Socializing With Autism

When it comes to socializing, it’s a challenge with someone with autism. We try and make friends, we want to make friends, but we don’t know how to approach people. We don’t know when it’s a good time to go up to someone and talk to them. When we do get the chance, we don’t know what to say or how to say it. We don’t know if the person we’re talking to is listening just to be nice or they feel like they have to listen because they know its rude to walk away. We feel like non-autistic people are unwelcoming, or don’t want to interact. We may be trying to avoid repeating a past negative experience in a social situation.

We may become particularly anxious in certain social situations. Making friends can cause anxiety because of the high expectations people set and any self-consciousness people with autism may experience. It can be more anxiety-provoking to speak to friends, than to strangers because there is an expectation for the friendship to be in line with other people.

We may not feel confident in their own abilities. Feeling self-conscious, timid and anxious can make it undoubtedly harder for people with autism to establish friendships. If negative self-talk overrides, people will begin to believe they are not as good as others or incapable of at making friends. It can be difficult if people are unaware of their special interests and what they’re looking for in a friend.

There are times when we socialize a little too much and it drains our battery. We need to be able to recharge before we spend any more time out in the world. When we have a lot going on and it feels like its nonstop, we start to get overwhelmed because we’re putting on a front. We are hiding how we’re really feel when life gets busy. We need to adjust and take time for ourselves. As much as we want to socialize, it takes a lot out of us. We can only handle so much at a time.  

Not understanding non-verbal cues from people. Hand gestures and facial expressions are hard to read because we don’t know if it’s because of something we said or if it’s a signal to move it along. We’re not mind readers. Unless you verbally say something, we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing.

Talking on the phone and facetime is hard. It works in the same way as talking to someone in person. We can’t read facial expressions and understand the tone in someone’s voice. Texting and email is a lot easier because we can practice what to say, we can move words around to make the sentence flow better.  If I don’t have to talk on the phone, I won’t.

Some people just have that ability to make friends wherever they go. People with autism have it a lot harder due to not be able to read people. We may come off as rude, we don’t mean to come off that way, it’s just how we react in certain situations or how we say something. Sometimes what we say, we don’t think it through. We just say what’s on our mind and there are other times, we want to say something, and we plan it out in our head, but we don’t have the confidence to actually say it out loud because we don’t want to hurt the person or get in trouble. We don’t like conflict, so we don’t say what we really want to say.

It’s easier said than done when it comes to coming out of our comfort zone. We try new things and a lot of the time, it’s hard since we don’t know anyone. We keep to ourselves, and people watch. We take our time. We need to work up the courage to be able to go up to someone, even then we’re scared that they’re going think we’re weird or the situation doesn’t go as planned. We build up scenarios in our head on how we want something to go and its never how we want it to go when we actually follow through with it.

If you don’t hear from someone, don’t take it the wrong way. There’s no need to blow up someone’s phone with text messages and phone calls. We see the notification and we’re get back to you when we get the chance. Sometimes we’re not in a chatty mood. A lot of the time we’ve been socializing a little too much and we need a mental break to recharge. We’re reach out when we’re ready.