Social Disaster

You are good at communicating online. That is a good start. :) I realize it is not the same as the outside world.m

You are good at communicating online. That is a good start. :) I realize it is not the same as the outside world.m

I agree. I like your posts, Anthony.  Maybe you can harness exactly what is good about your online presence and use it a bit socially.  I am just like you, I suck at making friends and I simply know that i bore people to death. I'm the type that people cross the road to try and avoid me or  the chair next to me is empty because no-one wants to sit there.  

I can be more objective towards others. So, I can point out your strengths. I have noticed you are good at:

• empathising and helping others
• asking questions to find information
• keeping discussion going
• being kind
• expressing your reasoned point of view
• getting your point across clearly.

I think the reason we autie's get problems is due to the depth of our special interest. It's hard to talk about something we're not interested in, but if we talk about the special interest, we leave others behind.

Online, we have control of the silence between comments and it's not awkward. 

When the lockdown is over, I had an idea to invite a shy person I know to the zoo or a museum.  That way, we can talk about the exhibits  - "oh look, a rhinocerous! " and don't need to keep coming up with subjects ourselves. I also thought of bowling. The more distraction and activity, the better.  I need to have things with a definitive ending, otherwise I get too anxious figuring out how to end.

Because I suck at it, I have been thinking about this for about 6 months and not actually done it, mind you. :-(   but in my defence I work full time. 

The other idea is a volunteer cafe or food bank, where you are spending a limited number of hours per week and you can chat a bit or be more quiet while you work.

I looked into a gardening charity called thrive, where volunteers get together with more disabled people (eg blind, stroke sufferers) and help them do gardening. You don't need to know a lot about it, just help the more disabled person.  Unfortunately where i live I am way too far from the nearest one and I don't drive so I can't join up.

Oh I’m much better in writing but for reasons I do t want to get into I don’t use social media like Facebook or twitter, (all I use is what’s app) so I don’t actually have anyone to talk to online where I’d actually do quite well at it.