The hardest part to heal is when you trust someone and they hurt you. You find out someone was only pretending to be your friend so that they could take advantage of you or hurt you. Then, this happens to NT's too and it must hurt them just as much.
I find that once you find a good friend or trust your family, it is a good idea to introduce them to other new people you meet. They often have the "radar" to detect deceit better than I do. Better if they become friends with your friends and there is a "friend group". Then there is even more pressure on them not to abuse you since they will be cast out of the group if they are bad.
When I was young, my mother always wanted me to bring my friends home and meet their parents. This did not totally protect me from bad experiences but it did help. Now my husband checks out my friends. It is also good to have friends who are older or younger than you as well.
The hardest parts are the downtime I need afterward and not being able to recognize people's faces.
The hardest part about being social is when they start talking about stuff i hate (I hate somthing that alot of people love)) And they are my friends. I dont want to be rude to them and lose them as a friend, But when they start talking about stuff I hate, To be honnest, I will show that I am bored, Even if I have to do it in a weird way ((Such as look at my watch, Cross my arms, Tap my feet, Ect)) And that ticks them off, But they ticked me off first. I will admit, Alot of my friends like sports, And i DONT, When they talk about sports, I will show that I am bored in the most direct way possible to get them to STOP TALKING. But most of them have learned not to talk about sports around me.... And those that havent :twisted: You will see my bad side MAWHAHHAHHA.
I'm usually okay talking to just one person but find it hard to know when to end a conversation or a visit unless the other person says it's time.
As more people are added to the equation, the more confusing it becomes. I like quiet people the best and people who can understand my jokes (which can be a bit sick sometimes)
Yes, it takes me time to get to know people too.
Asking for help from strangers.
Making myself understood verbally is what I find hardest, especially since I have no known speech impediments.
Over the years, I've gradually learned to ask other people some questions about themselves to make the conversation more reciprocal, but where I still run into problems is when there is a sensory overload from too much noise and/or movement and/or light.
I didn't realise until the last couple of years or so that maintaining friendships takes a lot of effort and time. It's no shame to decide that you might only be able to maintain friendly acquaintanceships.
For me, the hardest part about being social is where other people will ask difficult questions, act annoying, or expect more reply.
"Please explain why I need you around." (God I hate that one!)
"Don't you know how to hurry up yet?" Despite whether I gotten all work done or not.
"Say something already!" How about not.
*I also hate it when I make a phone call and the answerer says "Mam? Mam are you there? Hello? Mam? Mam?..." This usualy happens after half a millosecond. Grrr! so annoying.
"There there, blah blah blah..." This behavior is completly meaningless to me, and in fact makes me loose more control and thought.
Any form of makeing new conversation with someone who is not my kind.
"Wow! Wow, she said something! She finally spoke!" >:{
Anyone frustrated with the idea that the only way to meet people, is through work or hobbies? What happened to clubs based on common interests, or community get-togethers at the park district? I guess only children have a hard time finding opportunities to interact with others.
IME it's "joining a club" which is touted as the way to meet new people, that along with evening classes. Not all hobbies lend themselves to group activities.
Once I posted a thread on another forum about how I'd been going along to clubs and societies for ages (see my profile for an idea of the kind of things I'm interested in) but none of these had led to friendships. To this someone replied saying "I'm sorry you haven't had any luck meeting people" and I retorted "I never said I hadn't met people - I meet people all the time. It's getting to know them that's the problem - getting beyond 'How's the job?' and 'What was your name again?'" I wondered whether this was a case of Aspie literalism on my part, and I even went as far to check the dictionary definition of "meet" to see whether it can mean making an acquaintance as opposed to merely encountering someone.
But maybe for NTs there isn't such a vast difference between encounters and acquaintance, because they have the ability to strike up a friendship in a very short length of time. That's my theory at least. I've found that most of the clubs which are touted as a great way to expand your social life in actual fact provide very little opportunity to get to know people. You can't very easily start a conversation in the middle of a concert, choir practice, slide show, training session, religious service or whatever organised activity the club is based around. So the social bit has to be confined to the coffee break, if there's one. If there are, say, 20 people present and the break is 20 minutes - well, you do the maths.
Hmm, that might explain why an aspie friend said some things that really hurt my feelings and I thought he was being mean. So even within the autistic spectrum itself there can be these kinds of misunderstandings.
The hardest part of being social? For me I guess it's trying to convince myself that I'm interested in people who just aren't very interesting. People take offence if you look and sound bored when you speak to them, which is perfectly understandable, but to be honest I find most people, once you get to know them, are not very interesting to know or fun to know. Out of all of the people who I've gone to school and uni with, and all the people I've worked with and met socially, I'd rate only a handful as worth knowing, and I married one of those handful. Your average person is never going to have even one truly original idea in their life. Your average person doesn't have the same kind of sense of humour as mine. Your average person is pretty average.
With family things are different, generally family have some level of instinctive empathy and genuine care for each other, and my closest kin are also quite smart and interesting people, but at my age (over 40) I've found that most people who aren't family, or family members who don't care much are usually, at the end of the day, a waste of my time. I get really burnt out if I spend too much time interacting with people, so the time that I have for socializing is limited, so it really needs to be worth it.
"... rather than attempting to understand all you bloody humans!! "
lol
