I don't like conversation / socialisng.

Page 1 of 1 [ 5 posts ] 

SteelMaiden
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 19 Aug 2006
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,722
Location: London

07 Jun 2015, 6:42 am

I don't like conversation and socialising. Because I find talking difficult to process (due to my autism) and I am a strong introvert, socialising is painful.

Does anyone else have this?

How do I explain this to my mum? She is an extreme extrovert who thinks everyone must like socialising, and that if they don't, then they're defective and need to be corrected. My mum talks constantly, it kills my head. I don't live with her, but I have to see her once a week; she guarantees me a meltdown each time. My autism is not mild but my mum is in denial.


_________________
I am a partially verbal classic autistic. I am a pharmacology student with full time support.


starkid
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 9 Feb 2012
Gender: Female
Posts: 5,812
Location: California Bay Area

07 Jun 2015, 6:16 pm

Why do you "have to" see her? Tell her what too much socializing does to you, and if she doesn't change, stop going to see her for a while. Or leave early. Or walk away from her when the talking gets to be too much.



Marybird
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 26 Apr 2012
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,818

07 Jun 2015, 8:03 pm

Maybe you can find something else to do with your mum. Like go to a library or watch a movie, or anything you can think of that doesn't require a lot of talking but still allows you some time with your mother.



Cyllya1
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

User avatar

Joined: 26 Apr 2015
Gender: Female
Posts: 320
Location: Arizona, USA

07 Jun 2015, 8:11 pm

Yeah, I rarely converse for the fun of it, and it can be really hard to tollerate other people conversing at me.

We aren't alone in this. I've seen discussions of this outside of autism-related media. However, the only statistics I've heard are from an autism-related subject that seems related. Some autism research by some famous guy whose name escapes me tried to use a questionaire to quantify how much people prefered friendships based on shared activities versus friendships based on socializing. Sharing an activity is a form of socializing, so I think he meant activities versus talking. Even among NTs, there were a variety of results. Averaging the results by autism and sex, NT females were most likely to want social/talking friends, followed by NT males, then I think autistic females, then autistic males.

This phenomenon seems to be the reason that gender stereotypes have women being more talkative than men, even though any actual studies to track how many words everyone uses find that men typically use sligtly more words. (There are a lot of fake statistics that women use more words, usually a number three times as high.) It seems to be unrelated to introversion versus extroversion.

So if you're female, you're breaking the stereotype, and even people who aren't sexist snots can be taken aback. Although a male friend of mine (who is also autistic) has this same problem with his mom. It seems a lot (not all) of these super-talkative types think there's something wrong with anyone who doesn't conform to their style of socializing. They aren't interested in any kind of compromise to meet both parties' needs; it can only be their peference.

I've seen discussions of this kind of conflict on forums related to heteroromantic relationships. The reoccurring pattern I saw was: After both spouses get home from work each day, probably kind of tired and overstimulated, the husband wants to do some kind of "vegging out" (low effort entertainment such as watching TV) but the wife wants to converse with the husband. The husband doesn't try to stop the wife from talking at him, but he's not very participatory. Some husbands try and fail to listen to what she says, and some just fake it. Some wives are satisfied at the time but later get mad because the husband doesn't remember something she said, while some wives get upset that the husband doesn't talk during these exchanges. The consensus seems to be that the wives are in the right! Even on the men's forums! Being particularly untalkative myself, I think that's BS. One time I saw a woman post, "Would it KILL him to spend ten minutes talking about his day?!" and I straight up swore at my monitor. :x

Well, my suggestion is to let your mom gab but plan for it to be a high-stimulation event (e.g. prepare counter-measures such as stimming accessories), when she complains about your untalkative behavior, remind her that losts of people don't find conversation inherently enjoyable, and when she complains about your preference, do some kind of "thank you for your concern" and change the subject ("pass the beandip" assertiveness technique).


_________________
I have a blog - Here's the post on social skills.


SteelMaiden
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 19 Aug 2006
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,722
Location: London

16 Jun 2015, 5:50 pm

Thanks for the good advice.


_________________
I am a partially verbal classic autistic. I am a pharmacology student with full time support.