How to be social, full guide from someone on the spectrum (with TL;DR)

HOW TO BE SOCIAL, FULL G:

I have aspergers. This is a solution that may work for some people.

People who are social naturally are so because they have never experienced reasons not to be so. It's trivial to be happy, positive, pleasant and charismatic if basically nothing bad has ever happened to you in your life, or you were buffered from whatever did happen by gold star parents and/or a genuinely supportive group of friends.

The challenge comes when you've been neglected, bullied and harassed while young. Once you've had those experiences, it is no longer possible to simultaneously speak your mind and be charismatic. You now forever have to choose between emotional availability, integrity and speaking your mind, vs positivity, charisma and projecting safety. Where advice is needed is on navigating that fundamental problem.

The problem isn't really "I don't know how a charismatic person acts", it's more "I don't know how to get myself to a place where I genuinely want to act the way a charismatic person acts".

So how do you get yourself to a place where you genuinely want to act the way a charismatic person acts?

1. Become attractive -> hit the gym, shave, use parfume, have a good haircut, clean face.

May seem unrelated, after all, what does being attractive have to do with being social? a lot, in fact. Have you heard of the stereotypical "Chads with autism?", yes, I was one of them. I was shy and awkward but didn't had really much of an issue with being shy and awkward because people would just go and talk to me, because I was good looking. I refused girls while being shy and awkward.

Mind you, I was not as self-aware of it as I am now because I was well a "Chads with autism", it just seemed normal for me at the time so I didn't question it. If you are good looking, hot, cute, call it how you want. People want to engage with you and talk to you. If people want to engage with you and talk to you, you get more socialization, therefore you have an easier time learning social skills on the go and becoming social, without even trying.

Level of Aspiration Theory says that people basically try to maximize the things they can get while minimize the risk of rejection. Attractive = socially desireable. And by that virtue, you're going to get rejected a lot less, no matter what you're doing. The researchers predicted that individuals will chose a date of approximately his own level of social desirability when making a realistic social choice. However, that's not how it happened at all.

In very true human fashon: everyone, regardless of how they looked, from the most attractive to the least attractive people, everyone asked out the most attractive dates regardless of whether they will be succcesful or not.

This also explains why attractive people are usually the ones complaining about unattractive friends while unattractive people never complain about attractive friends. To them they are just regular friends. Attractive people see beauty as a social currency. Unattractive people see beauty as a shallow unimportant thing that don't really matter. And yet, given the choice, both the attractive and unattractive group both seem to attractive people. So I would say that attractive people are right to see beauty as a social currency that allows them to do things.

The advantage of looks aka "pretty privilege" is just OP.

And looks are not only genetics. This is not to demotivate you, quite the opposite, this is to motivate you to want to become as good looking as possible so that you reap those benefits.

2. Seem safe -> make people feel confident that you will reply because it makes them feel comfortable around you.

Now that we established that weirdly enough the first piece of advice is to say to yourself "I want to be a hot man/woman" or "you just have to be attractive, that's all" because there's a lot of social benefit to it. The second piece of advice is to make people feel safe around you, feel like you won't reject them, feel like you won't ignore them, feel like you will reply to them, feel like you will taken them into account.

It's very important to make people feel like you will taken them into account. Everybody has a level of insecurities (about their body, their sociability) and anxieties (about being in a new enviroment, not knowing anyone) when talking to others. By coming across as someone who feels safe, feels like will always reply to them and take them into account, you make people more likely to want to engage with you, because they know what to expect, they feel safe.

Let's say you're at a party, you don't know anyone, you have insecurities and anxieties when talking to others. You don't really want to talk to anyone at this party, you feel very weird. But there is one person who, even though you know this person for like 5 minutes, comes across as someone who has always taken you into account and acknowledged your existence and replied to you. (always been like, hey, you care, you exist)

Will you feel safe talking to this person? he/she gave you no reasons not to. Only gave you reasons for the opposite.

You can do to others what others do to you. So how do you become like this person that makes others feel safe? when you know someone for like 5 minutes, come across as someone who is taking them into account and acknowledges their existence and replies to them. Simply looking at them and saying "hello, how are you doing" with a handshake can do the trick, anything to imply you are interested in them.

