Clubs and Societies

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I notice on this board a lot of times people recommend joining a club or a society.

What does that mean, exactly? I read my local paper, and see that some people belong to groups that do things, but they are all afflilated with a school, or a professional organization, or something like that. You know, where membership depends on having a certain job, or something like that. It's not like you can just say, "Gee, I'm interested in knitting, so I'll join the knitting club." There's no such thing. Or "I've always wanted to work behind the scenes in a play, so I'll join the drama club." There is no such thing.


We have a city Parks and Recreation Department, which offers a lot of classes. But when you look carefully at it, there is a huge section of classes for teenagers, and all kinds of fun-looking stuff for seniors. For regular adults, it's just fitness classes. And that doesn't do anything for me, or sound like a way to meet interesting people. Besides, all of these things are at night. I pick my kids up from school at 2pm, and I can't leave them alone. There's homework, dinner, bathtime, bedtime. I can't leave all that to my husband, because he's the one that works all day earning money. KWIM? So basically, anything I do would have to be during school hours, if it was a regular thing.

A few years ago I was feeling interested in a particular minor political party, and went to an event. It was interesting listening to the speaker, but after that, I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't want to sign up to make telephone calls, and that's basically all there was to do.

I also used to volunteer at my kids' school, but I just can't stand the catty PTA moms. One of my kids is AS, and I can't relate to anything they say about their own kids. And now I think I'm AS, which explains that even more.


The last time I really felt like I had a social life was when I took an intense 18-month night course, where the whole class stayed together all that time, and were pretty much forced to take breaks together. I made a couple of good friend, but then they moved away, and I haven't heard a word from them since 9-11. And the course cost thousands of dollars, so I can't make that a habit. (I did great in the course, but not good at all in the job it lead to.)

So...I don't know. It's not that I even really like meeting people. But I'm soooooo isolated, I have no one to share anything with at all, other than my husband. I have one girlfriend, but our conversations are very limited, and becoming more so. And she's available for like an hour every few months. Lately, when I'm done talking to her, I feel more isolated than ever.

??? What do people do? And again, what is this about clubs and societies? What are some examples, and how does that work? Oh, and I have basically no money. AND on top of that, even though I live in a major metropolitan area (which ought to have plenty of choices), I have a debilitating phobia of really bad traffic, and if you want to go anywhere, you have to drive through really bad traffic...so I can't go far at all.)

I feel stuck, but I'm tired of having a life that's so limited. I wish I could just have friends come to my house and take me places sometimes!

It's a hard thing if you have AS.

For what it's worth, most NTs only join clubs for the "networking" potential (business and career pathing). It's full of people with shallow interests trying to climb the social, political, economic ladder.

Now, sometimes a group exists that shares an interest of yours (for me...riding motorcycles). Sadly, having AS still is an inhibition because I struggle to not come across as "weird" to these people I do share some interest with. If you can find a group of fairly accepting people, you can try to work to build your own social network...even if you don't get out of the group what others seem to get.

You really can join knitting clubs--the one I know of meets at a local pub! Clubs for doing plays are called "community theater", and they usually post their audition calls in the classifieds of the local newspaper. My husband goes to a chess club at our public library, which advertises its meetings as "open to all"; he just showed up one night, introduced himself around, played a couple games of chess and boom, he's in a chess club. (There's a lot of social negotiation in meeting new people and doing things with them, though, so Aspies might want to email the contact person in the club announcement so they'll be on the lookout for a new person who's shy.) Since you live in a major metro area, you might be able to use public transportation to get to club meetings and events.

Well, joining clubs and societies was something I was harassed into by my parents. So I felt I had no choice but to look into them and go along to them, but none kept my interest enough for me to stay. I'm sure that's because I'm far too independent to live at the whim of others without suffering serious distress.

I am now part of the Asperger society here, something I want to belong to, at my own whim.

My mother signed me up for a softball team when I was seven and I really disliked it because I was embarrassingly bad both at understanding and at playing the game. I left the team at the end of the season without having made any friends there. When I was eight and making no friends at my new school my teacher suggested enrolling me in the Girl Scouts, and while I didn't particularly dislike that it wasn't a success in the friend-making department, nor was I much into it, so I left it at the end of the year. Later on, however, I voluntarily joined a choir, which I loved, and where I also got along well with the others. So I'd think joining clubs and societies only really 'works' if you're keenly interested in the club's/society's purpose and very motivated.

If you have a specific interest like knitting, check out the local yarn store - they often know of events/workshops and gatherings. I know locally that there is a small group of women who gather at a local coffee shop to knit (very informal, and free, outside of maybe a cup of coffee just so you aren't actually loitering). I belong to a dollhouse and miniaturist club - we pay about $10 a year for dues, we meet about once a month. Since miniatures are an on-going interest for me, its really nice to get together with people who only want to talk about miniatures (there really is no other conversation - heaven for me:) ).

Check with whatever local actors studio is in town - if they don't have need for volunteers, they might know of some amateur productions that can use someone with "skills". If you can sew, build or paint, and are willing to put in time where it saves them money (as long as it doesn't end up costing you too much money), they tend to jump at the chance.

We have a volunteer group in town - they coordinate all the volunteer requests in town, and can give you a list of places that might suit your comfort level. I did some volunteering at the local cancer society and the palliative society through that. I did unfortunately have to answer phones, but not as much as you would think, and the questions all tended to be the same so they didn't involve me doing much other than transferring the call to one of the higher up coordinators. Again, as I had certain computer skills, they happily gave all the techie problems to me. Their only frustration was that I did them fast and was looking for more when they didn't have anything else for me to do

Church groups sometimes have daytime events, and community groups sometimes will have daytime activities. The problem with the middle set of people - those not seniors and those not children - is that it is expected that your day is filled with your job and your family. Not all of us have family, or want to work all day and then go out to a class, which is hard to do.

Those are some of the things that I have done anyway. Another thought - do you have a skill to teach? You could contact a community group that holds daytime classes that aren't career-based, and teach that skill. I know our local college holds a number of classes for various things - I have even seen classes on how to use Facebook. If there is interest in what you want to teach (and there have to be others out there who just can't take one more hour of the bad acting on daytime tv...shudder) you get to meet people, and might even be paid for it. Depends on your comfort level, though. A thought, anyway

Dang, you kind of got it in the neck, huh? I was just the silent-passive-invisible type myself, so nothing much happened to me.