Deteriorating Social Skills

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Hi,

I'm a 40 year old guy with a son who's going to be evaluated for ASD. As I've learned more about ASD/Apsergers I've come to realize that I'm most likely an undiagnosed adult Aspie. I've been debating whether I should pursue a diagnosis but one issue that I've really been struggling with for the past few years is a feeling that my social skills are deteriorating. I've always had problems with casual conversations (never really had a lot of friends) but now I'm finding it especially hard. It seems like other people have much more life experiences and knowledge that they can talk about (e.g. travel, cars, sports, etc.) and I'm having a harder time saying the right things to keep a conversation going. I almost feel like a child amongst adults. This is starting to become a major issue with my career since I can't seem to connect with those in positions of influence and as a result my career seems to have stalled. Any advice? Would formal treatment or medication help for something like this?

Thx

Can you spend some time studying some of these topics on the Internet? So that at least you know a little bit about what folks are talking about? I find that you can even read up on what happened on TV last night--instead of having to sit through all those commercials...

With a lot of sports teams, you only need to pay attention at the beginning of the season, when everyone has high hopes, and at the end, when they have playoffs to determine the "winner."

I've listened to what other people talk about and it sucks. Your "problem" is most likely lack of interest. Most people aren't very interesting. That's why entertainment is so sought after. TV, radio, books, etc. These are where you must go to find people who aren't boring as hell.

If you really want to fake fitting in, just smile and pretend you care about the stories they tell about their kids and families.

Come to think of it--if this is the worst of your problems at work--you might count yourself lucky compared to most Aspies.

One can seem "more autistic" such as losing social skills from overwork and stress. It is informally called "Autistic burnout".

A proffessional diagnosis may allow you to get accomedations at work, and should your career collapse might make you eligible for disability benefits. There is not to much formal treatments and medicine for adults.

In the real world, getting accommodations at work isn't a good career move if you are trying to move up in an organization. You are much better off working on becoming more "interesting" on your own.

This may related to black/white thinking. Your job may be narrowly defined on paper. But, it actually is much bigger than that, and may involve things that you don't consider very important. But, if you step back and think about it, they may actually be important if you look at how your organization works in terms of people working together.

In theory, going into management may be a good move if you have a bunch of Aspies to manage and understand enough to help them get around their issues efficiently. In this case your social skills may be good enough to handle the people under you---as nobody else has better skills in dealing with other Aspies. But, this is rarely a good move for the typical Aspie, who just doesn't have enough social skills to be a good manager.

It surprises me that your social skills are getting worse. AFAIK, autistic traits don't usually change over time, in fact a lot of ASDers become better at social things as they learn to use coping strategies. Could it be that your social environment has become more challenging? Or might you be getting tired of making a big social effort?