Someone posts a meme in a group chat. Be the one that replies, has a reaction, or something. People appreciate people like that. Even if you're the only one replying, they feel safer around you because they feel acknowledged first.

Simply being like "hey, look at you there, you exist!" with your actions, not literally saying that to them, can make people closer to you.

3. Coop & Betray -> when to not use the advice given above.

This is because of trauma. This is what keeps a person from being naturally charismatic. Bad things happened so bad things may happen, so how do we safeguard against that? We can't be all that eager, with initiative when we had bad experiences and are afraid those bad experiences may happen again.

Well, you safeguard against the bad experiences that's how. You know what the best strategy in a "coop & betray" game is? start with co-op then do what your partner previously did. You start friendly and polite with people, appropiate for the task at hand, and then respond based on their response. You start nice, they are nice, you continue nice. You start nice, they are not nice, you stop being nice.

It's a way of being protective without being pre-protective which is basically what trauma is. Simply being like "hey, look at you there, you exist!" with your actions, not literally saying that to them, is a good thing. But is not a good thing when that person literally ignores you and you keep being like "hey, look at you there, you exist!" with them.

So do all of that, with the "hey, look at you there, you exist!" with your actions, not literally saying that to them, and with the someone posts a meme in a group chat, be the one that replies, has a reaction, or something. Only, after a while later with the same person you see a reciprocity. This is only with the same person not with people in general. If not, stop. Stop being that way with that person, simply keep being that way with other people, who will reciprocate. (do it, until you see evidence that they don't answer with the same coin)

4. Be moderate -> you should not have no filter, you should not have too much filter, you should have just the right amount of filter.

Have a more moderate approach. If you are in a formal setting like your job you should keep things formal, you are in a formal setting, at your job, after all.

You may not have to use words such as "sir" but you still have to keep a formal setting because it's a job. As in still behaving like you would subconsciously use "sir" as in being respectful and being considerate before asking for help, first you try to fix the issue yourself, if you can't look around and see who is not busy, if they are not busy telling them "you have some time?" and then asking for help.

Asking others if you can see what they are doing if you want to learn. Being polite, both in a formal and informal setting, is appreciated. It is expected for you to ask for help if you are at the beginning but at the same time not to get in the way of others' work. Ideally, you should ask for help in all scenarios but not to the point where it bothers other people.

You don't want to be in the extreme of never asking for help and never figuring out how to fix the issue. Or in the extreme of always asking for help at the slightest inconvenience. Work on it, try to fix it yourself, if you can't, ask for help. Both working on it yourself and asking for help when you can't is appreciated.

"If you have time, can you show me how to do this? (something you don't know, not something trivial)", "I saw this thing, so I have to do that?", "I'll try to be better safe than sorry".

Or "hey, do you have a little time to show you something?". Or if 2 people are asking you for things at the same time you can say: "Joe is showing me something, is it okay if I come back later?", "it's okay in a few minutes? I'm in a discussion with Bob". Most people will say "ok".

Generally, be polite, be willing to work, and keep people up to date. So that everybody knows what is going on, that is the purpose of communication.

As a rule of thumb: be open to communication. Be quite eager to work, what do I do?

There was a conversation that I managed to catch between 2 managers once, one was complaining about a employee who was quite skilled but never took the time or the initative to do things on itself. Don't be that guy, showing initiative and willingness to work is important. That is appreciated.

Think to yourself like: I will always do what is right or necessary, communicate with the team, I work for a cause and have to be serious, communicate with the team (open, no inhibitions, all that good stuff), that's what's important, modern culture standards, I am willing to work and want to work (in fact, I am quite eager to work - what do I do?), there is a time to play and a time to be serious and to work. Simply try to make things work.

Why? because..

5. people don't have time to discern between merely the incompetent or unlucky.

This is one of the things I learned in life. And also why you should not blame stuff on your condition. I don't know what condition you have, but people only look at the and care about the results.

It doesn't matter if you have a harder time than the average person. People are not going to give you extra points if you managed to lift 150 kg as a 100 kg or 50 kg person, you still managed to lift 150 kg at the end of the day. People are not going to give you extra points if you managed to make a good speech as a natural sociallite or socially anxious person, it's still a good speech at the end of the day. People only care about the and keep you accountable to the results.

