Identifying common interests

Real Social Skills

Conversations with unfamiliar people are easier if you can identify common interests as quickly as possible.

In college social environments, there are certain questions it’s almost always socially acceptable to ask that can be helpful:

  • What year are you?
  • Where are you from?
  • What’s your major?

Asking someone’s major can be a good way of detecting mutual interests. 

For instance:

  • Bob: Hey. I’m Bob.
  • Brenda: I’m Brenda.
  • Bob: Nice to meet you. What’s your major?
  • Brenda: I’m not sure yet, but I’m leaning towards physics.
  • Bob: Cool. I was considering that for a while, but decided to go with engineering. Did you ever have a class with Dr Physics?
  • Brenda: Not yet – is he really as hard a grader as everyone says? I’m really interested in optics but he kind of scares me.
  • (They then figure out that they’re both fascinated by optics, which they discuss at length).

Sometimes this works in other social settings in which you can reasonably assume that most people went to college. But in those settings, it’s generally considered more polite to ask where someone went to school before you asked what they studied. I’m not sure why.

You can also sometimes detect common interests by asking someone about their work. That can backfire though, since sometimes it’s used as a way of gauging someone’s social standing relative to the asker. Even if you don’t mean it that way, it might sound like you’re doing that.

Sometimes you can get away with directly asking “So, what do you like to think about?”. This question is considered a bit awkwardly direct, but most people are willing to answer it, and the awkwardness often goes away quickly once you identify a common interest.

You can also see if someone has buttons or pins or something else that indicates what they might be interested in. For instance: someone with a Batman pin is likely to be interested in talking about superheroes. Someone with a political pin is likely to be interested in talking about politics.

Autistics, cluelessly awkward people, and jerks

Real Social Skills

Some people are socially awkward because they don’t know the rules. Those people can learn the rules and not be awkward anymore. That is a different problem than autism.

Being autistic means that, no matter how much you understand, you will not be able to follow all of the rules. There will be some rules you won’t ever be physically capable of following. And some rules you will be capable of following, but with a heavy cost not faced by nonautistic people. And sometimes your abilities will fluctuate. That is a different problem than being awkward out of ignorance.

It’s also a different problem than being a jerk. Some people are jerks who don’t much care about being good to others. This is a different problem than not knowing the rules, and it’s a different problem than being physically incapable of following the rules.

Some people are kind of unintentional jerks because they don’t understand much about *how* to be good to others. This is a different problem from not caring about others. It’s also a different problem from not understanding the rules, or being unable to follow the rules. Treating people well is a learned set of skills. It’s not the same as social conformity or appearing normal.

Autistic people can be considerate of others. Autistic people can treat others well. This does not depend on following all of the rules all of the time. Following the rules is one tool people can use to be considerate of others. It is not the only tool.

Being autistic means that being considerate of other people will look different for you than most other people. It doesn’t mean that your neurology dooms you to be a jerk. It just means that you have to learn to treat others well in a way that works with rather than against who you are.

When crying in therapy is a red flag – and when it isn’t

Real Social Skills
A reader asked:
I used to cry (I mean weep, sob, have tears in eyes) sometimes when someone said something that made me feel understood. I used to often cry in therapy sessions. I liked crying in these cases; I felt I was working through things. I can see how some therapists might feel that they’re being successful if the person cries. Sometimes it’s that way. But they shouldn’t just do whatever makes someone cry. That could be very bad, too, I imagine.
Yes. Crying, in itself, is not a red flag. Crying in therapy *can* be a good thing.
What’s bad is when a therapist pursues getting someone to cry as an end in itself.

“What he would have wanted”

Real Social Skills

Talking about what someone would have wanted only makes sense if that person is dead.

If the person you’re talking about is still alive, talk about what they do want.

And assume that they want to live. Almost everyone does.

Even if they’re brain damaged, even if they’re in pain, even if they have dementia, even if they no longer recognize people.

They’re still a person. They’re still there. And they still want things.

So don’t ask what they would have wanted. Ask what they do want.

Phones

Real Social Skills
A reader asked:
It’s harder to hear tone of voice over the telephone. Phone lines convey what the phone company thinks is the minimum information needed to understand speech. It doesn’t convey music well, apparently. It’s not very good for people speaking a language they’re not very fluent in. I have trouble recognizing whose voice it is or even sometimes whether it’s a man or a woman; this can be embarassing. It’s not lying to say “I can’t hear tone of voice very well over this phone connection.”
That makes a lot of sense.

Using books for actors to learn nonverbal communication?

Real Social Skills
tor-without-an-h asked:
 
There are many books written for actors that talk about how to convey emotion through tone, facial expressions, and body language. Although they tend to be over-exaggerated, I’ve found them to be helpful because they point out common social cues that non-neurotypical people don’t always learn otherwise. Some books even mention how social cues vary between cultures.
 
I’ve heard those can be useful. Do you know any specific books that are good?
 
A comment from Mel Baggs:
 
I’m generally really uncomfortable with acting-based “social skills” because a lot of what people are looking at is stage conventions, not natural emotions. Then to some people stage conventions start to look more realistic than real emotions. I hate it. (Especially since I often get the short end of the stick in such situations. I’m 100% real, but I’m rarely a stage convention. And I’ve been penalized for that.)
 
That makes a lot of sense.

I’m not really familiar with acting at all. It seems plausible to me that some people could learn some things from it, but I could see how it could be really dangerous to put too much trust in it.

