of interest to others as well. Please also excuse the possibly excessive length of this article, but I cannot very well ask for advice without telling a little bit of my story, and. again. some here might find it interesting.

As a kid I was always the odd kid or the geek. I was raised by a single mom and my maternal grandparents; my father was a no-show whom I later learned was a regional political celebrity, but also a highly socially dysfunctional person who fathered lots of kids with women other than his wife and regularly got in trouble with the law for minor assaults in political debates, libel, and the like. My vocabulary and intellectual knowledge were always ahead of my age, but my performance in school was still abysmal (especially in the languages, English (not my native language) and, in particular, Latin), and I owe it only to the benevolent intervention of a few teachers that instead of having been retained several times and relegated to the dead-end tier in my European home country's multi-tier school system, I was allowed to skip grades and finish school substantially younger than usual. I was always horrible in ball sports and never made any friends as a kid (save the neighbors' dog whom I walked for hours and who taught me a lot)--so much so that my elementary school's principal published an undisguised scathing poem on my lack of sports and social skills in a little anthology of his dialect poems (without any consequences for his career).

My mother saw that I was having difficulties, and she was having difficulties raising me as well, but her interventions were from hindsight not necessarily all that constructive. She dragged me to a psychologist specializing in highly gifted children, and sure enough I ended up very high on the psychologist's endless batteries of IQ tests and maxed some dimensions of them out, but this only confirmed what everyone knew anyhow, viz. that my cognitive skills are not the problem, and did not lead to any actionable recommendation to help me with my challenges. With regard to my underperformance in school my mother thought the solution was to force me to learn by standing behind my desk all evening--needless to say, this didn't help.

As an adolescent I went to a boarding school where my first year was horrible. I was beaten up several times a day by a gang of fellow students that luckily had to leave the school midyear when it turned out that they also ran a crime ring specializing in recruiting younger students to steal from electronics stores and selling off these stolen goods. With a new crop of students next year my situation improved a lot and I found some friends for the first time in my life. The violence subsided gradually, and as I got into grade levels where I was allowed not to take courses in subjects for which I didn't have the slightest talent or interest (some officially, some by just not showing up which was sort of tolerated) my grades improved as well, and I graduated well above average, though not with excellent grades. I also found some less popular sports for which I discovered to have interest and talent. However, I never managed to date a girl in that time, despite severe crushes. In fact, save one unsuccessful attempt, I never mustered the courage to ask one out either, which may in part have been related to the realistic expectation that a guy three years younger than his still-adolescent classmates might not be in the best position therefor.

Then I went to a European university which I hated for several reasons, one of them being my total lack of a social life, but also the extremely crappy academic life. I managed to do splendidly in the American college admissions tests, maxing out the scale on one SAT II subject test, and got into a famous American college where my academic career really took off and I was a very good student for the first time in my life. Then I went on to grad school at another famous university and got my Ph.D. Throughout college, I had one multi-summer romantic relationship with a girl back home, but I never managed to have a real romantic relationship in college either, and I still had a hard time even to muster the courage to ask a girl out, which was, of course, reinforced at the times when I did so and invariably got rejected. Throughout grad school this pattern continued, although I had at least some friends-with-benefits relationships. Through college and grad school I was in several sports teams and was on friendly terms with everyone on them but friends with none.

After grad school, I got a very coveted job with prestige, an entry salary well into the six digits, and an expense account that hardly has limits. When I'm getting my reviews, the pattern is somewhat predictable: I'm well ahead of most of my colleagues in terms of analyzing problems and finding solutions, but I need to concentrate on communicating more effectively and appropriately. I also don't really have much of a support network or a network at our customers--in fact, when told to go somewhere and "to network", as opposed to solving a problem, I don't have the slightest clue what to do. I also don't really have any friends outside of work save once more the neighbors' dog, one buddy from boarding school I meet whenever I'm back in Europe, and a girl friend with benefits.

Summarizing my advantages and challenges, I think that what brought me through life was mostly substantial cognitive skills, while my social skills always were seriously underdeveloped.

I also have some degree of motor coordination problems--by no means enough to impair my everyday functioning, but enough to make a rather ungraceful dancer, athlete, and, perhaps, in some respects person in general.