And you should do the same lest you fall in the trap of blaming your condition for everything. In a way, becoming a self-fullfiling prophecy.

People are only going to care if you did a good job, it doesn't matter your circumstances. It doesn't matter if you were unlucky, or have a problem, or whatever, or you were merely incompetent. People are only going to judge you looking at the results of your actions, not your circumstances.

Going back to the be moderate idea (in a way these 2 ideas are linked), do not forget where you are, do not forget the context.

If at your job you have to be a certain way, with your friends you can be as open as you want and afford. But stay away from controversial stuff, or at least take a moderate stance in their cases. People are going to have opinions either strong pro or strongly against in one case and nobody is going to like you for it.

Abortion: are you pro-life or pro-choice? if you say you are pro-life, people who are pro-life are going to appreciate you a bit for making that statement clear, but that's about it, no big deal to them. But people who are pro-choice are really going to hate you and be hostile to you for it. This goes for just about anything that is controversial. Best way to deal with it is to avoid it or have a moderate middle stance. Because you have nothing to gain and a lot to lose for it.

Despite our branding of 'the rational animal', neurotypical are as clueless as people on the spectrum are on socializing when it comes to debate. Most of the debates in TV or real-life are not really debates. More of a heated discussion covered in nice words. Stay away from it.

Just because I'm talking about that, doesn't mean I support that.

6. take a risk - Make comments about things you see. Eventually you'll have to go for it. (take a risk -> see how people will react -> adjust)

How to be communicative? that's how: take a risk - Make comments about things you see. Eventually you'll have to go for it.

You see a bird, want to make a comment about that bird but are unsure of people's reaction? make a comment about the bird and see people's reaction. If the comment is positive, great. If the comment is negative, next time you'll know better. (but remember, middle moderate stance, stay away from controversial stances, take a moderate stance in their cases)

That's how you learn.

That's how everything socializing can be summed up to, you take a risk by talking about something you feel like talking, then you take the feedback and adjust. Eventually, with more data and data and data gathered you'll develop an intuitive sense about what is appropiate and inappropiate to talk about, but you have to take that risk, that first step, to actually have data to collect.

Otherwise, you'll do nothing, get nothing, and stay where you are, don't grow, don't learn, and that's how you remain unsocial, un attuned to social clues. Social clues are a skill that can be learned even if you are anti-talent. It's a skill like any other, just not your strongest suit, doesn't mean you can't learn it in the way everybody learns anything.

7. you have to take the feedback and you have to take the risk - that's where most people fail.

Notice that there are 2 parts to this: (a) you take the risk and talk about that thing you notice, (b) take the feedback and adjsut.

You have to consciously take the feedback and adjsut, you have to consciously look at what it means and make sense of it. (ahh, it's horrible; or avocado if you support such horibility, ... i mean to say, anyway you eat those things so no judgement here, but I said you'll be upset - look, you have this bad trait)

At least for me, it doesn't happen by default. I don't know how it works for you, but it has to be a conscious process for you, the taking of the feedback.

Combine that with the initiative in the risk taking of talking about the thing you see, or the thing you are interested in, and you are already in a good path towards learning.

8. you will fail - and that's okay

I'm 100% certain you will mess things up. There's no way not to, if you had no issue with socializing as in saying the appropiate things you wouldn't be here. But that's the thing, and that's a good thing, because you learn, and next time you will do better. (I'm 100% certain you will mess things up, that's good, you are on the right track)

You will mess things up, but that's the thing, you mess things up and get feedback and adjust. (this is how you learn)

If you 100% protect yourself, never say anything out of fear of sounding inappropiate. (FOCUS ON LEARNING RATHER THAN DOING EVERYTHING PERFECT DAY 1)

What do you think will happen next? you will never learn. Never adjust. etc.

Extra notes: As I said, if you 100% protect yourself, never say anything out of fear of sounding inappropiate or making a comment about a thing you will never learn. So you have to take that risk and make comments about things you see, even at the risk of being rejected.

If you never open up you will never get the feedback to adjust.

