Able to socialise but not able to like it

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I think quite a few people on this forum who have not been formally diagnosed may identify with this conundrum.
I find social situations draining and a bit confusing but I think I probably can read people and make the appropriate facial expressions etc, the key thing is I don't enjoy it and feel bored. Its more an anti-social feeling something doctors will equate with depression, I do make awful social gaffes and slow process but I think I'm just a boring b****XXXZ!!

Maybe you find them "draining and a bit confusing" because you can understand the situation, but only with effort (although unconscious), vs. intuitively like an NT.

I feel this way too sometimes. It oscillates between that and enjoying the situation but making awful mistakes.

Actually it's other people who are boring, most people are just pretending to be interested, but we have more trouble faking it as we have to consciously act rather than being able to intuitively act like superfantastic says. Plus we are not as concerned about how others see us and so are less likely to see any reason or point to fake being interested in other people. On the odd occaision I do come across someone interesting I find there is much less strain to find conversation, particularly if we are interested in the same subjects then I will talk forever without realising it

To imagine it in the opposite direction, think of an austistic savant who can work out huge sums without really thinking about it, but the NT has the work his brain like a maniac to even try to work it out on paper let alone their head. In social situations it is the NT who can automatically read the situation, AS/Autistic types have to be the ones who work hard to figure it all out.

i can identify with this. i get tired of talking to people though... and somehow it always seems like i have to do the talking to people... they they will never start a conversation with me. it's really frustrating cause i usually do make some kind of social bungle when i start taking the wheel. it's a balance i am extremely uncomfortable with cause i either don't say enough and then people stop talking to me or i make a joke about the wrong aspect of a topic or something... and then they stop talking to me.

but i feel like i can identify people's expressions or bodylanguage ok... i mostly have issues discerning when people are upet/angry with me and i also have the anticipation that anything i do is wrong... either cause i know i don't relate with someone on something and don't know what to do or worse--that i'll have no clue what im doing wrong. so part of why i hate socializing is because i am so selfconscious and yet powerless to stop the train wreck.

but yes, chitchat is often boring too... and for the few gatherings with people who know me to some degree... i am more comfortable with sittin and drinkin a beer while they chitchat and when (if) any real conversation gets goin... i usually will have a comment or three on the subject and will just randomly join in.

I can do it when I have too...but it literally wipes me out..I am constantly thinking "what do I say now?", "what do I say next?", "should I say that?"...it's just not an "effortless" thing...the conversation just doesn't go rolling off my tongue...

..Big problem is when more than one person is talking to me at a time, or I'm just too tired to begin with...I get confused and I loose my train of thought, or I kind of hear what one says and not the other...then I either go silent, stutter, or just try to paste a dumb smile on my face and look for the nearest exit.

You might look into schizoid personality disorder.

I can definitely relate to what all of you are saying. Sometimes when people are talking I canbarely stand the boredom of it. But lets face it people are banal these days. Its really an objective of mine not to spend too much time with boring people. Its a function of intelligence. So I guess their small talk is like a cage and we dont like being in it. But also the NT's get something out of it. Maybe its like petting the cat? who knows what the cat gets out of it? So its meeting some of their needs . I am genuinely happy for them . I am nearly asleepZZZZ...zzzzzz....zzzzzz
But this IS the crux of our disability is it not?

Dunno what crux means but I can see where you're coming from. Recently, my Dad had to help me figure out some Algebra techniques, but he had to study the workbook I was using to get it himself. While he was doing that, I was straining myself on what to do. I seriously CANNOT wait like that and not be doing something. I resorted to the quietest thing in the room: DRAWING!! ! It's like the NT conversations except without the conversation part. Sometimes I'll be listening to what they're talking about, but I'll then drift off into my own little world and zone out of the conversation, and then I'll pop back and have no idea what they're on about!

I can make small talks with "normal" people and talk with authorities but I sure as hell doesn't like it.

Actually, I often get a lot like that. My friends ask me out for a drink or whatever, and even though I know I could do it and they want to see me, I just don't want to. I might just be being a grumpy NT loser, but small talk often really bores me too. I just don't friggin want to to know what they did in Cleethorpe for a weekend or whatever. But it's a sort of social facillitator and makes people feel comfortable, so there ya go.

Xon na I'm far too warm to have a schizoid personality disorder I think its just irritability, would be easier though maybe

I could lose count of the times where I really did want to socialize, especially as a kid growing up in school, but for reason I could not explain at the time I made a total botch of it through just plain old social awkwardness I could not see at the time what I did wrong. Maybe it was the tone of my voice or the CAPD issues I was saddled with which was not clear to me at the time.

Topped with that autistic tendency to retreat within myself in a daydreaming fantasy world as well as he occasional petit mal were also serious weaknesses which also put me way behind the eight ball.
I just felt retreating within oneself in a daydreaming fantasy world was something that everybody did.

Paul

Hey, don't worry about it... most of us here are like that: We can fake being NT, but it's exhausting; and after a while we have to withdraw and recharge.

I know I can't take more than an hour or so of social time without having to take a break. For me, socializing is as hard as calculus--I need frequent breaks, or I start messing up and making stupid mistakes. (And, like calculus, it's a means to an end--socializing is a way of acquiring information and offering/giving assistance; calculus gives you the tools you need to solve problems of science and engineering. I'm aware there are some people who like calculus for its own sake; but I'm not one of them... any more than I like socialization for its own sake.)

Just tell people you're introverted--that you like people, but in small doses. Chances are they'll understand.

I quite like socialising with my close friends and sort of find it hard, but find it much more harder with new people or people I don't know very well.