Social Skills - What do you think?

Hi binary, you know I’m loving Daniel Wendler’s social skills book so I won’t bore you by discribing it a second time.

My personal experience is that social skills can be learned. I personally don’t view it as masking. To me it’s like all my life I didn’t know social skills because I don’t learn them naturally and no one ever taught me (I highly suspect my mum also has ASD). But now I have this handbook that teaches me, step by step how to do social skills. I’m not pretending to use social skills, I am actually using them and it is becoming natural. It’s a bit like if I studied a book to learn how to speak french, I wouldn’t be pretending to speak french, I would actually be speaking french. Not sure if I explained that too well so hope it makes sense? 

Your issues with social interaction are things that I also struggle with myself. I’m working very hard on not interrupting people when they are talking, this can be difficult though when someone is talking for ages and I really want to say something. I’ve learned to use ‘the interruption hand’ though, basically raising your hand to about chest height in front of you indicates to your conversation partner that you wish to say something, in theory they then stop speaking and let you say something, I have to say this has had variable success, some people stop and let me speak, but some people just don’t take the bait (so to speak) or they just don’t want to stop talking!

I still misinterpret jokes and over react, I reserve the overreacting for those I live with though. That’s just how we are, we can’t change that.

I still need to find time to do that online coaching module on how to make small talk and the purpose of small talk and how to use small talk to build meaningful relationships. Presently I’m pretty clueless about the point of small talk but once I learn what the point of it is then I’ll let you know.

im also very good at talking at length about something that interests me, I’m pretty sure that I manage to bore/annoy people by doing this though I’m making extra effort not to ‘go on’ for too long these days.

I guess to summarise, we can learn social skills per se, in that we can learn how to have meaningful conversations, how to make friends, read body language etc and that can become natural but we can’t change who we are, we can’t suddenly start getting the hidden meaning in what people say or stop being super interested in a particular subject and wanting to talk about it loads. We can though, I believe, use those social skills to build more meaningful friendships and to widen our social network. Whether or not anyone decides to choose to learn social skills comes down to a cost benefit analysis: does the benefit of making more friends and having a better social life outweigh the cost of having to overcome social anxiety and also having to manage the mental exhaustion that socialising causes? For me the benefit does outweigh the cost, since starting to implement what I am learning in the social skills book and making more friends my self esteem has improved loads, I’ve managed to stop hair pulling which is something that I’ve done since childhood and I generally feel so much less restless and figity. The social anxiety was bad at first but has massively reduced and as long as I allow a few hours quiet ‘me time’ after social engagements to recuperate then all is good. Everyone is different though. What do you and others think about this?

That’s excellent Kitsun and the book sounds like an excellent resource. You’ve done really well. Well done. I’m super proud of you. 

I guess in a way, that’s what I did but without the knowledge and awareness that I was autistic, so for me, it really was masking. 

However, you’ve made me realise that it wasn’t bad what I did. It didn’t harm me in the way I thought it had.  I simply need to separate the masking from the actual learning of social skills then I can be proud of myself, super proud in fact, in that I learned the social skills, they’re mine to keep now, and use when I want or need to use them without having to use them simply to fit in. I can use them for my own benefit. 

This is a revelation to me and helps me to see myself in a whole new light, a much more positive light for sure. I can see I was doing the best I could with the knowledge and awareness I had at the time and rather than abandon myself, like I thought I had, I was simply giving every ounce of strength I had to learn these skills which meant I had no time or head space left or the knowledge to be able to evaluate and understand what was actually happening. It’s all making sense now. I thought it was my down fall but I can see now that it was an absolute triumph. 

The more I realise just how well I did, despite getting into lots of trouble and insulting people etc etc, the more I realise I really can do anything. 

Anybody who is autistic knows just how weird and difficult it is in social situations etc, it can’t be described, and to think that despite all that, I still got to the age I am in one piece. I might be in burn out, barely leaving my house, but I’ve never been in a better position in my life, and this year not only started off good, it just keeps getting better. 

Thank you so much for this. You’ve really helped me to see things more clearly. I keep saying this but I’ll say it again. I have always said I don’t need much help but I do need some help and that a little of the right help goes a long long way. It’s always in my thinking. My thinking patterns are so rigid and the normal ways of learning things don’t seem to penetrate the thought pattern. It’s things like this. Someone will say something in a certain way or something and all of a sudden it’s like the light has come on and I can see that it was my rigid thinking that was blocking any other way of seeing the situation. Yeah, this is definitely big. Thank you. Thank you so much and you’re doing great. You sound like you’ve got the kind of balance I’m looking for. I accept that I will never change, per se, no matter what I do, but I don’t need to change, and just like everybody else in the world, it’s my responsibility to live my life according to my needs etc and this new found awareness has given me more excitement at moving forward. I think, because of the nature of autism, that we’ll always have this certain something, no matter what we do, that means we need more time alone etc, and I’ve been focusing on enjoying that alone time a lot more, placing a higher value on it and really appreciating it, but mostly really enjoying it. When I start working again, I want to make sure the structures are in place to ensure that I continue with lots of lovely me time that I enjoy to the max with lots of time in nature and fresh air. It means that I’ll need to charge a higher price for my services, which means I need to put more work into making sure I give value for money and the great thing is, the things I do in my me time are the very things I need to do in order to give value for money to my customers. 