That's how everybody does it, from a young age, it's just that it's a more natural process for neurotypicals. Do you think that babies or children are socially appropiate by neurotypical adult standards? no.

But neurotypical adults understand that, understand that children and babies behave different from them. They understand that because they the neurotypicals are the majority. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it yourself to learn.

It's the lack of feedback that holds you back. (because you want everything to be perfect, rather than learn, the process)

You don't have enough data collected to know what is right or wrong, so of course you are anxious when you don't know what is right or wrong. And for good reason, you don't know what is right or wrong. If you would, you wouldn't have this problem and wouldn't be here.

Every fear is as its core an insecurity. Why are you afraid of public speaking? you are afraid that you will mess things up. But if you were an expert in public speaking, certain that you will nail it because you have the experience and the know-how, would you be as afraid? no, you have no reason not to. It would be like a fish being afraid of being in the water.

And you have a lack of feedback because of a lack of talking.

So you have to talk in order to be able to get that feedback and adjust in the first place.

And remember that second point with, simply being like "hey, look at you there, you exist!" with your actions, not literally saying that to them, can make people closer to you. Your attitude is important, very important in fact. (and then the rule, do that, until proven otherwise)

How you say things, can have 100 different meanings depending on your attitude. (this is how you become a social butterfly)

The second point is about attitude, a good attitude helps. It's not going to do miracles but it will very definetly be an improvement. The attitude in which you say a neutral thing has a huge effect.

Like, you go to school: Take the initiative to go and talk to people, right away and right away, and be happy when talking to them, be expressive.

What are you saying? doesn't really matter as much as the attitude. It can be a simple "hello, how are you doing?", "how have you been doing?", "did you work on that project?", simply acknowledging that they exist is a big deal for them.

It's one of those weird cases where your attitude matters a lot more than what you actually say.

How do you get your attitude? it sounds weird, but impose itself on you. Fake it until you make it, and eventually, you will make it, naturally.

Attitude, like socializing in itself and saying the appropiate things, is a process of learning.

The issue is: You are afraid that you extroverted self is inappropiate. So you have to test your extroverted self by exposing it to the world for feedback, and then get feedback and adjust.

It's very important to take feedback so that you stay grounded.

Likely, you got where you are because of bad feedback, so you need good feedback, with good behaviors. Positive reinforcement.

How do you get to good feedback and positive reinforcement? you get the bad feedback and apply it to yourself so that you eventually get to/switch to good feedback and positive reinforcement.

And once you get to positive reinforcement is already an easy game.

As the only way to get good behavior is to see the bad behavior, from the bad feedback, and adjust. But there's no way you'll get either good or bad feedback if you make no behavior in the first place. (you fail out of lack of trying, not out of trying too much)

Because if you never talk and such, you will never have any feedback to adjust to begin with.

Even good morning \*smiles towards them\* is a good chance in attitude, it makes people feel acknowledged, taken into account.

So expose yourself out there, try to be open to get feedback, good or bad, and then adjust based on feedback, that's how you get to become social. While also staying within being yourself, being true to yourself.

You don't just copy-paste what Anthony Robbins does, you develop your own style, your own personalized individual style based on yourself and who you are, you remain true to yourself while also learning how to be social. By exposing yourself out there, and taking feedback. (using your own attitude, develop your own style, your own personalized style)

And yes I talked on attitude about "fake it until you make it" but that's really a small part and as I mentioned it eventually becomes natural, I don't know the same can be said for copying the behavior of Anthony Robbins or as such if you don't feel like it, you don't drain yourself.

YOUR ATTITUDE BEHAVE - AND DICTATES HOW PEOPLE SHOULD TREAT YOU:
How you feel about yourself is how you "transition" to other people that they should feel about you. Call it "energy", call it "attitude", call it "vibe", it's pretty much the same thing. Also can make people feel more open and safe if you're open, or less open if you are also closed yourself. When someone is open with you, it makes you feel want to be open with them.

Your attitude dictates on other people how they should treat you. Their attitude dictates on you how you should treat them.

This is the quote in question:
Your attitude dictates on other people how they should treat you.
Their attitude dictates on you how you should treat them.

If you behave in a fun-spirited way, you sort of dictate to people that they should behave with you in a fun-spirited way. As long as you are fun-spirited within appropiate limits. You make them want to behave in a fun-spirited way with you.

