However, I would suggest considering if the ‘making fun’ is in casual conversation or truly adversary.
In casual conversation of someone making jest about your lack of speaking, just smile and say you are having a good time listening and hanging out.
If they are actually making fun of you, never associate with those people again, they suck
Sigh
It's not all puppies and rainbows of course, because some people can't hold a conversation without being led through it by the hand, which is exhausting. And others think everyone else is always so fascinated with what they have to say that they never stop for you to get a word in edgewise.
But, active listening accounts for the majority of my social skills, for better or worse.
And I'm probably less autistic than the average HNer.
But people mostly don't have it all worked out.
There are specific demographics who do.
Some are naturally gifted at social interactions and/or grew up in environments which taught them how to socialise effectively.
Others are charming narcissists - likeable, high status, attractive on the outside, monsters on the inside. They can appear effortless because they don't care about anything except presenting an image, so they get get very skilled at it.
Most everyone else has some social anxiety or frustration and makes more or less obvious social mistakes at least occasionally.
For younger introverts, none of this behavior is necessarily anti-social if the group all shares these same traits. The moment a member of that group has any higher self-esteem than the rest, they will either see that individual as "cool" or as a threat (or both).
To be truly anti-social is to either completely isolate yourself, or be unrelentingly and unreasonably hostile in all interactions. This list is neither. It's just passive aggressive and a lot of ego.
Asocial = avoids people, quiet, misses social cues. i.e. doesn’t attract people
Antisocial = cruel, obnoxious, remorseless. i.e. actively repels people
This lovely clarification then mixes together typical preferences and outward behavior.
> , misses social cues. i.e. doesn’t attract people
With incompetence and being unattractive.
Some people have ultimate confidence in their social judgements and the true sign of empathy is a kind of meta-empathy that allows you to consider truly alternative understandings of the world i.e. empathy for empathy.
An introspective, empathetic, thoughtful person might still accidentally say something that an external observer might perceive as having been said without thought or consideration to the feelings of others.
The above is not meant to be contradictory to your point, just a consideration to the general faults all humans hold.
It’s easy to use a diagnosis as an excuse not to connect. But it’s a lame excuse. It is much more interesting to understand what tools we need to gain to connect with the world. Sometimes I need to be an anthropologist. Sometimes I need to be a crime scene investigator. Usually I just need to listen better.
When I was in a wheelchair I had to use ramps instead of the stairs. But that didn’t stop me from going to the movies
This speaks to me quite a bit, particularly around unfalsifiable topics I'll have with friends/family, such as theology. If we define hope as the idea they'll change their mind and agree with me, seems not much one can do but retreat into themself, right? I suppose I can sympathize with their sentiment before I retreat into myself, but taking this bullet point at face value I'm unsure how to make this a pro-social experience :/
That's a lot easier and comes off more natural IMO.
Put less kindly: there’s nothing so special about you that being yourself around a new person should cause such a panic. Even if they take an instant dislike to you, that should be something you can take in stride
I can’t tell you specifically what being “yourself“ means. But I can absolutely tell you that if you panic when you meet a stranger that you are not centered in your own experience. Your mind is elsewhere. You don’t know this new person, so all of the panic in the situation is panic that you brought with you from the past and is not relevant to the current scenario
For whatever reason your body believes that the stakes are very high. They might be, but even if they were, wouldn’t it be more adaptive to face the situation with the level head? Most people can do this 100% of the time and I bet that you could get there too
I think most people over the age of 25 can do this maybe 80% of the time. And most of them can keep it under control enough that they only look a little dysfunctional, the other 20% of the time. (although I definitely know a few extroverts who don’t look dysfunctional, they look like the life of the party – but that’s them being dysfunctional and stressing out and trying to make everyone love them. That’s their 20%.)
> not "acting intuitively without overthinking", since the socially anxious person's intuition is to run away.
Yes, it is exactly that, but instead of focusing on "acting intuitively", focus on that "without overthinking". Overthinking is the problem to be solved. "thinking just enough" is the optimal target.
I could observe myself and knew what I looked like, but couldn't break it. The CTO stopped me as I was speaking and said "this isn't going to work". As soon as he said that, I ended the call. I had some major imposter syndrome during that time, I think that played a huge role in my fumble. Still massively cringe when I think about that, though.
With respect to all; there is an incredible amount of subtle communications that go into standard conversations
Me: I'm da king of da highway
That said, if I may be so hypocritical to add to the list, the heavy reliance on pointing out fallacies is a pretty big one. A lot of the times it simply degenerates conversations into logical golf, with no semblance of trying to actually understand the other person remaining. Though in those cases, that intent was usually never really present to begin with.
nothing personnel, kid
nothing personal kid
Sorry, networks, in this context, are too social for me, as they involve other people.
So I find this post incredibly condescending, and it seems clearly directed at a few specific people this author had some sort of moral or political disagreement with. Which means the author is committing the exact sins he's inveighing against!
I will be a little more specific:
assume they have no sane reason for doing or saying what they are doing or saying
assume intent is malicious, ignorant, or amoral.
interpret others' actions in the context of your fears
exploit your immediate network; when the obvious merits of your narrative are exhausted, present like-minded people with tastefully curated details of your interactions with detractors, to provide a more appropriate account that your supporters can rally around to crush any lingering threats to your narrative
do not grant grace to those who make mistakes, especially those that you have never met or otherwise spoken to
do not seek to understand those you do not already understand
manmal•2h ago
Of course, the majority is always right and we should yield to it right away /s
SirFatty•2h ago
veltas•2h ago
Also this document is basically just how I act, or how I would still act if I was less self-aware; some combination of the two.
I suspect the author may have written this partly as a self-critique.
bena•2h ago
mapontosevenths•1h ago
It COULD be that you are correct and the world is crazy, but its far more likely that you are the one who is missing something. It's always worth stopping to double check when this happens.
Perhaps more importantly, if you do happen to be right when everyone else is wrong its important to determine your goals.
Is it more important to be right, or to be happy? If the answer is the latter then its sometimes best to just let people continue being wrong for the sake of being social. Nobody likes to be told they're wrong, so is "correctness" worth more than that person's feelings? Very oten it is not.
unsupp0rted•1h ago
There's almost no time when it's better to try to convince somebody they're wrong. It won't help you, and it won't work anyway, so it won't help them either.
Sure if you're somebody's doctor, and even then you have to pick your battles.
hackingonempty•1h ago
I like to be told I'm wrong. While it is true that I am a nobody it means I'm about to learn something.
mapontosevenths•45m ago
I believe you, but in my own experience I've met more people who say this than who mean this.
Usually it's situational. People might genuinely like to be wrong when the novelty is fun or useful, for example in lab work or in low stakes classwork. However, they despise it with politics, their job, or anything else that might have actual consequences in their lives.
Fricken•29m ago