WoW, see, all I need is for one rigid thought pattern to be penetrated, and it opens up a whole host of possibilities. I guess the possibilities are always there, it’s just that they’re blocked by our rigid thinking. Anyway, thank you, I really appreciate this. 

Thank you blueray :-) I’m really glad that I was able to help you.

In my mind masking is pretending to be something that you are not or blaming something else for the way that you are. I did this when I was younger, I blamed my not ‘getting’ stuff on being blonde and built a dizzy blonde persona yet at the same time in parallel I also had the persona of an intellectual and an academic and was able to pass off many of my quirks, such as collecting books as being as a result of that. A bit of a contradiction of personas really, a dizzy blonde highly intelligent academic?!?!? But I felt it worked for me at the time, I hid behind the personas that I had created. I don’t do that any more. I am as I am.

Learning social skills on the other hand is like learning any skill be it a learning a foreign language, learning to make jewellery, learning to do plumbing. It can be learned and applied when needed. It’s amazing for me to be able to learn social skills. Honestly I’m so terrible at them, even my 4 year old daughter gets reciprocal conversation yet it took me reading a book on social skills in my late 30s to realise that if someone asks me a question then I should reciprocate that. So for me it’s this whole new world of finally being able to speak the same language as others. It actually means I don’t have to mask anymore, I don’t need to hide behind anything because now I am learning the skills to be able to interact effectively with other people. So what if I have the odd quirk or don’t get stuff sometimes, people tolerate that much better now that I am being a good person to talk with, reciprocating socially and being a helpful person. 

I do love a good old light bulb moment! When suddenly something makes sense in your head and so many new possibilities start flying around in your head. Your learning social skills was simply you making the best you could of a bad situation, learning what you could from observing NTs despite not understanding them, learning a way to get by in hostile surroundings, kind of like navigating unfamiliar terrain without having a map or a compass or a sat nav. It was really difficult but you got through, you still arrived at your destination. Well done! 

You don’t need to change who you are. Why would you want to? It sounds like you’ve achieved a lot in your life. Just carry on being you. But you can also at the same time use social skills to get by when you need to. 

Thank you blueray :-) I’m really glad that I was able to help you.

In my mind masking is pretending to be something that you are not or blaming something else for the way that you are. I did this when I was younger, I blamed my not ‘getting’ stuff on being blonde and built a dizzy blonde persona yet at the same time in parallel I also had the persona of an intellectual and an academic and was able to pass off many of my quirks, such as collecting books as being as a result of that. A bit of a contradiction of personas really, a dizzy blonde highly intelligent academic?!?!? But I felt it worked for me at the time, I hid behind the personas that I had created. I don’t do that any more. I am as I am.

Learning social skills on the other hand is like learning any skill be it a learning a foreign language, learning to make jewellery, learning to do plumbing. It can be learned and applied when needed. It’s amazing for me to be able to learn social skills. Honestly I’m so terrible at them, even my 4 year old daughter gets reciprocal conversation yet it took me reading a book on social skills in my late 30s to realise that if someone asks me a question then I should reciprocate that. So for me it’s this whole new world of finally being able to speak the same language as others. It actually means I don’t have to mask anymore, I don’t need to hide behind anything because now I am learning the skills to be able to interact effectively with other people. So what if I have the odd quirk or don’t get stuff sometimes, people tolerate that much better now that I am being a good person to talk with, reciprocating socially and being a helpful person. 

I do love a good old light bulb moment! When suddenly something makes sense in your head and so many new possibilities start flying around in your head. Your learning social skills was simply you making the best you could of a bad situation, learning what you could from observing NTs despite not understanding them, learning a way to get by in hostile surroundings, kind of like navigating unfamiliar terrain without having a map or a compass or a sat nav. It was really difficult but you got through, you still arrived at your destination. Well done! 

You don’t need to change who you are. Why would you want to? It sounds like you’ve achieved a lot in your life. Just carry on being you. But you can also at the same time use social skills to get by when you need to. 

Yeah, and like you, I don’t mask any more either and rarely, if ever, do I spend time with nt’s now (not even family) unless it serves a purpose for me, for example, if I want to start a new project and need a certain nt or nt’s to get involved, then I’ll approach them, but I don’t socialise with nt’s, unless for example, they’re in my pottery group or something. I can socialise with them and I can do it very well but it has no rewards for me so I don’t do it, but I’m glad I’ve got the skills so I can use them when I need to. And of course, I’m more than happy to have them as clients, because that brings them to my way of seeing the world which is through love, peace, gratitude, understanding and  forgiveness etc etc