General Coping Stategies for Aspies in Social Situations

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Here in this thread lets have a compilation of all the best tested, tried and true coping strategies for those with Asperger Syndrome and who are having difficulty in social situations.

To kick this off, we will have 2 sets of 3 situation types, sub-situations and variations and hopefully someone will post their coping strategy based on their experiences, logic or reasoning.

For an aspie male or female:

1. Meeting new or unfamiliar people: How do you meet a new person. What about for an NT male or NT female, what about for an aspie male or an aspie female. What if the person is someone you liked or had a crush on?
*Meeting familiar people: What about the above in contrast to a friend, what about an enemy? or even a mere rival.

2. Asking someone out: What method would you use, how would you enact it and how would you act to either the 'yes' or 'no' replies.

3. Party: What would you do, or what do you do if you get invited to a party. (say this party has at least 30 people and 10 of them are NT friends you know of?

Post your strategies to these situations and advise other people. I may post a few of mine but asking for help more than I am than giving it

Aspie female responding:

1. NT's: Greet them with a big smile while looking into their eyes - "Hi, I'm *insert your name here*."

(If it's an official/important/boss type person, shake their hand with a firm (not too tight, not too loose) handshake, and let go after about 2-3 seconds - always while looking at their eyes.)

If they say their name back to you, then continue on with the reason you wanted to meet them (say you're standing at the bus stop, and the bus is late) eg. "I can't believe how late the bus it!" etc. Start with small talk only when you first meet them, all the while maintaining a loose open posture, friendly smile, and only very brief (but repeating) eye contact after the initial greeting (aka glance at their eyes often, but only very briefly so they don't feel uncomfortable as you are still a stranger to them: the more you get to know a person, the longer you look into their eyes for).

If all fails, or you're not sure what to do/what's going on, just smile heaps and act friendly - 95% of the time they'll warm to you just for that, even if you're doing everything else wrong.

Smiling I find is the "ace in the hole" technique when meeting people.

2. This is a hard one, I don't think I've really figured out the right technique. I've asked people out twice and I know for a fact I do it the wrong way (too abrupt and to the point and sudden), but the second time I waited until we knew each other inside out before asking so he said yes anyway.

3. If someone asks you to a party, again just smile and say something like "Sounds like fun! Count me in/I'll check up on any commitments and get back to you, but should be good." Don't sound too overenthusiastic, but definitely don't sound underenthusiastic. A good trick to use is to make it sound like you get invited to things a lot a.k.a. "I might be catching up with a friend, not sure, I'll check up on it" and then get back to them later and go nah, it's all good. But if everyone knows you don't have any friends at school, don't try this because they'll know you're pretending and it'll make you look bad, or alternatively say you might be meeting up with an outside of school friend (if people think you have friends outside of school, even if you don't have any inside of school, their estimation of you rises).