I graduated high school in 2005, one out of some 300 of my graduating class. Had plenty of friends. Went to community college, several folks I knew from school went to the same community college, met plenty of new folks. Had plenty of friends. Transferred to university, had plenty of friends, got to know my roommates pretty close, that kind of thing.
Out of college, I disappeared into what I thought was going to be my career for a few years. When I came back up and looked around, I found myself in a different world with people that aren’t people anymore, there are walking talking eating shitting cell phone stands.
I don’t try to socialize for the same reason I don’t go hunting for Carolina parakeets: Interpersonal relationships aren’t a thing that exists in the world anymore. We killed them all and the corpse of the last one is on display behind glass at the Raleigh museum of Natural Sciences.
Interacting with people is like any other skill. If you don’t do it badly at first, you’ll never get to the point where you can do it well.
I was an isolator who got a job where I was dealing with everyone in a public health facility. By ‘everyone’ I mean everyone from doctors and police to homeless schizophrenics.
It was sink or swim, but I got the skills.
I was very social when I was younger. Worked retail jobs from 15-23. I didn’t have and technically still don’t have a problem talking to whoever, whether it’s a crackhead at the library or a prof at school. I just got to a point where I couldn’t handle the abuse from family, being betrayed by my ex of 7 years, serious health issue, and noone wanted to help me through it regardless of what kindness I showed them in the past. Really woke me up to people’s bullshit, smile to your face but consider you an annoyance when you’re down and out. Made me really reconsider what I wanted to spend my few years on earth doing. Putting up with people, or providing myself with peace and security.
Edit: what I’ve found about being a forgiving person is that you can forgive someone for 100 of their faults but when the last straw breaks the camels back, you are automatically an anti-social asshole because you have a limit to how much BS you can handle
Let’s break it down.
First, what kind of ‘peace and security’ are you going to have without other people? Even if you manage to amass a vast fortune, you’ll need some kind of caretakers.
Second, you act as if every single person you interact with is out to get you. You had a lousy family and apparently one adult relationship that floundered after 7 years. That sounds about average, tbh.
As for your health issues. Have you looked for support groups of people with the same problem?
social batterysocial spicy pillow
Yup. It’s part and parcel of my autism.
There must be loads and loads of autism types. I see comments like this on Lemmy across the board. When I think of autism I think of truly slow autistic people. Can you explain deeper? I’ve looked online but there’s a lot of wildly conflicting information.
In recent years we’ve come to the conclusion that autism is much broather than previously understood and than many more people fall om its’ spectrum. People that have an account on a platform like Lemmy are automatically highly probably autistic in some way because or the barrier to entry and specific interests that normal people wouldn’t even bother with.
I personally do not like the way that the world now tosses around autism like its a collectable, that started up with adhd and its only gotten worse, and then it started up again with autism.
I understanding the benefits of having labels for things but like, you absolutely don’t need to rush finding labels for things you experience when you can just do the things to improve your experiences that you know you need to do, and if you can’t do them this is just a sign that more focus on health habits are needed somewhere because sleep diet exercise is our bodys gas and oil that is absolutely vital to working efficiently so we don’t kill ourselves.
I know it’s kind of a trend but I think that is the case because so many people identify with it.
I wouldn’t have cared about the label itself it if wouldn’t have come with a vast amount of knowledge and explanations for many aspects of my life. This is why I cared about this and why I talk about it with others, because deep diving into the topic has helped me learn a lot more about myself more than anything else in my life and it explains many of my interactions with others as well as other peoples behaviours.
And to be honest many of the struggles of people on the authism and ADHD spectrum are not really something that can be solved with typical self improvement tactics, it’s something to manage or maybe to medicate, but if you haven’t found out that you fit the label it would be impossible to figure this out.
Hmm, maybe its a bias of mine because I’ve had totally the opposite experience, I knew way too much about all these kinds of things before the terms got trendy so it only ever seems like hindrance to fixing things.
For me, it’s more like:
My social battery has been dead for a while and I can’t moderate my behavior enough to get new people to put up with my bullshit.
Mucho self-aware. 👌
That’s why I hate the insertion of “mindfulness” into every type of self-help.
Motherfucker, did it ever occur to you that my hyper-awareness of shit is part of the cause of my problems?
Sometimes mindfulness is more of a soft awareness. Not really thinking or knowing about anything in particular.
I also don’t like how it’s used, because I have the same problem as you describe. It reminds me of trying to maintain a stoic perspective, being non-intellectually aware of sensations in your body, and trying to focus on what you can control.
I’m wired wrong for most social interactions. It’s a serious problem, and my attempts to overcome it generally make it much worse. But “accepting myself” means accepting unemployment, and then how can I pay rent? (Currently unemployed and living with family).
However, I don’t think people’s social behavior is all BS. I try not to be resentful. I know there’s lots of BS, but I also know that’s what becomes most obvious to me, so it’s partly a matter of perception.
Mind elaborating on how you’re wired wrong? Genuinely curious to see which, if any, traits we share.
Sure. There are layers to it. If I socially interact for a few hours then I’ll become exhausted, probably cranky. A psychiatrist said I have ADHD, and the sensory input of multiple persons being around is too much. Social environments tend to be overwhelming.
I also have a social phobia. I don’t think it’s genetic, since I didn’t have it as a kid. But my teenage years (11-18) were severely isolated, and full of humiliation and severe loneliness. I just never recovered from that. I spent my 20s trying to learn, forcing myself into all these social environments, but it was mostly just a torturous cycle of collapse.
I over-rely on my sense of humor, and this often causes problems. Most of the time it works really well (people like to laugh, and they appreciate a good joke), so I can make a very good first impression. But when it comes to “actual” social interaction, I simply have no idea what to say, like ever. I can negotiate well on other people’s behalf, and I’m good at explaining things, but in open-ended social situations I tend to be weirdly quiet or else I say horribly wrong things without realizing it. I’ve experienced multiple instances of people doing prolonged campaigns of social warfare against me because I accidentally insulted them, and they recognize my vulnerabilities. I’m terrible at reading non-verbal communication (this isn’t just a product of social anxiety or phobia… my brain just doesn’t pick up on these things, doesn’t know what to do with them). So basically I’m not a social creature. Some people actually have thought that I was mentally handicapped (or experiencing cognitive decline, or that I’m “on drugs”) because I just don’t respond like an intelligent person. But then I’ll go to “therapy” (what a disgusting joke) and they’ll see how well I can explain myself, and they’ll declare me to be fine. Clearly no problems with “communication” (but socializing isn’t just explaining things to a person).
I could go on and on, but that paints a picture.
You probably did not say horribly wrong things, those people are likely just assholes.
