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is having difficulty starting conversations and keeping them alive part of A.S.?

Az83 said:
I have to say I found this quite offensive, my gender has nothing to do with my social difficulties, I don't know how you came to the conclusion that I somehow have it easier just because I do not have something dangling between my legs.
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yeah but everyones it is true that girls never make the first move, never approach guys, never ask guys out or initiate anything, i'm sorry, i just really feel that if i was a girl, i would have had a boyfriend a long time ago, thats why sometimes i wish i was a girl and i don't if i will have to deal with periods, pregnancy, child-birth.
 
Also, there have been people who i used to be friends with, as in, we hung out, went out, but all of a sudden they stopped answering their phone and texts, they never called back and i have no clue as to what i is that i did wrong, i hate it when people do not give feedback
 
Some people are born social...OK, screw that, many people are born social with that instinctive need for companionship. When you're born with an autistic disorder, on the other hand, things get complicated. Really, really complicated. It's a consequence of having all the wires in your brain tangled up in such a mess - as you don't develop like everyone else, therefore, you most certainly aren't going to have the same needs as everyone else. At least, to an extent this is my case and it's something I've come to accept, slowly yet painfully. This became exaggerated of course after I hit puberty, when my limited social capacity and learning differences reared their ugly heads and began to cause me a heap of trouble.

I certainly can't speak for everyone else in here, but what I can say is if I did have a need for social interaction it would've been apparent by now and I would have the misfortune of experiencing all the frustration in the name of "love". I'm not completely withdrawn by any means, and of course there are basic social skills that are expected of me in order to adapt to this society in this lifetime, but I honestly don't have a native understanding of socialization at all. I do ask myself every now and then why exactly I would benefit from having a companion...which may be the only sliver of proof that I'm at least not really affected by my autism...and then my autistic side begins to take over. I would explain that, but not right now.
 
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popculturegeeknerd06 said:
yeah but everyones it is true that girls never make the first move, never approach guys, never ask guys out or initiate anything, i'm sorry, i just really feel that if i was a girl, i would have had a boyfriend a long time ago, thats why sometimes i wish i was a girl and i don't if i will have to deal with periods, pregnancy, child-birth.
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my goodness, man! :D anyway, talking about "never" - not true... even though unless it's their job to show initiative... I was just trying to put it nicely :) most of those girls are probably going to chew you up and spit your out... yeah tragic :) but sometimes it does happen, a girl asks a guy out and it all works out fine.... doesn't matter... I think it would be pointless to converse about it.

when I was about 21 or so I started asking people what they didn't like about me, what they found annoying, I asked for honest answers and said that I was not going to be offended. got very interesting feedback, it helped me a lot even though the experience wasn't pleasant :) I realized why some of the social issues occurred.

Now it seems that the more true I am to myself the easier it is, I'm not hiding, not pretending, not afraid to admit that I'm wrong or even if I'm right, sometimes I can let people be in a spot light without feeling bitter. There're always going to be people who hate that sort of outlook, or however you want to call it, but kind ones with open hearts will always welcome it.

well, that's all I have to say :)
 
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still it is very extremely rare for a girl to make the first move and ask a guy out, initiate things, so rare that me as a guy i can not count on it to happen.
 
Actually I sense a slight taste of pessimism. Everything is impossible so it seems... and with that I wonder "why even try?" and "why even long for it?".

No I don't want to tell you, lose the idea, and aim for something else. By all means, everyone should find someone in their life they love and such.

If it's the entire relationship route, let's take it this way; do you have requirements for said girls you might have an interest in? You might even find the problem there. Maybe you're aiming for the wrong kind of women. I mean, if I would aim for perfect looks (aka the model look) I'm quite sure I won't find someone. Just cause I on a personal level are different. My interests clash, my looks in general clash with someone like that... and yes, I've had experience with that. I dated really pretty girls... and in the end I kinda turned them down because I felt it wasn't worth my time. I then moved on and looked for things I cared more for, instead of just a pretty girl I could eventually see myself have sex with. And I'm not really an arrogrant person in general. I am picky who I wanna associate myself with, even if it's someone who's carrying the "his girlfriend" label so to say. (and no, I don't want to objectify women in relationships either, but I found the label as a figure of speech contributes the example)

So yeah... think about what makes you you, and what you look for in a girl. And be serious about it... don't be like "oh, I don't care, just anyone" cause that's desperate and really short-term.
 
I found that I also have a lot of trouble ending conversations, or figuring out when they are meant to kind of die off into another topic or activity. A lot of times during a mini conversation, I'll just kind of stand there waiting for more (when, I suppose, it's "obviously" ended) or leave/change the topic at inappropriate times.
 
kasmanaft08 said:
I found that I also have a lot of trouble ending conversations, or figuring out when they are meant to kind of die off into another topic or activity. A lot of times during a mini conversation, I'll just kind of stand there waiting for more (when, I suppose, it's "obviously" ended) or leave/change the topic at inappropriate times.
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That's kinda what I was talking about with my girlfriend a few days ago. I feel that if she sends me a message through some mobile IM network... I kinda expect to have a conversation with an end, and not have single ramblings much like sending hundreds of texts. That in effect makes me look at my telephone for quite a long time waiting for responses, making me feel uncomfy cause I either want to talk or want to go on with something else and not waiting. Especially since a lot of stuff I recently do requires more physical interaction with my hands (for example; painting) I can't hold a phone as well.

