Page 1 of 2 [ 18 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next

Idiotchief
Toucan
Toucan

User avatar

Joined: 25 Dec 2010
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Posts: 260
Location: houston tx

27 Dec 2010, 7:44 pm

Alot of us have problems with understanding basic social conventions and procedures, So i thought it would help if we talked about where we learned how to behave around other people. The thing that hepled me the most was acting/drama classes and watching sitcoms on t.v.


_________________
This is my guilty pleasure.


Wallourdes
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Jul 2010
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,589
Location: Netherlands

27 Dec 2010, 7:56 pm

Roleplaying sessions mainly and attuning behaviour on other people and see what people liked and disliked.


_________________
"It all start with Hoborg, a being who had to create, because... he had to. He make the world full of beauty and wonder. This world, the Neverhood, a world where he could live forever and ever more!"


Laz
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 8 Dec 2005
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,540
Location: Dave's Toilet

27 Dec 2010, 8:18 pm

Same as above.

Some Carol Grey social stories.

Practicing my eye contact and communication on my baby brother. the Speach and language therapist told me to practice in a mirror. I hated it, so I used my 2 year old bro instead :lol:

Poor sod i've probably socialised him into an autistic now as a consequence



StevieC
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 649
Location: Cupboard under the Stairs

27 Dec 2010, 8:36 pm

i used a huge ruleset, complete with parameters - like a computer program...

so its like saying:

IF person(response)=="hi" then
SAY "how are you"
CASE IF:
("hello") THEN...
END IF


etc


and yes, i actually wrote several programs like this to act as a data base for allthe stuff i learnt.

i wrote it in Visual basic for win xp originally, and have a python version for Debian somewhere...



Idiotchief
Toucan
Toucan

User avatar

Joined: 25 Dec 2010
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Posts: 260
Location: houston tx

27 Dec 2010, 8:42 pm

A social algortheim so to speak? You'll have to share them with us sometime.


_________________
This is my guilty pleasure.


Wallourdes
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Jul 2010
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,589
Location: Netherlands

27 Dec 2010, 8:43 pm

Idiotchief wrote:
A social algortheim so to speak? You'll have to share them with us sometime.


+1

Sounds interesting indeed, share please! :)


_________________
"It all start with Hoborg, a being who had to create, because... he had to. He make the world full of beauty and wonder. This world, the Neverhood, a world where he could live forever and ever more!"


IMCarnochan
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

User avatar

Joined: 9 Nov 2010
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 216
Location: New York

27 Dec 2010, 9:29 pm

My parents were big on politeness, so I had a head start being trained to be polite. The rest I learned after I learned that people feel things that I didn't. I read many many books, body language, business interactions and motive.



StevieC
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 649
Location: Cupboard under the Stairs

27 Dec 2010, 9:45 pm

well, its not really an algorithm.

its more of a huge database.


all the program needs to do is store the data in a runtime file, with several other data files for say social mannerisms, body languages(which the user inputs via a 1-1o scale type of thing), and then read it back to make suggestions (only i havent got that far) based on current user data.

and im using a mac now, have just recently installed VB & WinXP on bootcamp, so its gonna be a while...



StevieC
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 649
Location: Cupboard under the Stairs

27 Dec 2010, 9:48 pm

but the point is, you have to go there to come back.


i only base my current environment on past experiences - i have experienced past friendships so i know what to do with current ones. needless to say, i have screwed up a lot of early friendships and my only relationship because of the "no previous user data problem". im not saying thats the one and only cause however...



Taliesin
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 16 Nov 2010
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 50
Location: Upstate NY

27 Dec 2010, 10:07 pm

*pfft* Learned mine by getting bumped and bruised, and then gradually growing out of bitterness. It took a lot of mistakes, and I still don't feel like I have very good skills. I've found that with making friends, that it cannot be forced, I went through high school with the idea that people were friends just like *that*. Nope. I thought love was like the movies. Nope. As I examined pop culture, I found that their notions of human "connection" were quite skewed. I came to hate popular culture with a passion since their answers sucked.

The thing I hated about those who tried to "help me" was that they told me what to do AFTER I screwed up. I made up my mind to just forge ahead as I saw fit, and try to stay out of the ways of angry self righteous people. I learned that if I was just myself, I may not attract friends right off the bat, but those who stuck around stuck for good.

I still have moments of insecurity. Sometimes I feel that I'm coming across in the wrong way. I suck at small talk, But I take refuge in the groups that I feel comfortable with, and the books that have helped me feel a sense of connection with great people, and these things help charge my batteries. Hope this helps!



StevieC
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 649
Location: Cupboard under the Stairs

27 Dec 2010, 10:30 pm

wasn't there a carlsberg lager ad that had a "carlsberg club" with a sign up saying "by order of the management no small talk".

so unless we all live in the perfect carlsberg world, were screwed.



