Aspies are better on social interaction then NT acctualy

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As I see it. NTs play some kinda of theathre for echother . Why? Why not just say what one means? And being specific about stuff? isnt that a better interaction?

Maybe I am confusing social with the word interaction?

And all the hidden rules. How can it be natural with hidden rules? Why not just let it be as is?


For example. I have a feeling that people smile alot but they dont mean anything by it. Why smile then?

The 'hidden rules' are not hidden to most NTs; they are perfectly clear and quite a lot of them make sense, even to aspies when they are explained. Quite often people do not say exactly what they mean because their opinion may be insulting or hurtful to another person, or could be misconstrued. Anyone can string together a straightforward sentence; it takes skill to phrase words in a way that communicates a message in exactly the way the speaker intended, whilst at the same time producing a desirable result.

Just because aspies are more direct does not mean that their social skills are better than the rest of the population. The whole point of 'social' interaction is to interact with society. If society admires directness, then yes, your social skills would be considered good. However, most don't value this and so you would be seen as rude and socially handicapped.

Incidently, I've noticed that the people who pride themselves most on being 'direct' are the ones you have to tip-toe around the most to avoid insulting.

'hidden rules' rules are hidden for a reason as most of the time they used to hide the manipulative,carelessness,shortsightedness and other rotten elements that the current society is built upon,
"society" is a dynamic structure and the fact that u can't interact with society as it now doesn't prove u lack a social skills
an honest good men in Nazi Germany or communist USSR were consider anti social and were dealt as such
aspies cares about society beyond and above the limited view the majority of people and establishment can even comprehend not to mention respond to and support but society as large is developing toward "aspiness" as it gradually become more "flat",translucent,direct and fair
this trends are not new but mark the developing of our society from it's inceptions and as the rate of knowledge accumulation accelerate to wipe out tyrannies and ego maniacs from the fabric of our society aspies contribution and interaction with society would increase to the benefit of all of us

I think you may have missed my point; I was saying that they are only 'hidden' to aspies and people who haven't learnt them. To most other people, they are learnt from an early age or naturally acquired, and not hidden at all.

Shaking someone's hand on greeting could be seen as a baffling 'hidden rule' to someone unfamiliar with this custom; if you are brought up in a region where people do it though, it is considered merely 'good manners'.

Most other 'hidden' rules are exactly the same. Yes, you could argue that they can be used to hide peoples' intents; but so could a straightforward lie. If someone is going to be dishonest, they will be dishonest one way or another.

I disagree that hidden rules hide carelessness and shortsightedness; in contrary, I believe their design is to prevent such things from happening in the first place and to help mend injured feelings should such events occur.

I wonder if we are talking at cross-purposes however; as I've said, my interpretation of 'hidden rules' is that they are the manners and small social gestures that act like grease in the cogs of day to day communication. If you see 'hidden rules' as manipulative and rotten, maybe you could give a definition of what these rules are to you, and an explanation of why you think they are so bad.



I completely agree with you that society is dynamic, and I did say in my post that if society valued bluntness, then aspies would be considered socially skilled. A quick google search of definitions of 'social skills' defines them as;

"the ability to interact with other people and to function in groups."

"Skills used to navigate through social situations such as greetings, relationship building opportunities and common interactions we participate in"


and so forth... A person with good social skills would adapt to the society that they found themselves in. If that society valued bluntness, then they would adapt their style to be blunt. If it valued sensitivity, then they would adapt their manner again. Good social skills are not stand alone entities; they are dynamic themselves to match the dynamics of the world we live in.




You've lost me with this argument, I'm afraid. What on earth have the Nazis and their dissenters got to do with social skills? Yes, people who argued with the party were killed or imprisoned, but that had to do with their beliefs, not in the way that they delivered them. Do you actually think the sole reason they were exterminated was because they didn't have good social skills?

I would argue that society as a whole is not developing towards 'aspieness'; certainly not in the UK at any rate, where there is more red-tape and PC-ness than ever. The only difference is that the 'hidden rules', which used to be instilled by parents and peers, are now written in rules and regulations.