The attitude that you hold towards yourself is the attitude that other people are going to hold towards you, most of the time.

How you carry yourself is how other people will carry you. Or how they are inclined to carry you by default. How they want to carry you.

This is not the whole story of course. There's also being within appropiate social limits as I said. i.e. if you're a murderer people won't think of you as not a murderer because you don't think of yourself as one. But this is a big chunk of it. This is about 80% of it. How you behave, it makes them want to behave the same way.

People don't know what attitude to take. So they take the attitude of the person who has the attitude. Of the person who has that attitude towards themselves. They take the attitude of the audience, the person they are talking to. They do it subconsciously, without thinking about it, without realising. That is why if someone is safe and open with you, it makes you feel like being like safe and open with them. It's a reciprocity, humans have a natural tendency towards reciprocity.

It's like communicating "this is how I want to be treated" whether it's about pride, being funny, being engaging, being fun-spirited, etc.

That seems to be the secret of attitude. It can make or break you. Depending on how you adopt it.

 

TL;DR VERSION:

1. Looks matter a lot more than you think -> In a study, everyone threw Game Theory out of the window and everyone went for the most attractive person, attractive and non-attractive people alike.

Some people may view looks as shallow. Shallow? yes, but they get results, real results. In that study, both attractive and unattractive people went for the looks. Probably there were attractive and unattractive people who consider looks shallow as well among them. So it doesn't matter what they consider, it matters what they do, and what do they do? they follow the looks.

Becoming more good looking will improve your social life a lot more.

To the point of random people hitting on you, paying more attention to you, and stuff like that. And if more people hit on you and pay more attention to you, you get more positive reinforcement, and so you learn well. You also get a lot more social experience and so yet again you learn more and well.

Simply by virtue of being good lookings, you get more attention and people wanting to hit on you, this is how important good looks are. Giving you more social experience and more positive reinforcement.

2. Seem safe & open with people, make them feel confident that you will reply -> Because, if people feel safe and open with you, they will be more likely to talk to you and want to talk to you and feel comfortable with you and all the good stuff.

Make people feel safe around you, feel like you won't reject them, feel like you won't ignore them, feel like you will reply to them, feel like you will taken them into account.

Everybody has a bit of anxiety when it comes to talking to new people or other people. No matter who you are, it's impossible to feel perfect in all social situations. This is also normal. So acknowledge people's anxety of talking to new people or other people when doing that. And seek to be safe and open with them so that you make them feel comfortable around you.

If they know that you are "safe". They are more likely to want to talk to you and like to talk to you. If you make them feel good, they will like to talk to you in the future. By "good" I mean projecting "safety" and "openness" with them so that they know "this is good territory", "I can trust this person".

Simply being like "hey, look at you there, you exist!" with your actions. A sort of indirectly "I'm here for you".

You kind of want to push it, to be all around them, but don't want to push it too much. And if it doesn't work out take feedback and adjust.

What if, there is one person who, even though you know this person for like 5 minutes, comes across as someone who has always taken you into account and acknowledged your existence and replied to you. Always been like, hey, you care, you exist.

This is how you overcome that everybody has a bit of anxiety when it comes to talking to new people or other people barrier.

By projecting safety and openness.

3. Coop & betray, when not to do that and change your tone as above. -> You do all of that, all that good stuff, but someone ignores you. What do you do? you stop doing that. You stop doing that afterwards, you don't stop doing that pre-emptively, and this is key. Because not all people are the same.

This is because of trauma. This is what keeps a person from being naturally charismatic. Fear of rejection. And how do you keep trauma in check? you rationalize rejection well.

You have to (a) do it ; (b) not do it if it doesn't work. But most importantly and first and foremost you have to (a) do it. You have to be social first before seeing the feedback, otherwise you will run without seeing the feedback.

Do it, until you see evidence that they don't answer with the same coin.

But, the fact that you did it is great and on the right track.

And if you fail, don't take that rejection personally, because it really is not.

The most resilient and social charimastic people don't never take rejection, but they don't take it personally, it's not a big thing of who they are, it's not a big part of who they are, it's something that happens to other people them (they rejected me, they didn't want to talk to them), not to you (I was a failure, I didn't want to talk to other people, I did something wrong or was too much, this is why it failed).