 
 

When you don’t understand tones of voice on the phone

Real Social Skills
dowhatmakesyouhappy-no-regrets asked:
Love your blog! I’m an Aspie/NLDer and 25. One of my biggest problems is understanding tone of voice. Like I can’t talk on the phone. Everything gets lost on me. As a result, I never know if people are joking, being serious, are mad at me, etc. It’s very frustrating for the other person and even more so for me. Do you have any advice? Do you know of any good websites that help people with this?
I have a couple of suggestions:
Watch more TV:
  • TV shows can be a good way to learn about tones of voice
  • Partly because they have predictable tropes, so it’s easier to have a sense of what’s probably going on than in real conversations
  • It’s also possible to watch the same episode over and over in order to learn new things from it.
  • Once you already know what happens, it can be easier to pay attention to other things like tones of voice and other conversational cues
  • Watching TV can also give you useful scripts and phrases
  • Tropes happen in real conversations too; understanding the tropes can make conversations easier to follow

Some specific thoughts about which shows might be helpful:

  • Shows made for teenagers in the 90s tend to have a lot of telephone conversations. Often, both people are visible, so you can also watch facial expressions.
  • If you have trouble telling TV characters apart, try watching cartoons made for adults. (kids cartoons often don’t have enough dialogue to be helpful).
  • Futurama, The Simpsons, and King of the Hill are particularly good for this because large parts of the shows are about conversation
  • Community is also a good show to watch. It’s easier to tell the characters apart because they actually all look different. A lot of shows have identical looking white people with the same haircut, clothing, makeup, voice and mannerisms.
  • Community is easier to follow because the characters look different in *all* of those ways. The main characters all have different skin, faces, hair, clothing, voices, and mannerisms.
  • Community also has a realistic autistic character who successfully interacts with non-autistic characters. Watching him interact might help you figure out stuff about interacting

Use alternative means of communication:

  • Not everything has to be done over the phone
  • Sometimes it’s easier to use email or text conversations, or to meet people in person
  • It’s ok if that’s what you need.
  • I hardly ever use the phone socially except to arrange other kinds of interaction, except when I’m talking to a couple of people I know really well
  • Sometimes you can avoid incomprehensible phone conversations by claiming that your phone’s reception is bad. People usually believe that. It’s not even really a lie – it’s just that the reception problem is taking place between your ears rather than between the phones
  • You can also let your phone go to voicemail and text back instead of calling back.
  • Or say things like “I’d really like to talk to you, but this isn’t a good time. Can we get together sometime next week? How about Tuesday?”
  • If you understand body language at all, you might find that Skype is more usable for you than the phone

I don’t know of any effective resources effectively aimed at helping people to understand tones of voice. I suspect that they don’t exist, given what I know of how these things tend to be presented to autistic people. Social skills classes are usually oriented towards making people seem acceptable by following rules. They should be oriented towards helping people to understand things well enough to interact on their own terms, but they generally aren’t. Also, autism tests involving tones of voice are exceptionally ridiculous.

I could be wrong though. Do any of y’all know of any useful resources that teach tones of voice explicitly?

Supporting people who are overly apologetic

Real Social Skills

Some people apologize all the time, for everything. This can be very annoying.

Here’s a conversation:

  • Mary: I like ice cream. I don’t want to order a slice of cake. I’m sorry.
  • Darlene: Dude, you don’t have to apologize!
  • Mary: Argh, I’m sorry about that.
  • Darlene: ::headdesk:::

Telling someone off for that kind of thing doesn’t help. People who do this do it for a reason; they’ve often been taught that they always have to want what other people want. They’ve been taught that it’s rude to ever express a desire. This is not something you can fix by getting annoyed.

In fact, you can’t fix it at all, because you can’t actually fix other people in any case. But getting annoyed makes the problem worse. So does telling someone off for apologizing. Some people need to apologize and adopt a deferential tone in order to feel ok about expressing preferences and boundaries. If you put pressure on people not to apologize, it makes it harder for them to tell you what they want. Don’t take it personally, and don’t take it out on them. It’s not your fault, and it’s not their fault either.

There are things that you can say that sometimes help other people to feel more comfortable expressing desires, if you can say them in a non-annoyed tone of voice:

  • “That’s not a problem.”
  • “That’s fine.”
  • “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Asking for an explanation as a way of calling out hate jokes? (A guest post)

Real Social Skills
partslagparthero submitted to realsocialskills:

I find that asking people to explain “hate jokes” can work in two situations. One is if the person hasn’t really thought through the implications of the joke themselves. Sometimes people who don’t belong to the group the joke is targeting seem to get that it’s a “dirty” joke and tell it because they want to tell a dirty joke, but they honestly haven’t thought about the effect on the target group. If you ask them to explain it – especially if you have some kind of friendly relationship with them and belong to the target group – they’ll often realize why the joke is problematic, apologize, and hopefully think harder in the future.

The other is basically when someone is telling this kind of joke in public to communicate hateful things about a group while trying to remain “socially acceptable”, and it would NOT be socially acceptable for them to state the prejudices and assumptions behind their joke in an overt way. Essentially trying to prevent someone from expressing hate without taking responsibility for it – in theory they’ll either have to stop telling the jokes or admit to the opinions they hold.

This can work – if you have a good idea of what the person’s intentions are behind the joke and you won’t be unsafe if the person gets angry at you when they interpret your questions as a criticism of their actions. Especially in the second case, I wouldn’t expect the person to believe you actually didn’t understand the joke.

That makes sense.