Parties - Feeling alone in a crowded room

[ZackSkylar101]

The title makes this sound really dramatic XD But that was just a thought I had during the night. I partly apologise for this already, it is a bit of me trying to process what just happened but also any advise or other experiences would be helpful.

I was invited to a Halloween party by friends from my university that everyone on the course was invited to. The people who invited me understand that I am autistic so they were very understanding about what may happen when I went. So I went to this party. The first thing that I find confusing is why do people go to parties later then the specified time? Does anyone have an answer for this, because it makes very little sense to me. If the party states that it starts at 8, then it makes sense to me to turn up for 8. However the people I was going with told me that we would leave at 9, so I went along with this.

The party itself was nice, in the way that there were people that I knew and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. But with parties comes a large array of sensory overwhelming stimuli that I find difficult to cope with. First it is the loud music, which means that I cannot hear what anyone says around me. Secondly the lighting, that is quite dim in some places and then suddenly bright when someone moves around and reveals the lamp. Thirdly, the close proximity to every other person, the large amounts of touching and people being too much in my personal space. Fourthly, people being people and being difficult to read and not knowing what to talk about (and this sort of lead to my topic I guess. I don't know if this happens to everyone else, but when all of the music is playing at this sort of thing I can hear noise coming from others but it makes no sense. I can't hear the words in the conversation and so I'm just left in this room with lots of sound around me just trying to make the right facial expression to mimic what the tone sounds like).

I eventually got to a point where I left the main room and went out into a quieter bit, and when there I think I just froze, which is something I haven't really done before. I wanted to leave, but there was an agreement that one of my friends was going to leave at the same time that I was (I'm pretty sure people were checking up on me throughout, which was really kind of them. I seem to have found some really nice people,) so I needed to find this person. But I couldn't bring myself to go through the hallway and past all of the people and back into the noisy room to get to them and I just was stuck there. I wasn't able to leave but I didn't want to stay at that point.

Luckily, I think the friend noticed that I had left the room and so texted me to find out if I had left already, and they then found me and we went home and that was good, and now I'm here.

So that's basically my experience for this night. I find parties really difficult. I don't really know what to say to people. I like talking to them about what we are studying about, as that is what I would discuss with them at university and I generally function much better in a work place as you are instantly given a common ground to work on and conversations can go from there, but for parties people can talk about all sorts of different things and I just don't know what to say. And now I'm here and I'm just trying to process it all a bit.

So yeah, this has mostly been me splurging out information. Sorry about that! Does anyone have any good advice for dealing with parties and making the most out of them? Does anyone have any experiences about parties that they want to share?

 

[Cali Cat]

I was invited to a Halloween party by friends ... why do people go to parties later then the specified time? Does anyone have an answer for this, because it makes very little sense to me.

Some parties, like a dinner party or a children's party, call for the guests to arrive at a specified time. However, many parties are open-ended. This is especially true of celebratory parties such as Halloween, New Year's Eve, etc. Those parties tend to last a long time, and the specified beginning time is more like saying, "Don't show up until this time."

I don't know if this happens to everyone else, but when all of the music is playing at this sort of thing I can hear noise coming from others but it makes no sense. I can't hear the words in the conversation and so I'm just left in this room with lots of sound around me just trying to make the right facial expression to mimic what the tone sounds like).

Yep, happens to me all the time. I have to be pretty drunk to put up with it too. Otherwise, I get bored with it very easily and leave.

I find parties really difficult. I don't really know what to say to people. I like talking to them about what we are studying about, as that is what I would discuss with them at university and I generally function much better in a work place as you are instantly given a common ground to work on and conversations can go from there, but for parties people can talk about all sorts of different things and I just don't know what to say.

I can relate to this. Even at parties or get-togethers where the sensory stimuli isn't bombarding me, I still have a hard time knowing what to talk about. I always do better in a work environment for the same reasons you mentioned.

Does anyone have any good advice for dealing with parties and making the most out of them? Does anyone have any experiences about parties that they want to share?

Uh, well ... get drunk? I don't really recommend that though. It's just what I used to do to enjoy them.

 

[ExplosiveTMT]

In my experiences with parties, there's usually good food and drink, so I would pig out on all the food, lol.

 

[DogwoodTree]

If you're college-aged, you probably don't want to give up on parties completely quite yet. I always try to make sure I have my "getaway" plan in place. I RARELY ride with anyone else because I want to make sure I can leave whenever I'm ready instead of having to wait on someone else. And if it's one of those rare occasions where I really seem to settle in with an interesting person or two, I might actually want to stay later than other people. For me, having the freedom to come and go as I please makes a world of difference on my comfort level.

 

[nightowl]

Hi, just as DogwoodTree says, I too prefer to be able to leave and have an "escape plan" when I go to a party. Although to be perfectly honest I rarely go to parties, I feel awkward being around many ppl at the time, and most of the times I get so anxious by the time I'm supposed to go or to do something that I make an excuse not going instead.

 

[Judge]

I recently gave up going to my social group once a month. Came to the conclusion I wasn't getting anything out of it after so many years. Especially when in the last few months I found myself leaving early, and often sitting there by myself noticing everyone else heavily engaged in conversation.

And not really feeling that I was missing anything. I was in a crowded room all by myself. But then I've been this way all my life. The only positive thing I found through this experience was that I didn't seem to experience any social anxiety. But that in itself at this point simply isn't enough to keep me going.

 

[Spiller]

I always feel like an alien in a human world and can rarely engage this species in its natural environment, conversing in its incomprehensible way, seemingly oblivious to overwhelming sensory stimuli all around.
Just occasionally though, the effort pays off and I have a reasonably good time, usually with one or two people.
My advice to me and anyone is to keep putting myself out there, try to acclimate to surroundings, think positive and try to have fun.. always have an escape plan too!
Being put off by the last event and so being tempted to avoid the next, eventually leads to a habit of isolation that seems to be harder to break out of the older you get!

 

[ZackSkylar101]

Thanks for all the replies It's nice to know that others experience this too. I don't know how getting drunk will go. I so far haven't done this in life (I don't particularly like the taste of many drinks, and alcohol tastes quite weird/a lot of it is fizzy and I don't like fizzy drinks - so that leaves me with my juice cartons XD), but I should really experience it at some point.

Food is a good way to go. They had Haribo, so nothing can go wrong there XD

I generally try to keep my options open for getting away. I set myself a reassessment time limit of about an hour or an hour and a half dependent on how I am feeling, then consider if I want to leave yet or stay a bit longer, and go then if I stay longer reset the timer and then I can get away as I wish to. This generally helps as well as a good way to get rid of overstimulation for me is to go for a walk, so it gets two purposes. But this time the person offered beforehand and they were being quite kind, so I decided to go with it and see what happened, which probably wasn't the best option in hindsight.

For Judge, fair enough. I've retreated more then I did in the past because it was all quite a lot and it was quite difficult to put the energy into it. The being alone in a crowded room feeling is rather irritating.

Yeah, I try not to let it stop me from going to next thing. In this case if I didn't go to the next thing then I wouldn't be showing appreciation to the people who are quite nice to me generally who put on these events, so I would rather go and show that I care about them to a degree and then have a bad time. Also there is always that possibility that something really good will happen. And I guess the increased exposure to that sort of thing will help to learn more about it and so adapt more in the future.