Asperger's coping strategies

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Lately I've been becoming more and more aware how I cope with missing certain social traits. There are two things:
1. Copy other people
2. Humor

What do you get when you combine those two? I can quote just about any line from any given comedy show of the past 5 years (that I didn't even see more than once) and use the phrases on appropriate occasions.

I never figured until now that I have built this world of masking humor around me so strongly, that I judge my entire social life based on what I saw on TV or in movies. So, like when I'm dating someone and I feel like breaking up, I do whatever Miranda Hobbes did on 'Sex and the City' back in 2001.

How do you guys cope?

I use words like "Furby", "teapot", "giant catfish", "running cow", whatever my word is at the time (or words).
And then I'll say "I'm a ____". I usually only talk this way at home or to my mom or fiance, in public. A girl who USED to be a close friend overheard me talking to my fiance this way when we went to a new church, and she kept saying "Why are you saying that? Why do you think that?" and it really embarrassed me, and I was so upset, and she got mad at me!! And it's just something that "slips" out. She's now studying to be a nurse. LOL

Social coping strategies:

1. Think before you answer.
I have often many times just said what first came to me without realising it may be offensive. Now I stop myself and see if what I'm going to say will cause an uproar or leave me feeling embarrassed.
2. Realise that everyone says embarrassing things or mispronounces words.
Stop taking myself so seriously. We can't all be perfect.
3. If I can't go along with a conversation to just be quiet and not try too hard to join in, which usually turns into anxiety.
Usually when I can't join in on a conversation I go silent, turn off then someone will make a big deal about it that makes my anxiety worse. My strategy for this is to simply turn off and think of something else, and tell that person who points out the obvious 'you should know how I am by now' or 'I don't talk much because I'm autistic' and then go back to whatever I was doing. Or if it becomes too much say that I need some fresh air or I forgot to do something that was really important.
4. Bring up things like news headlines.
You could just say 'how about this heat?' or 'did you hear about that boy that was stabbed at school' or pull any headline out of the news, you're guaranteed that it will get people talking.
5. Learn to use a few words in between when someone is talking.
Like 'yeah?' or 'oh really'. Sometimes people think you are faking to be interested, but it can make a conversation flow a whole lot better.

^I have no idea where all that came from. I hope it helps. Oh and I used to watch Gilmore Girls and get ideas from Lorelai...and try to mimic her. It didn't work out.

I use humour and sarcasm if I don't know what to do in a conversation, it usually works for me because I get a smile or snigger from the other person.
Or I make observations about things as convo starters usually, like "have you noticed how" or "I've noticed people always..." or "oh look over there, they're all wearing red...". Although that's not the best idea because the conversation doesn't always flow so I'm just sitting there pointing out things.

Half of my friends are total sperglords anyway so I don't need coping strategies I can just act natural lol.

Coping strategies:

1. Learn the "hello how are you what have you been up to?" script.

2. Smile and nod.

3. Interject "agreeing" noises in their pauses.

4. Reflect their questions back at them after answering them.

5. Watch their eyes, and if they make eye contact, return it.

6. Watch their gestures, and make gestures of similar size/speed.

7. Remember that people like to feel good about themselves. If there's a chance that a remark may be hurtful, don't say it, or think of some other way to word it.

I think it's always good to be on the lookout for black-and-white thinking......e.g. when among a group of people who seem to be ignoring me, I have to consciously talk myself out of imagining that everybody there is as one person with no interest in me whatsoever. It's important to give these things time and to realise that, if only I could read minds, I'd probably see that some of those people were at least vaguely happy for me to be around them. In the harshest crowd, there'll probably be one or two people who see no fault in you. See if you can find them.

Humour is good but spontaneous Aspie humour can go down like a lead balloon as it tends to be inappropriate, according to various arbitrary mainstream definitions. That can be very frustrating because there isn't usually enough time to consciously check out whether a witty remark is a good one or not.

Definitely copying other people can be useful. I doubt if I'd have much to say at all if I didn't have a library of quotes that others have used successfully, though I have to beware of context, which can turn a good quip into an embarrassing social blunder in no time.

It's often theoretically a lot easier to just ask social questions and let the other person do most of the talking, though personally I seem to have a mental block about doing that. But in principle it shouldn't be all that difficult - just dream up a few good starting questions before you're in the thick of the event - how's your job going, how's the wife, how's the dog, etc. Listen to the answers and try to say something intelligent back, and occasionally reveal a bit about your own experiences on the same subject. I always get caught up with trying to be too clever or too profound - I'm sure all most people want is a few trivial Q's and A's to pass the time, and for the other person to take a bit of interest and let them woffle on about themselves a little. I always tell myself that if I'm not interested enough in them to ask for a few details, then maybe I don't really see them as potential friends and shouldn't be using them to practice social outreach on. But those questions still don't come naturally.

