To change or not to change?

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I have no ability to gauge how people see me. Initially i did not care but since in my early teens when people told me i was not like others i started to care slowly. It reached peek 5 years back and things have been downhill since then. I really dont get what i should do.

I've tried working on myself and asking for feedback, but i have been told that i dont need to change. But then i still dont have any friends. My brother says that no one has friends and everybody is like that. If i point out that they have friends, he says i've just not met nice people like he has. My mother says i dont try to be friendly and do things with others. I tried doing them but i got tired as the things others wanted to do were not things i enjoyed. My sister i law tells me i am a very nice person to be with, but i know that in the beginning she did not think that way. It is only because my brother helped and she is essentially forced to interact that she has reached the stage where in she thinks i am nice after 4 years.

All the people who called themselves my "friend" either were 1. colleagues, so once i left the place there was no need to continue 2. were getting something from me. 3. or are people who seem to drop emails once in 3-4 months. Even after trying hard, i dont seem to know anything about them, nor are they ever part of my life.

My theory is that obviously i am not doing something due to which no one wants to stay with me. Also i dont seem to want to approach people but respond if they come.

So i dont know what to do. My brother says dont think about how to do it just do it (very unclear statement if you ask me). He also says that when i find people like me i will be fine (dont really know how to go about doing that, although i tried the common interest path). Most people tell me dont try to change without realizing that me even sitting and talking to them is a change i enforced on myself. So how do i go back to the way i was and still be friends? I cant even figure out who likes me and who does not. I am really tired of working on this but if i dont i will be alone which is also something that is difficult now.

it always seems that people that do not have problems with certain thing just seem to say "just do it"-well it is not that easy to those of us on the spectrum to just do things-I have a trouble doing that and have been criticized by people for not being able to just do things-I have changed things about myself but it has done me no good because the people around me always seem to want more-"oh you lost 20 pounds-you would be better if you lost 30" them lose 10 more and then "oh you lost another ten-well I would like you more if you lost more and by the way ......(insert another criticism about your appearance or other aspect of yourself) so I just do what I can now and just try my best-which will never be enough for some.

Me, either. It's juuuuust starting to come around to me that this is actually a 'thing'. For years I just wrote it off as the 'perils of subjectivity' or whatever. Apparently not everyone is like that, heh.



The 'just ask them' problem. Was talking about this in another thread... 'Just ask them' is a nice idea, but it doesn't work as well as it looks like it should on paper. People might not know... If they like you, they might try to spare your feelings, if they don't like you they won't care enough to put in the effort, etc.

Hell, I'm 38 and don't have 'friends'. I have a ton of amiable acquaintances, but nobody I could call if, say, I had a tire blow out in the middle of nowhere or whatever.



The 'just be yourself' problem? Another thing that I'm still not sold on, but is starting to sink in... People have an intuitive social sense about each other, and don't seem to understand what it's like when that is impaired or absent. Again, I -still- have problems wrapping my mind entirely around it. The information is there, mind you. In a cognitive fashion, but I don't "get" it. Like explaining water to fish.



I think that's the trade-off. Not changing anything will, as a rule, generally bring about the same results over the long haul. If you're dissatisfied with those results, something has to be done about it. If it's uncomfortable, well... it's going to be uncomfortable. To draw an analogy from one of my latest obsessions -- Golf! -- Making a swing change feels awkward. But if the results weren't already awkward, you wouldn't be thinking about making a change. Things feel awkward 'til they're the new normal.

At your core, you still are the same person regardless of what it is you change about yourself. The real change should come with how you reflect yourself upon others, no matter how hard it is to do so. Imagine the person you want to be, and try your hardest to be that person. Furthermore, you should really try your hardest not to care about what others think. If you feel you are happy with who you are at that point, you won't have to ask people what they think.

It tough in this world when you are lonely and people you are or might be interested in ignore you because of you appearance because we live in a pretty superficial world unfortunately-so you change your self in ways that might make you more desirable and they still find something else to pick on-I have experienced this in different ways.

To DoctorYikes

I did read that, which is what gave helped me put in words what i was going on in my head for sometime.

I get that. But i dont know what to change. My brother says just go out. I did that for 9 years consciously. I am not unhappy i did that as i have are acquaintances/ colleagues to show after that. But still no friends. Nobody that i can say i want to be with. The people i liked being with are people who forget me after some time. I still email them to keep in touch, but they generally forget to reply.
It is like, i know i need to work on something, but i dont know what it is that i need to work on. I literally cant see it.