I have major difficulties memorizing words unrelated to a logical connection. I'm rather good at recalling everything from scientific theories to trivia about Turkmen politics from the Economist, but memorizing a person's name is a matter of impossibility for me until I've known that person for a while. This might also be the explanation why I did so poorly in languages at school, which were taught not by speaking and writing them but by pressing endless lists of words and inflections into students' minds.

I also seem to make a somewhat wooden or otherwise unnatural impression on other people. For example, lately someone I didn't know at all came up to me at a fashion show I attended to tell me very emphatically (and with a funny British accent): "you don't seem relaxed...just be yourself!" That and similar things are comments I hear with some frequency.

Thinking about these issues, I thought that I seem to have some of the symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome. Using the DSM-IV criteria, I certainly fulfill "failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level", my "impairments in social functioning" are "clinically significant" since I find them very disturbing, and the "preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest" probably lie in the eye of the beholder anyhow--I certainly do have a wide range of interests, but dedicating five years of my life to getting a Ph.D. with a topic that has little practical use and doesn't interest all that many people might qualify in the eyes of some, though it doesn't seem to be dysfunctional.

Debating whether I have Asperger's or not seems a moot point anyway since there is no clear etiology behind the diagnosis and the criteria are, therefore, somewhat arbitrary.

The question would rather seem to be what a person in young adulthood with the challenges I described is to do about them. I really want to be pleasant company, to communicate appropriately in situations where relationships and not facts are concerned, to have business and social networks, to have friends, to date and eventually to find love and have a family. But sometimes it seems that despite all the things I'm good at, I just don't have an elementary set of skills needed to achieve these things.

It certainly does seem that these things can be learned. An extreme example would be the seduction techniques from the recent bestseller "The Game", whereby, by studying and practicing hard enough, nerds and geeks can really be turned into seduction naturals, although the method certainly has its disadvantages given that in that book it tends to eat up people's lives, turn women into objects of a numbers game, and leads quite a number of the protagonists straight into drug rehab, trouble with the law, unemployment, and so on. On the other hand the simple reading of self-help books on business networking and dating unsurprisingly does not do the trick for me.

My point in mentioning "The Game" is merely that things like this seem to prove that social skills can be learned by adults. My question thus would be whether you know of any methods or programs that are also aimed at teaching adults who never learned them but are otherwise functioning well (i.e., not an ex-con program or the like) the social skills most people learn during childhood and adolescence, but in a somewhat more constructive manner and with a broader focus than the science of speed seduction.

Another question would be whether to seek diagnosis and advice (as there doesn't seem to be any actual treatment out there) from a mental health professional. Since we have neither a clear etiology nor, therefore, real treatments, the upside seem to be limited to me, while there is a clear downside in that in my private and professional life I am involved in pursuits where I might be asked whether I have been diagnosed with a mental disorder (never mind that homosexuality also was in the DSM not so long ago) or have seen a mental health professional. Thus, without seeing a particular and proven course of actionable outcomes and the limited meaning of a diagnosis that is a mere description of a syndrome, the downsides would seem to outweigh the upsides (apart from practical considerations like finding time when I can take a few hours off work to see someone several times).

Now this has gotten very long. I hope my story was at least interesting (must have been if you made it this far ) and would appreciate any comments and advice.

First of all, my sympathy for your years of mistreatment... Many people here can identify with such circumstances. It seems as though you have come away with remarkably few problems as a result, though; that is commendable.

It seems to me that people who are not naturally good at social skills can nevertheless learn them.

I have few social relationships; the ones I have are based on common interests. That seems to be the easiest way to deal with people: To find those who are interested in what I'm interested in, and to talk about those things.

Your problems with the opposite sex are typical for people with AS and other social disabilities... I'm not sure how you are about socializing, in non-romantic ways, with females; but I think perhaps if you formed friendships, with no romantic context, with females, you would be more adept at interacting in the context of dating.

If you can find yourself a female with AS, ADHD, unusually high mental ability, or some other nontypical way of thinking, you may find more in common with her than with other females.

I myself am a female with AS, and I find more in common with AS males than with typical females... Conversing with the typical socially-oriented female is, for me, horribly boring.

