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Are there resources for learning social skills? (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 month ago by Alice@beehaw.org to c/chat@beehaw.org

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I'm 30 and horrible at keeping friends. I don't know if it's the unschooling or the autism, but I'm told I come across as hostile when I think I'm being nice.

I know the basics. I make eye contact but not too much, I ask people about themselves and their interests to show I'm interested, I don't dominate conversations with myself and my own interests. I try to be a nice person people might want to keep around, too— I give money when someone's in a pinch, I remember birthdays, I help move, et cetera.

Eventually people either people tell me I'm being a dick in ways I never realized, or more likely, they just eventually stop messaging me back.

The one thing I'm sure I struggle with is body language. I've read a lot that you need to mirror the other person's body language, but I don't know how to do that. Especially since I normally meet people at work and we're usually pushing big carts around and moving products and I'm just not thinking about my body as something expressive, just practical.

I'm sure I have many more blind spots that I'm not even aware of.

So like... are there classes for this? Some kind of specialized therapy? I don't really want to try anymore unless I can stop being a dick

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[–] thief_of_names@beehaw.org 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Its certainly harder to explain over text since we can't hear your tone. Do you put in a lot of effort when you speak ? Does talking come naturally, or do you spend a lot of energy trying to be polite ?

well if I had said that I’d mean it manipulatively

Without knowing exactly what you said its hard to know if this reflects more on your friend than you. Apologizing should be fine, so the issue is either how you apologized or your friend. Also a two day argument is a long argument. Who kept it going? Who would bring it up first?

Edit: I see in one comment that you are autistic. Have you talked to your friends and family about what this means in a conversation ? At some point its on them, honestly.

[–] Alice@beehaw.org 2 points 1 month ago

Its certainly harder to explain over text since we can't hear your tone. Do you put in a lot of effort when you speak ? Does talking come naturally, or do you spend a lot of energy trying to be polite ?

It definitely takes a lot of energy. Using the right tone, making the correct amount of eye contact, listening to what the other person is saying, and not talking so long to come up with a reply that they get mad at me, feels like multitasking. I really try, though.

Also a two day argument is a long argument. Who kept it going? Who would bring it up first?

I guess we both kept it going. I should have dropped it but I hated leaving the conversation with him thinking I was lying. That's another problem I know I need to work on.

Edit: I see in one comment that you are autistic. Have you talked to your friends and family about what this means in a conversation ? At some point its on them, honestly.

I've talked about autism before, but two of my friends are autistic and the other has a TBI, so they told me it wasn't really fair for me to expect them to hold my hand and explain everything I was doing wrong, which I think is fair. As for my family, there's no talking about psych stuff with them.

Either way I'd rather learn social skills than ask everyone I meet to let me be rude since I'm autistic. No one's going to want to put up with that.