Same here.



What information do you have? Is it stuff like you should talk about what interest them or say high, look at them and stuff? or is it something else?
To aspiemike:




The problem with reflection is that it assumes being able to see yourself, something which i am not able to. I am someone who is fascinated by her image because i realized 4years back how i looked from outside. So reflection is difficult. And honestly, social interaction is about people. If you want to be with them you need to work. I have no issues with me as a person. I am happy being me. But the "me" is someone no one will even notice.

In other words, you fear being attacked verbally? Does your body language communicate this?

not attacked verbally-I have people turn away from me when I approach and I have been at get togethers where I stand there and not one person approaches and I have a neutral expression and when I approach people to meet them they turn away-and I also have experienced when talking to a person if I actually get to talk to someone another person will come along and the person I am talking to will ignore me in mid sentence to talk to the other person-and people want me to be courteous and nice all the time and not be the same to me-double standards.

Heh... Kind of drawing a blank at the general question. Not your fault, I think the less specific the question the stupider I get. Aaaah, I'm thinking in terms of how to interact with people. Certain sorts of people prefering certain styles of communication and learning to recognize those. For me, it definitely leads to 'categorizing' people (One reason I found personality type systems helpful at one point). Some people like social niceties, some like the direct approach, some want to talk about their cat, whatever...

My wife is often "anti-label", and I agree with her on a philosophical level. But, I tend to need my categories. My boxes for people. I can break out my rulebook for how to interact with Person Category A and try to tweak it a bit on the fly. It's not perfect, but it's far simpler in my mind than trying to figure out a system for Unique Person #284378.

I know what you mean. I also get that way, so then i turn around and ask "what do you mean by it specifically".



I also have a same tendency. Although it is interesting that you figured out who likes what kind of stuff. That is still kind of difficult for me. I can change some stuff according to people but not all the time. Infact i realised that people were different with different people 2 years back. Before that when i saw it in others i would think it was lying. So now, right now i am still trying to discriminate between bad lying and good lying, if you see what i mean. I can focus on topics in terms of concerns related to people, like i know ___ has this issue but never really though about it how do.

I have scripts for me as a person, places and for situations, but not for people yet. Interesting thought though, i will need to think about it more.

But nice talking to you.

I devoted the 50 years of my life to finding out what it is that puts people off me, and I'm not even a tiny bit nearer to discovering what it is than I was at the beginning. And as to asking people - the most detailed feedback I ever got was "I don't know, something. It's something, I can't put my finger on what exactly." Go and try to change your "something" into "something else" if you can. I gave up a couple years ago and now I devote myself to cats.

I don't know about all those success stories people tell on these forums. In 50 years I've improved myself enormeously, yet my relationships with people are always worse and worse. I've read that NLD is like that, the older people are the more complex social relating becomes among them and that's why as time passes we become "worse" at having friends. Maybe you have NLD too...

At some point, the trauma of constantly working on changing ourselves changes us in ways that we end up fitting even less with normal people. I mean, as a result of the weird life we live, we become even weirder than being autistic is. Due to such hugely different life experiences with normal people, the gap between them and us widens and widens. I don't even know anymore if nowadays they reject me for my autism or for the weird personality I have as a result of having had such a weird life.

Reminds me of something, don't know if it's relevant or not... I've found a stumbling block with some -- I guess MANY -- people over the years. A person will profess an interest, and I'll look into the interest. Now, for me, "Looking Into" an interest involves a great deal of depth and detail and absorbed information. Then come back to the 'interested' person and try to have a conversation about said interest only to find they really don't know a great deal about it.

At one time, I almost felt a bit deceived by it, you know? Why is it 'you' don't know much of anything about your own interest? Very confusing for me, and we'd both probably end up more frustrated with the interation than I'd ever intended. Had to learn that 'interest' for most people does not equal MY interest.

NTs interests are not like Aspie special interests/obsessions I guess.

To DoctorYikes:

Yeah. I know what you mean. Most of the people i know profess to have interests and strong beliefs about some but they just dont really seem to know as much me, if i get interested in it. That is the reason why i get bored of talking to people. My brother is the only one where this never happens, so i never get bored of him. Now if i can find some one like that who is not related to me by blood i would be happy.

To Blownmind:



True, that is the way most clinicians will describe it.