Yeah I wish I had an answer for the social skills problem. Your smart
enough to understand that likely no one has an answer but you asked anyway.
Myself I live highly isolated , mostly unproductive life. Your life sound rather
nice compared to mine

Hard to say what to do, however being that you are aware of your problem you might try to observe what other people tend to do and imitate that to some extent. Try to figure out what they do and what they express by doing what they do, social skills are skills gained from other people. That is the best advice that I can come up with, maybe also try to force yourself to be more sociable, I know that one of my bigger problems is just that I don't try to be social enough and as such people don't get as close to me as they would to their more sociable friends.

Thank you all for your advice!

I mentioned the method of the 'scientific' pickup artists above, which has the advantage of provably working, and the disadvantage of the goal and thus the people involved being rather idiotic. But I still wonder if it is possible to put something similar up with the goal of learning how to make proper smalltalk and so on, and, since I'm surely not the only one with my problem, whether someone has already put up such a program.

If I can dream for a moment that time, money, etc. were no issues whatsoever, I'd perhaps put myself into a couple of Hugh Grant-style roles in the movies, with the scripts having roles of a perfectly charming businessman or politician for me and three communications trainers behind my back to go through expressions, gestures, and so on for every scene. After two years, I'm sure, I could recall some of the features of my movie characters in real life. (Actually, a colleague of mine once recommended watching The West Wing or even Wall St and trying to imitate some of the characters' behaviors.)

Getting Hugh Grant's movie roles is obviously not an option for me. But again, since I'm clearly not the only guy with my problem, I wonder if actual programs in that direction don't actually exist. Most likely I could even make my employer or health insurance or both pick up the tab, if not that'd still be ok.

We do have some rather intensive communications training in my job, but on the one hand that's geared toward very specific business situations, and on the other hand it seems to presuppose the amount of networking and other social skills considered normal in my job.

Hi SociallyChallenged

Something that helped me immensely was toastmasters. You might think it's just about public speaking, but it is about all round communciation skills and depending how far you get, it can help with basic small business skills too. Every part of the program is documented in detail. You get manuals telling you how to do everything. If you join the committee - there is a manual describing each job, if you become president - you get all the manuals together describing all the jobs. And committees are encouraged to rotate their jobs, so you don't have the exact same president for years on end.

www.toastmasters.org

The whole deal is completely self paced - you take on only as much as you can handle at a time. The aspects that helped me the most was the "evaluations" and the "table topics".

And there are lots of clubs, so if one doesn't suit you, another one might. And there is a job that involves greeting new people, some clubs are run better than others, but there is supposed to be someone who says hello to you when you show up and makes sure that you are not left out or included beyond your comfort level. The job is called "Sergeant at Arms".

Dear Socially,

Do you know anything about Carl Jung's concept of psychological type? While your post contains hints of many of the traits of Asperger's Syndrome (AS), it also sounds very much like one or two of Jung's less frequent types. That presents a problem, because Jung's types are considered normal while Asperger's is, of course, a neurological disability.

Recently I wrote a paper comparing and contrasting AS and psychological type which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Psychological Type. If you'd like to read it, I'll send you a copy. Unfortunately, I can't do that right away because the Journal owns the copyright. However, when the paper is published, which should be later this year or shortly after the first, then I can give away all the copies I want.

Let me know if you're interested, and I'll put you on the list. If you want to read up on psychological type in the meantime, I have a reading list too.

geezer

Thanks for that pointer, Geezer!

The question I'm asking myself, though, is does it make a difference? It obviously would if the diagnosis of AS was tied, say, to a gene that prevents the expression of a protein needed to make a certain neurotransmitter, in which case a corresponding therapy for it would not make any sense in persons where that protein and the neurotransmitter work just fine. As it stands, though, AS is (at least by the DSM criteria) defined by little but social problems and the lack of a more specific diagnosis, with some still rather shady theories about neurological differences that may cause it. Jungian psychology, on the other hand, appears to be more related to fictional literature than to science, by which I don't mean to disparage its usefulness. Thus I'm not certain whether it really is "a problem" whether one would prefer to classify my difficulties as a AS or as a, potentially somewhat extreme, expression of a Jungian personality type. The question I'm asking myself is more: What type of intervention would make the most sense to get me on the track on which I'd like to be?