The end of a conversation should be really clear... so usually I'm like "well, I'm off doing something else now, ttyl!" though I can see this might be a bit "rude" just doing something else during convo... but there's nothing a conversation cant fix expressing how you feel about such situations. So now she's cool with it.

And by that extent there's something else that irks me a bit. There's a lot of people that apparently have no idea that conversations should have a start and an end... so my mom will sometimes just get up and go do something else when I'm talking to her... and she doesn't get why I think it's rude to do so. And actually, the same applies when I'm talking to someone when the phone rings... I'll answer it when I'm done with conversation 1. It's as if a telephonecall is more important... while you in fact can talk to people whenever you want, and you still need people around phyiscally to have a face 2 face conversation.

And people think I'm socially awkward... srsly -_-
 
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I don't know if this will help?

I find other people I am around are not great at it either. They may or may not have a label but being normal does mean you are an expert at conversation. I think we can get intimidated by the NT's. I don't let it get me down, small talk can be overrated.
Bill
 
King_Oni said:
The end of a conversation should be really clear... so usually I'm like "well, I'm off doing something else now, ttyl!" though I can see this might be a bit "rude" just doing something else during convo... but there's nothing a conversation cant fix expressing how you feel about such situations. So now she's cool with it.
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I used to be like that. Now have I "adapted" and often multitask during IM or text conversations. Sometimes, I would get the message "r u still there?" an hour later after I have completely forgotten that I was in the middle of a conversation.
 
kg4fxg said:
I don't know if this will help?

I find other people I am around are not great at it either. They may or may not have a label but being normal does mean you are an expert at conversation.
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Totally agree, they can be as or almost as clueless as we are. I think the problem is that we only notice the minority that is good at communicating and we might assume that the rest are the same, which is not true.
 
Caspar said:
I used to be like that. Now have I "adapted" and often multitask during IM or text conversations. Sometimes, I would get the message "r u still there?" an hour later after I have completely forgotten that I was in the middle of a conversation.
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Yeah, but I like to keep my mind on one thing at a time... there's reasons my cellphone is switched of a lot, and why I'm on IM for about an hour a day (which in general is only to talk to my gf a bit). So by having a halfway conversation I can't focus on whatever I'm doing, thus I rather not do it.

popculturegeeknerd06 said:
well when i'm getting to know someone it seems like i'm asking most of the questions
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Did it ever occur to you that those people might be a bit shy and don't really know how to approach you? Or what to ask? Or just in general you give them more depth and they're way to shallow and at some point realize "meh... this isn't superficial enough". Really.. just some ideas.. not critism here :)

Also; you're stating "we as men have to initiate everything"... well, ok, let's fly by that. Now it seems like you're bothered by the fact that you are actually initiating something.

So is it that you're just bothered the way "social convention" works nowadays?
 
Do you have a cell phone? I learned a little trick. Everybody knows that my second job will sometimes call me at any time during the day so I can fake a phone call and just say my phones on vibrate. If I have trouble getting away from someone or finding a nice way to end a conversation Ill act like my phone was vibrating and step away.
 
popculturegeeknerd06 said:
yes I'm bothered by the way social convention works because i struggle with it, it's not common sense for me like it is for the vast majority of people
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If you're bothered by it... propose changes. I mean... we all have our struggles and we try to change it one way or the other, and most people try to change it themselves.

If it's the entire "I hate why men have to initiate contact instead of women"... it would be quite egotistical to expect it be the other way around. It's not as if women worldwide had a meeting somewhere and decided "hey, let's let men do all the work". That's a matter of cultivation of the past x years... and very, very slowly it's changing where apparently roles are becoming at least equal... thus were women initiate contact... but you can't expect that to happen just now, because you want a girlfriend right now in 2012.

Like I told before, I don't buy the entire "women never initiate contact"... I've had other experiences.

And why did I have them? Perhaps I looked the right places, perhaps I met the right people (though at some point chance should stop, I don't believe in infinite chance; and seriously.. if you're giving me the "you're lucky"... you're not being unbiased and you're letting frustration speak, which IMO is no solid base for any discussion) and perhaps I actually am interesting enough for certain people to hang out with, and eventually date...
 
when I say that women never initiate contact, i did not mean it literally, i meant that it is still very rare for a woman to initiate contact, so rare that i can not count on it to happen, but, eventhough this thread i started is more focusing on socializing and interacting with people in general, just to make friends only, not beyond that, my other thread is about dating and relationships, boyfriend/girlfriend, but obviously being socially-inept, socially-impaired is a thousand, million, billion times worse if you are a guy.
 
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