I find this association of aspergers with some kind Utopia rather saccharine; as I remarked before, some of the most blunt people I know are the ones who require everything to be cotten-wool wrapped or they start sobbing about hurt feelings. Those people that I am talking about include several aspies.

i wouldnt know how exactly to describe it perhaps, but i tend to have the whole. "Screw society/destiny view with how I act anyways. I view most little gestures and stuff that some people consider the icing on the cake that is society, or the grease that helps the gears of society move, as utter pointlessness. I will stick to that view even though the rest of society will consider me wrong. Probably stems from the fact that I have my own free will and societies rules don't fit me (communication wise, some of the ethics and s**t though I do agree with.)

As for society accepts social skill wise, it varies too much from culture to culture and so on and so forth. They are like a tangled mat of pubic hair and if you sift through it long enough you get to the lice themselves (if you dont care for my analogy, oh well, each person to their own i guess.

The only constant in the universe is chaos, and that chaos governs everything, including what society deems appropriate and inappropriate. Sadly chaos doesn't help us Aspies much (well most i know of personally anyways).

observations showed me that most of the time the directness of aspies is not bluntness though is too often mistaken as one
it's not a coincidence that out 'traits' also include the so called over literal perception and what appears as naivety and so many of us are so easy to be taken adavantage of and abused
let's not forget that it's living people we are discussing here and not just definitions of some abstract concepts and every thing is linked and what i'm trying to reveal here is a the complex and yet unknown aspie personality structure
the Utopian concept is as far from saccharine as possible as it lays out and based upon a life of unbelievably misery that many of us would suffer to the day we die
it is as black and depressing as it can get and in that context i referred to the Nazi and communist societies as an example on how wrong the concept of social skill can get if u don't see the big picture and see adaption to be the ultimate value or if u take the ratther limited way Wikipedia define social skills to be true,
fortunately this things are much more complex and good manners and the ability to function as a group are in no way an indication of good social skills .
we have to look deeper
what the group ultimate purpose ?
what do certain manners express and hide ?
the truth is ,as always was, in the details
handshake has a certain meaning, so is saying hello,personally I'm in the habit of practicing neither,and for a good reason

red-tape and PC-ness are not necessarily bad from an aspie or society as large point of view
being an aspie and weird person my life would be much better if tollerance would be artificially enforced on the language and behaviors of the society i live in
sure,i would prefer if people would really understand the importance of acting like an human beings but that not going to happen soon and the pc thing is on of the way consciousness is making it self present in our life,
at least is not as meaningless as most manners are which at least in my experience the more empty they are the more brutally they enforced
for inctance
i lost jobs and livelihood because i can't and won't behave like a baboon and i believe my experience is shared by many aspies

Yep. I agree because we're seen as socially inept, we can't achieve conventional self-realisation. But then, we have to carry on with life!

I will give you that Aspies seem better at social interaction with other Aspies, especially if we have an interest or two in common.

We don't put as much importance on the NT social skills. But what I wonder is if there are any typical Aspie social skills that actually help us interact amongst ourselves, and if so what are they? It would be something more specific than just being blunt or direct, I'd think.

sure
directness and bluntness are only relative to what is consider appropriate
still , u can infer from that what are the specific or unique AS social skills(an oxymoron in the eyes of most pro's pretending to help us)

Some people in real life know I can be overly blunt and they can be Aspies. And yeah I take heat for that.

By saying such terms are in the eye of the beholder i meant that i too can be seen as blunt many times but think it's only because most people confuse directness with agression
it's tricky
and not all aspies are the same

I am aware that we are discussing living people, that is why I stated that social skills are based on successfully interacting with others.



Sorry, but I can't even read this sentence; it makes no sense.



You are again confusing the messenger with the message. Social skills are just that; skills. A way of communicating your beliefs and ideas, not the ideas themselves. Both Hitler and Ghandi could be said to have good communication skills (with the public at any rate), but their messages themselves were as far apart as you can get.

Lambasting social skills as bad in themselves is as daft as saying that 'email is evil because people use it to send nasty letters and pictures'.