It is now 2:45 A.M. in my part of the world. (Yeah, this stuff does keep me awake nights.) In the last hour and a half I've written several hundred words, all of which I've just erased. You speak of an intervention (although I'd prefer to say "education" or "changes"). Certainly there are things to learn and changes that can be implemented, but it's exceedingly difficult to make specific recommendations without knowing your type preferences. Do you know your type? Are you willing to share it?

g

Two close female friends are what have brought me into the social world. Withouth them I'd still be lost. Then again, I'm just 18 (16 when I met them) so it mightn't help in your case.

Btw, you should be more specific about what you think your social weaknesses are. Eg, are you too serious, unspontaneous, abrasive, timid or what?

Knowing about the cause of your problems is as important as knowing what the problems are.

I think you should appreciate who you are in your life, and be lucky that you are alive.

Hi Geezer:

I just went through one of the online personality assessments and came out as INTJ with Introverted 22%, Intuitive 88%, Thinking 25%, Judging 22%. Then again, that seems to be more descriptive than prescriptive to me, or isn't it?

I think I'm a little bit too much of most of the above at inappropriate times. Serious when other tell me "just be yourself and relax", abrasive when I merely want to argue a cause (and, I'm told, usually am right or at least have a very good point) but unintentionally put others off, timid when I'd like become part of a group (or to talk to a girl I'd like to know, of course), but don't know what to say.

I'm 18 so what works for me mightn't work for you. Nevertheless I have those problems (but less severe), so perhaps you can adapt what I found helpful:

A little bit of alcohol seems to help. With just 1-2 glasses (I'm 50kg) I actually talk more easily than I normally do. You probably won't like this idea, but give it a try anyway.

Whenever I say something that makes people laugh, I make a mental note of what I said. This has been EXTREMELY helpful to me in conversation. I have a theory that when you make someone new laugh, they feel more at ease with you and like the relationship is a bit closer. Collecting jokes has also, I think, made me better at thinking of new ones, and at not making jokes that give you weird looks.

I'll give you some example, but bare in mind some of this would probably be strange coming from a business man. It might only be acceptable from younger people (I don't know).
----
Here's an example of humour that appeals only to me. I don't show this sort of humour much anymore:
"It'll be cool if different types of super weapons cancelled each other out. That way two rival nations like india and pakistan would build them in secret, while trying to guess what the other is building. Then they'd be playing the greatest ever game of scissors paper rock."
----

Then there's the humour that seems to be dependant on making your personality seem unusual in a quirky but cool way. You have to be careful with these because sometimes you can seem too weird. Still, I find this sort of humour is very effective.

An example: I often get plates of nothing but vegetables at uni, and many people seem to think this is strange. I think it's strange that I'm the only one who does this, but anyway, when people comment on this I say "yeah, I'm like a cow. Well I'm pretty sure cows don't actually eat vegetables, but you know what I mean".

During awkward silences I say, "argh damn, liquorice craving, see what happens when we have awkard silences? Keep talking. Talking takes the pain away". This is very useful for obvious reasons

I think you'd have to be especially careful when using this sort of humour in a courting situation though. I'm no love doctor but I think some of this would make girls think you're a nice guy, without making you appear charming in a sexy way.

---

Then there's the humour that's not dependant on personality. Most of it's pretty foolproof, so long as it goes alongside what the conversation was to begin with (ie, you cant just pull it out of the blue).

If you're eating KFC, (do they have that in America? I mean just any junky chicken food), say "I wonder what you'd get if you peiced the bones back together. Probably a cat or something"
---

Some people who know you well might be taking back by seeing you make a joke. Still, personality is only skin deep, and with practice it's quite possible to build one. People who didn't know you before will have trouble seeing past it. Infact, that personality will rub off on you a bit, and it'll become you.

As well as having lists of things that make people laugh, it's also good to collect interesting bits of small talk, especially when it concerns something people will ask you about a lot. For example, when people inquired about starting uni, I'd say something along the lines of, "Great. <add some expected descriptions of what it's like, then move on...> Lots of new experiences. Like what do you say to someone, who in the first ten minutes of meeting you, says he ruined his memory by smoking too much weed? <pause to let them think> I mean there's just nothing you can say back to that".

emphasis:
You probably don't like the idea of taking on all this, and you might think you'll rather not have to socialise if it's in this manner. I would have agreed with that two years ago, but I can now honestly say that I enjoy it. Plus, being able to carry on the small talk, often leads to deaper conversations.