Ai_Ling
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Nov 2010
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,891

27 Dec 2010, 10:47 pm

Taliesin wrote:
*pfft* Learned mine by getting bumped and bruised, and then gradually growing out of bitterness. It took a lot of mistakes


Yeah I learned in very much the same way, just lots and lots of trial and error. Due to a lot of error I became very bitter towards everything. Once I outgrew my depression and bitterness, much of my life started to come together.

For me my strong emotional side kept me back. I feel if your gonna have a true goal in gaining that understanding of socialbility and using it. You gotta be willing to take a lotta social risk, learn from your mistakes and dont get discouraged no matter how many mistakes u make. The problem for me is that I got too discouraged and thought way to much about what people thought which suppressed my actions. I would guess Im not the only aspie thats like that.



TheRoadWarrior
Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

User avatar

Joined: 13 Apr 2010
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 32

28 Dec 2010, 11:33 am

theater classes, roleplaying game, and forcing myself to attend NT nightlife. This last experience turned me into a bitter, pessimistic and cynic character.



asdmonger
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 3 Oct 2010
Age: 54
Gender: Male
Posts: 53

28 Dec 2010, 8:08 pm

To the extent that I have social skills, I've learned them by trial and(often painful) error. One thing that's helped me a great deal is that I've learned not to fret over the fact that I have nothing to say almost all the time. When people notice this I try to brush it off with some comment about how I'm a good listener. If they don't buy that I know I'm possibly in for a verbal bullying situation but that's another story.

I've been lucky that I've known a few people over the years who love to drive a conversation entirely by themselves. This actually has helped me improve my verbal skills. Just listening to these people go on at great length has somehow helped me sort of develop a feel for what conversation entails, and it's like somehow it's sort of strengthened the parts of my brain that are supposed to handle these things. By listening, I've slowly picked up on the 'give and take' nature of conversation and gotten to the point where I can often participate appropriately, whereas I used to just throw out occasional random comments that didn't make any sense at all. I still can't mimic NT eye contact 100% but I'm good enough to fool most people.

And I had a job(software consultant) where my 'pedantic' form of speech was perfectly appropriate, and in fact it gave people the impression that I really knew what I was talking about! Being able to just let myself go and talk the way I want to really loosened me up and built my confidence.


_________________
Thought is just part of a world that's shaped out of feeling


ryan93
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Apr 2009
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,315
Location: Galway, Ireland

28 Dec 2010, 11:51 pm

I couldn't raise my own quality of social expression, so I use alcohol to lower everyone else's expectations :lol:.

For me, the two biggest things are to look for someone are common interests, and just to act with basic human and respect; help out people in appropriate circumstances and avoid insulting them. Most social skills are insanely context specific, but the above two are a good start :D



Omerik
Velociraptor
Velociraptor

User avatar

Joined: 25 Jan 2010
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 456

30 Dec 2010, 5:20 am

At the age of 10 I more or less shut down, and during the following years also lost all social skills I used to have. I couldn't just communicate as I used to, as it wasn't natural to me. Like a kid who was taught math, but forgot it. Until then I used to have a very good friend who was like a brother, and I was usually quiet, oberving others. I managed to form connections with his other friends, not always interested... And a few friends of my own (not his). But then he left the town and I just gradually lost all interest in social affairs, and when I did want to try it again, I just couldn't. Made me want to cry, especially because before that I did communicate. I was like some wall.

Also especially as a kid I used to be highly tactless, and sometimes not understanding metaphors, which is funny npw, because I was proud of myself when I first understood sarcasm. Looking back, I probably wasn't that special to understand it :lol:
But the problem was with comments that weren't sarcastic, and could logically be understood literally... Like when my teacher told us to "clean our desks", and mine was, well... not dirty. I checked it. But I had some work on it, and she started yelling, because she meant to put it in the bag, and I was the only one not to understand. She was mad insisting that I DID understand what she meant, and was being rude to her.
Thing is that I really got hurt when I understood that I hurt someone else unintentionally, or when people thought that I'm just acting as if I don't understand. Because I was considered smart, I was expected to know what people mean. So, because it hurt me, I "learnt my lessons".
It was weird, because it seemed that I was usually normal around people up to that age, and still once in a while I acted really strange, and no one understood why. I was aware of myself, and used to keep my weird habits to my room where no one sees it...

Later on - alcohol, basically. I still have troubles when sober, but it's much better than before.
Also it's easier the more I know the person. I feel more confidence, and I also know that people who know me accept my quirks, so I don't try behaving too normal in the first place, unlike when I was a child. A lot of time it's actually pretty humourous, and I understand that. Sometimes I don't mean to make people laugh, but they usually laugh with me and not at me, so oh, well. And even if it's at me at times - oh, well :)