I wasn't quoting from Wikipedia, but from other sources. However all the dictionary definitions I looked at were pretty much the same. How do you define social skills?



Er, last time I checked, yes they are. But I await your definition of social skills in that case.



Very poetical and philosophical but I'm afraid this doesn't make a lot of sense. What you describe above is a belief; belief in an ultimate purpose or truth. There's nothing wrong with that, or considering whether the goal of a group is good or bad, but it has nothing to do with how you relate to others and whether you are successful in your attempt.



You haven't given a reason, I'm afraid. Do you have a moral objection to greeting people? I would personally consider you very rude, but clearly this is just a display of your superior social skills.



The red-tape that I refer to involves guidelines on how to be polite to people and not offend them. Examples of this sort of PC-ness include instructions to staff to greet the customer.

Or perhaps in your mind, tolerance is something other people show you; you yourself do not have to change at all; God forbid office policy dictates you say 'hello' to someone...



Having basic manners is not baboon-like behaviour. Having none is.

I agree...the rules that are "hidden" to us, are well understood by NT's. So no, they are still better at socialization than we are.

hmm, with the bluntness, yeah, some aspies can really be that way after they have learned not to believe everything someone says and stuff.

there are also aspies such as myself that have read into people and pretty much have it figured out (i still have trouble with eye contact or initiating communications however it has gotten alot better, there is still that nagging fear of rejection though o is it just a lack of motivation, i am not sure which yet) Some may have most of the social skills figured out and s**t but wont go with them like how i am, just because we dont belong to the herd, we would rather be our own god damned selves than be how society wants us to be.

yes
i have deep moral objection to greeting people because i moraly,mentally,logically and emotionally object to phoniness,meaningless shallow gestures and any inconsideration of the the more complex,deep, and involved elements of our existence as individuals and our relations to our group and other individuals
see,i'm interested in real communication and the superficial,senseless,automaton like behavior that u promote hinders the progress toward real attention and real communication
marking me as very rude just because i refused to mindlessly conform to the double faced standards and values u promote is as shallow as it can get and cost me dearly through out my life
i wish well to everyone and express it as much as i can through my acts but since i'm surrounded by people like u the time and attention i dedicate to my fellow man and work counts for nothing while the careless folks around me get all the credit because they can fake interest and attention while i'm too busy doing the real thing
from what i'v read in this forum i get that i'm not alone in feeling frustrated by the injustice of it all
not to mention how unproductive it is for the society at large
because u see
social skills is not just some dry term u copy from some web page but it is a constant struggle to integrate the needs, abilities,rights,identity... of the individual with that of the group
and contrary to what u wrote above the group goals are very closly linked to the way it's individuals relates to on another
that's why individuals in the army are expected to behave and relate to on another somewhat different than civilians
individuals under dictatorship or fundamental society behave in a way which is quit different from that of a persons living in a democracy
it may sound to poetic or philosophical to your years but there is and always was a definite connection between the details and the big pictures
actually,science is based in this crazy idea, among other
tolerance for me is not enforcing on others my values
i would never fire a man just because he choose to greet everybody even if this is very annoying to me
but was fired or gotten treated like an animal just because i choose to respect other people privacy and doesn't interfere with their creative process or inner space which evedently most babbons doesnt have in the first place so the can't apreciete it
see the difference
i don't enforce my values while other enforce their twisted and primitive perception on me
and i learned to understand that the more rotten your values are the more likely u are to use enforce them others or judge other wrongly
it's not that complicated
all u have to do is look around and pay attention and think a bit for yourself instead of quoting dictionaries

BTW
it is no coincidence that the more ceremonial nations(japan,Germany..) use to be the deadliest
phoniness breed violence as it failed to address the living dynamics of our existence
it's no coincidence that traditional societies are backwards
social skills is something we need to create and invent
unfortunately, too many aspies and the pretentious,ignorant pro's that build a career on taming them doesn't have the gut's to live like a real human beings so we all have to suffer from their cowardliness and narrow mindness
but not for long i believe
time changes whether u like it or not