Usual age of learning

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.. social skills. Or at least gradual willingness. (Not forced or desperate-to-be one) Some got lucky at childhood. Some haven't done well even at age of 40+.

Question is: If NTs usually have this at childhood, or at teenage years, mostly earlier than most aspies... What/when would aspies have? I don't know when I'll willing to learn some, but I'm starting to get more curious...

I'm asking aspies who learned social skills NOT out of desperation, but learned by own usual pace. Any incentives will do (support, encouragement, inspiration... etc.) except desperation or force by another to become social.
Natural diets counts, but not prescribed drugs.


I know the answer varies, yet I'm sure to myself at age of 18, I'm not ready yet, but somewhat starting to learn. (I'm starting to come with my mom when she visit some places, to observe them out of curiosity. Asking random questions too without realizing my true intentions.) At least my mom is ready to explain some stuffs to me...

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This question doesn't seem specific enough for me to be able to answer.

Do you mean "more social" as in being able to interact with other people for functional reasons, or do you mean "more social" as in choosing to interact with other people for social reasons?

To realized that you learned being social without forcing yourself to interact be specific.

It's like realizing you're learning something you may or may not intended to learn... But mostly unknowingly willing.


Forgive my statement to my question. I haven't slept over 30hrs.

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very reluctantly willing to learn.
I just know intellectually that social skills is crucial to finding work, either for someone else or self employed, making money requires social skills.

I guess I started to gain social abilities in the last few years... Around the age of 14-15.

I started to learn social skills at the age of 30. The reason I started so late was because it was at 30 I was diagnosed with ADHD & prescribed medication to help me control it.
I had to start at the beginning, so used to play soccer with the local young kids. I learnt loads by observation & interaction.
Then as I "Grew Up in Fast>>>>Forward", so the age of the people I mixed with increased.
After a few years I was mixing with people of all ages, from 5 up to 90.
I wouldn't say that I have any friends, but then I can't seem to work out a definition of what a friend is. I do however have maybe 100 aquaitances.
Very recently I have been considering finding a partner, and have someone in mind. Psycho-sexual skills/intimacy is an area that I have not yet experienced/learnt much about.
I have just been diagnosed as having Aspergers as well as ADHD.

I'd say from 18 up 'til now (I turned 18 a month into my senior year in high school) and then I've been learning to be more social. Part of that was because I was trying to establish as much of a relationship as I could with my high school classmates before graduation.

Again, I ask what you mean by "social skills"; that can mean many different things.

Different social skills develop at different stages. I socially developed typically when I was a baby, then the process seemed to slow down a little when I started school. But then I was still learning, and the teachers said I became more self-aware and more socially responsive (in other words, socially improving) each year, even though I was still always socially awkward. But there are some social things I used to do as a child that I wouldn't do now. But I didn't used to have social anxiety when I was a child like I do now. So it's hard to say an exact age when I started developing the right social skills and when I didn't.

It's a bit like when my friend's 5-year-old (NT) son was having a tantrum, and his dad said, ''come on, you're acting like a baby''. He is trying to tell his young son ''you are 5 now and so you can verbally tell me how you're feeling, unlike you could when you were 2''. So a 5-year-old has more social skills than a 2-year-old. But a 5-year-old does not have the same social skills as a 10-year-old, so you expect a 10-year-old to be able to communicate better than a 5-year-old. And then a 16-year-old has more social skills than a 10-year-old, which is why some people yell at teenagers to stop behaving like 10-year-olds if they are. But then a 25-year-old has more social skills than a 16-18-year-old, because teenagers can still be considered ''immature'' compared to a person in their 20s. So social skills develops with maturity, and social skills can also mean different things.

I've probably made progress almost every year, winning on some issues and sometimes losing on others. There's no sense of having "arrived."