It's like, hey, I did by best and tried, if it didn't work out it didn't work out. It's not my fault I did my best and did great. I did all I could to talk with this person and engage with this person, they didn't want to reciprocate, it's not my fault.

4. Be moderate, stay away from controversial stuff, it's never good, if you want to talk about controversial stuff have a moderate stance, but stay away from them, instead talk about everything something else -> Have a more moderate approach, be open to communication, eager to work, willing to work, and keep people up to date.

5. People don't have time to discern between merely the incompetent or unlucky -> So don't make excuses for yourself.

6. Take a risk -> see how people will react -> adjust. But remember, middle moderate stance, stay away from controversial stances, take a moderate stance in their cases. That's how you learn.

Eventually, with more data and data and data gathered you'll develop an intuitive sense about what is appropiate and inappropiate to talk about.

7. You have to take the feedback and you have to take the risk -> You have to consciously take the feedback and adjsut, you have to consciously look at what it means and make sense of it. Ahh, it's horrible; or avocado if you support such horibility - look, you have this bad trait.

8. You will fail, and that's okay, I'm 100% certain you will mess things up, that's good, you are on the right track -> This is how you learn. Focus on learning rather than doing everything perfect day 1.

Extra: If you 100% protect yourself, never say anything out of fear of sounding inappropiate or making a comment about a thing you will never learn. You have to take that risk and make comments about things you see, even at the risk of being rejected.

If you never open up you will never get the feedback to adjust.

That's how everybody does it, from a young age, it's just that it's a more natural process for neurotypicals. Do you think that babies or children are socially appropiate by neurotypical adult standards? no.

Everybody knows that, understands that, understand that children and babies behave different from them. But taking feedback they adjust.

It's the lack of feedback that holds you back. Because you want everything to be perfect, rather than learn, the process.

So you have to talk in order to be able to get that feedback and adjust in the first place. And remember that second point with, simply being like "hey, look at you there, you exist!" with your actions. And then the rule, do that, until proven otherwise.

This is how you become a social butterfly.

Attitude: The attitude in which you say a neutral thing has a huge effect. Take the initiative to go and talk to people, right away and right away, and be happy when talking to them, be expressive.

How do you get your attitude? it sounds weird, but impose itself on you. Fake it until you make it, and eventually, you will make it, naturally.

Attitude, like socializing in itself and saying the appropiate things, is a process of learning.

The issue is: You are afraid that you extroverted self is inappropiate. So you have to test your extroverted self by exposing it to the world for feedback, and then get feedback and adjust. It's very important to take feedback so that you stay grounded. Likely, you got where you are because of bad feedback, so you need good feedback, with good behaviors. Positive reinforcement.

How do you get to good feedback and positive reinforcement? you get the bad feedback and apply it to yourself so that you eventually get to/switch to good feedback and positive reinforcement.

But you cannot get good feedback if first you don't: (a) Try it. (b) Try it fully. (c) Have experience. (d) Listen to the feedback.

And once you get to positive reinforcement is already an easy game.

As the only way to get good behavior is to see the bad behavior, from the bad feedback, and adjust. But there's no way you'll get either good or bad feedback if you make no behavior in the first place.

You fail out of lack of trying, not out of trying too much.

Because if you never talk and such, you will never have any feedback to adjust to begin with.

Even good morning \*smiles towards them\* is a good chance in attitude, it makes people feel acknowledged, taken into account.

So expose yourself out there, try to be open to get feedback, good or bad, and then adjust based on feedback, that's how you get to become social. While also staying within being yourself, being true to yourself.

You don't just copy-paste what Anthony Robbins does, you develop your own style, your own personalized individual style based on yourself and who you are, you remain true to yourself while also learning how to be social. By exposing yourself out there, and taking feedback. Using your own attitude, develop your own style, your own personalized style.

And yes I talked on attitude about "fake it until you make it" but that's really a small part and as I mentioned it eventually becomes natural, I don't know the same can be said for copying the behavior of Anthony Robbins or as such if you don't feel like it, you don't drain yourself.