When did you know your social skills are poor ?

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Although I have always had problems with social interaction I had never considered my social skills were poor. Nothing was ever written in my psych notes about it. No interventions to improve social skills were ever offered.
The first time it was clearly stated I had very poor social skills was when I was 56 in a supporting letter for ESA.
I guess I must have had social skills deficits for decades but no one had bothered to tell me,let alone help me with it.

I didn't knew very much even if I already had tested for it.

If I look back at my memories from this present, it's around 3rd grade. At that time, I only realized I'm just different AND denying it. But being poor at handling people? That didn't crossed my mind then.

I had truly realized I'm missing something around age 15 or 16 or so.

Then I recently found a test result of my 14 year old self -- my self awareness is rather poor, and it says handling relationship is on average range. Which is weird...

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In sixth grade, schoolmates and family members gave me a lot of social rejection

And I suspected my social skills were poor

But you can't measure social skills

Maybe it's just that everyone, AS and NT finds it easier to socially interact with someone similar to them. And there are a lot more NTs than AS's. So maybe it just seems to NTs that AS's have poor social skills

Ten years ago an NT had the nerve to tell me that "you don't care about anyone except yourself!".

But maybe everyone, NT and AS, cares more about those that are similar to them. And there are just not many people similar to me



Being outnumbered

In the minority

Does not make you bad or wrong

Necessarily

Reading in a letter about me when i was sixteen that mine were below the age level. That totally contradicts what I have read about me from when I was 8 that I was well socially developed and reading in my IEP from when I was 8 how well my social skills had improved after being put in a mainstream class full time. Either I regressed or mine were appropriate at that age level but then I got older and my social development didn't keep up.

I find a good 8 years of bullying at school with no idea how to handle it or make it go away is a fair indicator.

Honestly? I don't consider myself to have poor social skills. In my experience, NTs have a very limited understanding of everything from the full range of human emotions to scientific theory to just about anything in general.

So obsessed are they with their social constructs they forget to develop other parts of their brain! Therefore, they are the ones with limited understanding and social skills (given their need for excessive conventions and routines in that way) not me.

My husband knew his social skills were bad when our 6 year child started passing him. There were things dear kid just seemed to learn out of the air social skills wise, and my husband was flabbergasted by it. Dear kid seemed to know without anyone actually telling him/her.

Probably when my cognition enabled me to discern anything---around the age of 5 or 6. I always knew I was "different," and that I had "poor social skills" (though I didn't know those words then) which made it difficult for me to make friends.

I don't know. I knew there was a problem in junior school because I had trouble getting along with other kids. But I didn't know that the problem was social skills. I just thought that the other children were mean and unkind.

I only realised that social skills was the issue when I was in my 20s and started reading up about autism. It was a lightbulb moment. So that's why I have issues with people!

Knowing that has helped me improve. I think I'm getting on ok in my current job with being personable and friendly and taking an interest in others, but I might just be acting. I would find it easier not to bother trying, but I think making an effort will make my working life easier and help me feel more like I belong and help others feel comfortable around me.

I've noticed it for quite sometime, and I could never figure it out. I almost think knowing I had aspergers would have been helpful earlier on...then again if I had, endured treatments to try to make me 'normal' I think I would be worse off. I mean I just think the knowledge may have helped me interact, because I would have known what things I do that can be off putting. Like I ended up getting bullied for some of my interests, but it occurs I probably just went on and on about it and maybe some of them felt like I was being condescending and not even acknowledging theirs.

But also I got a job kinda recently and well it has made me notice my lack of social skills more. I mean I don't really get on badly with co-workers or anything. But I still feel kind of like a weird outsider, just hard for me to open up I guess so I think its mostly people just don't know anything about me because of that. Also I had a scedule mix up this week and ended up working a bunch more hours than I should have...and I feel if I had better social skills I may have been able to clear up the situation before ending up coming in all those days, because then I may have just said 'hey my scedule doesn't seem right and had them check on it...but I just figured there was some reason for it and bit the bullet, then I found out they had mixed up my scedule and it was all a mistake. But I didn't really know how to confront it.

Are all your co-workers "metalheads?"

Being a "metalhead" might affect the way people perceive your "social skills."

Maybe you're not as bad as you think you are. Maybe their notion of you is borne out of your "metalhead" persona more than any "lack of social skills."

I know.....that when I went to high school, I was perceived as lacking "social skills" because I didn't wear hip clothes.

When I was about 12, something "clicked" and I realized all the social cues I hadn't been picking up on.

I always knew I had difficulties with socialising , but never thought of it in terms of social skills.

I was poor with socializing long before even I knew what "socializing" was.....