Life Hacks

Learn about the rules of social interactions and small talk.

For someone who has to work with others or interact with them often is makes life much more understandable and easy to navigate.

In the real world people are not going to adapt to us and accept us for a long time yet so we need to be the ones adapting if we need to integrate without friction.

Any good sources for the social rules? It's not like most of us can figure them out by ourselves!

I enjoyed reading Peoplewatching by Desmond Morris recently. It's all about body language. It explained things like the typical (Western) pattern of eye contact during conversations. Now, when I see people talking on the telly, I'm watching to see if their eyes are doing the "right thing". Usually they are.

In case anyone's interested, people generally break eye contact while they are speaking, look up and down a bit, maybe make a little contact on and off as they continue, but then make direct eye contact again just as they are about to finish speaking to cue the listener to take their turn. Meanwhile, the listener generally holds eye contact the whole time to show they are interested and watches for that cue. Who knew?!

For example, watch Lewis Hamilton's eyes the next time he's being interviewed after an F1 race and you'll see him follow that pattern exactly.

I think one of the issues I have is when someone makes and holds strong eye contact while they are speaking. It turns into a bit of a staring contest and I find it hard to keep track of their words.

Damojo said:

Any good sources for the social rules?

It is a very big subject so I found it worth skimming the subject to understand the big picture stuff then digging into the areas that are most relevant to you.

A good place to start in https://psychologyfanatic.com/social-norms/

I also do a lot of observing and learning on the job of seeing how other people interact and use this to build my own scripting rules for the interations. Knowing the basics from above helps put a lot of this into context so you can start to build up your own ways of interacting depending on the situation and people involved.

There is no one-stop solution to it but plenty of more digestable, bite sized sources on the likes of YouTube etc.

Damojo said:

Any good sources for the social rules?

It is a very big subject so I found it worth skimming the subject to understand the big picture stuff then digging into the areas that are most relevant to you.

A good place to start in https://psychologyfanatic.com/social-norms/

I also do a lot of observing and learning on the job of seeing how other people interact and use this to build my own scripting rules for the interations. Knowing the basics from above helps put a lot of this into context so you can start to build up your own ways of interacting depending on the situation and people involved.

There is no one-stop solution to it but plenty of more digestable, bite sized sources on the likes of YouTube etc.

Iain said:

I do find that even when in a state of low activity my brain still creates a lot of adrenaline and seems to push me to be in stressful situations so over the years I have come to have this as my baseline so it doesn't feel problematic to me.

I find that not allowing myself to feel a victim of this but just accepting it as normal allows me to achieve a heck of a lot. I guess this approach is not for everyone.

Yeah, I know what you mean. It is what it is. We are what we are. There's not really any getting around it. We learn to be resilient. Avoiding self-blame when the inevitable slip-ups happen helps a lot.

One problem with holding on to the high baseline stress level and just pushing through is that, at least in my experience, I'll eventually burn out. Then things aren't pretty (depression seems to be my go-to). About every 5 years I'll feel burnout coming on. Sometimes I can make major life changes to deflect it, sometimes not. Recovery takes a long time (at least a year). I assume that this is the sort of experience reflected in research that points to masking being bad for one's mental health.

Another problem is that, starting from a high baseline stress level, it might not take a whole lot to push me over the edge into overwhelm and meltdown. I'll usually start shutting down and withdrawing before it's too late, but sometimes it just takes a short, sharp shock to instantly put me over the edge. Knowing that is always a possibility can make me anxious in unpredictable situations.

My emerging strategy is to identify the little stressors (background noise, lack of sleep, letting thought loops run too long, not asking for help, trying to do too much, etc.) and to try to deal with those, so my baseline stress level is a bit lower to start with. I've been having some success with that, but it's hard to be sure when I'm still in burnout.

Damojo said:

Do you have any tips on how to make that less exhausting?

No. I always used to be perpetually stressed and tired but that seems to be the autistic lived experience.

I do find that even when in a state of low activity my brain still creates a lot of adrenaline and seems to push me to be in stressful situations so over the years I have come to have this as my baseline so it doesn't feel problematic to me.

I find that not allowing myself to feel a victim of this but just accepting it as normal allows me to achieve a heck of a lot. I guess this approach is not for everyone.

Thanks, Iain. I'll add that to my reading list. (A quick glance and I saw "conformity", "compliance" and "obedience" listed—that doesn't sound like me!)

I assume, like most of us here, that you remain fully conscious that you are following the rules and sticking to your script while you're doing it. Do you have any tips on how to make that less exhausting? Or do you think many of us find it exhausting because we are mostly flying by the seat of our pants and that makes it more stressful than it would be if we were better prepared?