this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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I'm glad you managed to grow into being a social person. Fwiw you sound pretty badass to me getting through all that shit.
Thanks. I wouldn't consider myself fully equipped when it comes to social skills (can't read body language at all), but I at least do socialise and know how to function around other people that I could pass for a normal person. Took me years of intentional training to bring myself to the point of actually talking to people without subconsciously assuming things about them (either malice or apathy).
Hey I’ve struggled quite a bit with social skills. What are your gaps I might have some advice as a fellow fucked up dude learning to connect.
Thank you very much. In a one on one conversation, I usually can participate and talk, but if there are multiple people around me, it almost always ends up with me just not participating in the conversation unless someone specifically asks me something. Also, I really suck at reading body language, so sometimes I misread it and assume someone is uncomfortable with a topic and change it, and only later realise that it was just my imagination.
Okay yeah I think I know what might be going on there.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you’re someone who can take potentially disturbing and unusual information without much fuss as long as it’s presented in an explicit, straightforward manner. That’s a compliment incidentally.
My guess is you have mild autism, never got diagnosed, and as a result have lower than average working memory.
What I can report from my own life — where I had exactly the same one-on-one conversation preference, blindness to body language cues, and panicked alarm when an unexpected third appeared at a planned two-person social occasion — is this:
When I expanded my working memory through focused and long working memory training, the problem disappeared so entirely that I love having four person conversations, and I feel a level of ease and a depth of engagement I never even knew existed with people. And it’s all easier than it ever was before even one on one.
So my recommendation to you is to expand your working memory.
What did it for me was 60 minutes of Follow That Frog on Lumosoty. A paid subscription is necessary to enable repeated playing of the same game.
One hour of that game over and over, no breaks, exhausts my brain for a couple of days and then it finally recovers and I’m enhanced. It’s incredible.
Please promise me you’ll try it.
Wow, that's exactly right, I don't have a problem learning or analysing extremely gruesome stuff, I don't get phased by it, especially if you describe it clinically, though I don't do well with very gory pictures.
I do know I have ADHD, but your guess of autism might also be true... I never got diagnosed.
I will try that game. I always assumed my troubles socialising were just because I never had any friends as a kid and only started reaching out to other people in my mid 20's, so my brain never developed in these areas. It might be that it's working memory (though I am unsure about it, since I always assumed I am average or above average in that field).