I hope this helps you. I'm pretty much a less extreme version of you.

Socially wrote, “I just went through one of the online personality assessments and came out as INTJ with Introverted 22%, Intuitive 88%, Thinking 25%, Judging 22%. Then again, that seems to be more descriptive than prescriptive to me, or isn't it?”

~ ~ ~

I need to rant a bit, and then I'll get to the more productive comments...

The online assessments are notoriously unreliable, containing as they do errors of fact and omission, as well as information that's misleading at best. One of the most egregious of online exercises is at humanmetrics.com. Among their mistakes is the statement that the MBTI™ is a test. It’s not. It’s an instrument. The difference is that a test calls for right and wrong responses, and you're usually penalized for the wrong ones. An instrument indicates. It shows. That's it. No right; no wrong. In the case of the MBTI™, it holds up a mirror and says, "This is you." There is usually a shock of recognition. One common reaction of people learning their type is, "Omygosh, somebody out there knows me better than I know me! How did they do that?"

Another error is the idea that the numbers associated with the MBTI™ scores are percentages. Again, they are not. The numbers are designed to show how well or how poorly the individual is aware of their preferences. A high number says that the individual is clearly aware of a preference for this or that, while a number near the middle of the scale indicates that the individual probably isn't too clear about their preferences. Unfortunately, in the case of the online stuff, you don't really know even that about the numbers, because THOSE ARE NOT AUTHORIZED MBTI™ instruments.

The authentic MBTI™ is a controlled instrument. You have to have special training to administer and interpret it, and not just anybody can offer it. It's not found *anywhere* online because if it were, the offerer would quickly get sued by the owners of the copyright.

...some slow, deep breathing, and I'll be OK in a few minutes...

Now let's get to the positive stuff.

Yes, the results of the (authorized - genuine - authentic) MBTI™ and the descriptions and interpretations that go along with it are designed to be descriptive. It's kind of a "know thyself" learning process. Having said that, there are directions in which one may wish to grow, depending not only on their type preferences, but on their stage of development, as well as their life situations and circumstances.

I'm not surprised at your results. Even with the manifest deficiencies of the online exercises, I would have guessed that you're in the introverted intuitive quadrant just from your opening post. The four introverted intuitive types comprise about 5% of the general population, with the percentages for each ranging from slightly less to slightly more than 1%. These are the people who often feel lonely in crowds, are interested more in the future than in the past, and easily see the possibilities where others see only the difficulties. They're often described as visionary. They are also often misunderstood, and their contributions go unrecognized and under- or unappreciated by those around them.

You want a prescription for change. OK, here's my advice. Go to <http://keirsey.com/>. Read up on all the types. Pay particular attention to the introverted intuitive types, of course, but don't ignore the others. Get a feel for where you fit in. There are links on the Keirsey site to INTJ and INTP pages. Also go there and see which seems more compatible with your approach to life. They both should offer much to identify with, but one should seem more like you than the other.

You might also want to go to the website for the Association for Psychological Type <http://www.aptinternational.org/> and find a chapter near you. Start attending. See what they offer. Finally, the Center for Applications of Psychological Type <http://www.capt.org/> offers the authentic MBTI™. They charge something like $150, but that's a small price to pay for what you get.

Oops. I thought I was done, but I'm not. Here's a reading list.

Keirsey, D. W., & Bates, M. (1978/1984). Please understand me. Del Mar, CA: Prometheus Nemesis Book Company.

Lawrence, G. (1993). People types & tiger stripes. Gainesville, FL: Center for Applications of Psychological Type.

Myers, I. B., & Myers, P. B. (1980). Gifts differing. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc.

Pearman, R. R., & Albritton, S. C. (1997). I’m not crazy I’m just not you: The real meaning of the 16 personality types. Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black Publishing.

Quenk, N. L. (1993). Beside ourselves: Our hidden personality in everyday life. Palo Alto, CA: CPP Books.

The first one, Please Understand Me, by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates, is a good place to start.

As you can tell, I'm a fan of Jung and of the Myers-Briggs interpretation of Jung's ideas. Not everybody is, but I pull no punches on that one. With me what you read is what you get. I'll be interested in what you find out.

geezer