Homer Simpson writes:
I happen to have very high functioning autism( or PDD-NOS/Asperger’s syndrome according to the former DSM-4th edition) & I do whatever I can to socialize & get along with others. I even accept the fact how normal people can be judgmental. But then, where is the love when it’s not reciprocated in return?
As try as I may, as often as not though, I end up doing things to turn people off like having poor common sense, negative (uncool) personal traits, etc. Despite of all these years of learning as much as I can on how people are and how they work, also learning as much social skills I can, whether obtained via books or experience in life, I still fall short. You can be all outgoing, sociable as you may, but it still takes the other person to be willing, and if not for that, I might as well be talking to a wall, literally speaking.
Well I can understand this personally. You can try as hard as you can to be ok socially, but it takes two to tango. You can’t converse without a conversational partner. You can’t socialize without folks who are willing to hang with you. If no one is giving you a chance, all of your social skills knowledge in the world are not for crap.
I know folks with anxiety disorders who come across rather strange. They have odd looks in their eyes, they stare a lot, they look out of it and distracted, and often when you are talking to them, it seems like they are thinking of something else. These are the same folks that I touched on earlier who constantly get told they have Asperger’s (I know they have no such thing – they have anxiety disorders, dammit!). I have talked social skills with these folks, and they could write an encyclopedia on the subject. They have an utterly brilliant knowledge of social skills and try to put them all into effect. But if your brain is acting weird, all the social skills in the world won’t amount to a hill of beans.
So even though in terms of knowledge, these folks are masters of social skills and social rules (they have learned all the rules, they know what to say and how to act and when and how to not do and say things and when), but it’s all pretty much worthless because their brains are funny and their funny brains make them appear weird so basically just about no one wants to talk to them. I have watched them try to talk to people, and the others usually act taken aback, seem uncomfortable and often shut down the conversations very quickly.
All of this “learn new social skills” nonsense really gets me going. Learning social skills means learning the rules and playing by them. Knowing what to do and say and what not to do and say at for whichever occasion, adjusting your reactions to the conversational clues of your speech partner, etc. But you can have all this knowledge and put it into effect masterfully but if your brain acts funny you are still going to come across as weird and you will be socially rejected on that basis.
The whole thing is, “You need to learn good social skills!” It’s repeated like an endless mantra. You go to therapy, and it’s probably the first thing you hear. All this “learn good social skills is the key to social mastery” stuff only goes so far, and I tire of the constant exhortations from extroverts to “learn the skills, dammit!”