Humour seems to work perfectly for me, always has.
But then, the only time I had interacted with NTs, they weren't at my developmental level, I wouldn't make friends in my classroom, but with people during recess, in the highest class.

I put myself on autopilot and barrel my way through life and through the threads at WP, and that's how I cope with AS and life. I make the most of it, I be myself and I don't worry about what other people think of me. That's probably why I have over 25,000 posts.

Remember the Thumper rule? If you can't say nothing nice, don't say nothing at all?

Society does not really let you do that without turning and rending.

My rule tends to be, If you can't find anything to say that fits your own and others' feelings and stress level, make a wry joke, close your eyes, cross your fingers and hope hard it was not inappropriate.

I use humor and sarcasm as well, which is strange as it's suposed to be one of our traits to be uable to use it.

I think it's another over simplification, i certainly miss a lot of jokes, but i'm good at sarcasm and jokes based on wordplay and double meaning, mostly becuase i' extremely aware of all possible meanings of a phrase (i just struggle to know which is correct).

That checklist is a handy reminder pensieve thanks. I especially find the "i'm paying attention and interested, honest" nods and afirmative words work extremely well.

I really shouldn't but when someone is talking at me on the phone, especially at work, and what they're saying is neither relevent or interesting, i will wave the phone around or put it on the desk, picking it up now and then to say "right", "yeah" or just a fake laugh. I'm pretty sure anyone who sees me do it is split between thinking it's extremely funny and extrenely rude.

I have alter-egos...personality modes that I switch to that help me deal with certain situations..but it only works sometimes

I'm rarely in situations where coping is necessary, but when I am I usually just try to escape it. If someone is talking to me about something completely uninteresting I do my best to make sounds of acknowledgment.

I use the Tony Attwood technique.

Go into a room and close the door behind me.

Works every time

Well, Lord knows that's the case for me. I don't really know how to explain it... Once somebody told me they thought I was an Experience instead of a normal Person. I chose to take that as a compliment. The more awkward I feel, the more humor I use in the most arbitrary of conversations.

Probably the best way for me to explain my position in an environment, is that I would behave like a character from 30 Rock. If you look at that show really closely, you might notice that nobody really acts normal, and the fun is in the fact that the others regard it as perfectly normal according to society's standards. Weird personal traits and comments are never or rarely argued by the other characters.
In my head, the world looks like that. But it doesn't, and I am a weirdo (though day to day stuff is really funny for me).

I find it very hard to figure out where people's understanding for subliminal humor stops.

Really? Would you mind elaborating on that a bit more? I am really curious to know how you've constructed that.

I seem to be good at sarcasm too, though usually I don't know I'm doing it at the time.

One line of sarcasm in my job is to dream up unlikely but logically feasible benign reasons why the management does awkward things. So I'll say things like "I'm sure they only want us to be happy." It's like making up excuses for people's bad behaviour, excuses that are so lame that it's (I hope) obvious that what I'm saying is that it's the kind of crap they'd like us to believe, and that we're not stupid enough to fall for it.

I used to do this bizarre humour thing with a guy I once knew, we'd say the exact opposite of what was appropriate, e.g. while walking in bad weather, a bus full of warm, dry people went past, and I said "I'm glad we're on this nice warm bus instead of walking in the rain like those two poor guys." Well, we used to think it was funny......only problem was that we'd get "stuck" in that mode, which made it difficult to do any serious communication at all, and his girlfriend used to get furious about it. But we found it a lot funnier than conventional humour.

I think the dishonest habit of pretending to be listening is quite common and to some extent socially acceptable. I've often done it myself, though I always feel it's wrong.....before I realised that lies were so forgiveable in mainstream society, I used to really worry about it. I still do, but at least I now know that I'm not the only one who smooths things over like that - but I still wish it could be otherwise, and often I'll just refuse to say anything deceptive at all, which feels better. Though if somebody is giving me a hard time, I tend to feel that they've forfeited their right to the truth. War is war.

I can understand most jokes, but a lot of them seem very weak......most of my own jokes feel like an attempt to raise the bar, but they're often too clever or convoluted for people to see the point.