Anonymous wrote:I have a neighbor that I’m friendly with who I think is on the spectrum. She lacks the ability to read the room, and dominates conversations at any social event she is invited to. It’s exhausting, I want to be able to catch up with friends and we can’t because she’s droning on and on about something no one else cares about. However she also gets extremely upset when she’s left out of things, which to be honest is because people don’t want her dominating every conversation.

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry OP. I have a quirky ASD kid and I also teach kids with ASD. I know exactly the qualities you talk about and I do work with all the young people I love on recognizing boundaries on these things to avoid getting to where you did. It is tough because you don’t want to kill their spirits or their interests but you also know they can’t read the cues people give when they’re tired of hearing it or need a break. If it makes you feel better, I think ASD is such much better known now than when you were growing up and much less stigmatized that those who are on the spectrum are more understood and better served now. But thank you for the reminder to all to be mindful of this and that being clear is kind with everyone - we all have to help each other grow as people.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I appreciate your candor and self-awareness. I'm going to relate an experience I had with someone like you, in the spirit of honesty.

I had a friend some years ago who was the same age you are now. She engage in a host of behaviors that were, yes, annoying, but also sometimes hurtful and unkind. She was later diagnosed with ADHD and I think in retrospect some of her behaviors were due to ADHD.

She likely perceived me as being like the people you describe -- letting things built up until I exploded at her. But I didn't let anything build up. I told her about the behaviors that bothered me as they came up. She didn't hear me. For instance, she had a habit of telling lies or half truths a lot. I would call her on this and ask for explanations ("That doesn't make sense. You told me last week you didn't know that person and now you are calling them your close friend. Do you know them or not?"). Her response would be to lie more, to lash out at me, and to avoid the conversation.

She also was very skilled at evading accountability for her behavior (I assume a skill honed over 30+ years) and she would engage in manipulative behavior in order to get out of things. This would include claiming she could not remember things that had happened recently, claiming that certain behavior was a joke, or even suddenly claiming she didn't know me very well, that we were merely acquaintances and not fairly close friends of several years. She would say this behavior was the result of her ADHD. That may or may not be true, but it's also gaslighting.

It should be obvious by now that my friendship with this person did not last, and it ended pretty terrible actually. But at no point did I lie to her or let her behavior slide. In fact, I think I was one of the very rare people in her life who called her on some of her bad behavior, and I think it's possible her experience with me led her to her ADHD diagnosis. But I think she would describe her experience with me much the way you describe yours with others -- she'd claim I didn't say anything until I "blew up" at her with a laundry list of complaints. It's not true. She chose not to listen to me when I politely and kindly raised issues with her along the way, and when I got tired of being ignored and dismissed, I did "blow up" because by then I was upset not just about the lies and other annoying behaviors, but also at her manipulations and evasions when I tried to address these things with her.

Sharing this with you in case there might be something here you see in yourself. It can be easy to blame others for conflict, but of you are having the same conflict with people over and over, it's possible that you are the one creating a dynamic where it seems like people are being polite but then blowing up. Do you listen to people when they politely tell you that your behavior has been hurtful, annoying, or inconsiderate? Or do you only listen once they get Big Mad and blow up?

I’m OP and that’s a fair assessment. Honestly speaking, my behaviors were likely more annoying and less hurtful. I do think my parents and sisters tried to warn me about my annoying and off-putting behaviors and I probably should have listened to them more, but would have taken it more seriously if I had heard it from others. With college roommates, it was definitely a boiled-over situation since they mentioned behaviors that I had no idea about. I also think that people were generally more likely to look for reasons to exclude people rather than be accommodating towards non-NT people. The thing with the autism spectrum is that we tend not to pick up on social cues and subtleties like “reading the room”, for example being invited to a party and not reading the room, then never being invited back to the party again with no explanation. The issue wasn’t that I told racist or insensitive jokes or something, it was more probably that I went on and on about some interest of mine and probably annoyed people. Again, I get that this isn’t their responsibility, but it would have helped if someone said “hey, you’ve been talking a lot about X, and we’re not really feeling it. How about we talk about something else?” Rather than just write me off as some weirdo and never invite me out again. I know I’m not entitled to it, but a second chance would have helped.

Therapy helps, but it’s expensive, and it doesn’t bring back all those years I could have built relationships by “reading the room” better.

Anonymous wrote:OP, if I went around explaining to people everything they do that annoys me, I would have zero friends.

It is low EQ to share that kind of thing with the person because it is hurtful to the person, especially if it is something they cannot change like a tic. My own son has tics and I do not point them out to him, because they stem from anxiety and he can’t stop them. It would just make him more anxious and make the tic worse. I work behind the scenes to address the root cause of the anxiety instead.

I would gently suggest that a therapist is the BEST place to get this kind of social skills training. Not your friends. I know it is expensive, but it is worth it. A friend will not do this for you, because they don’t want to hurt you.

I have on occasion told friends about things they can fix. The absolutely worst was having to tell a good friend of mine at college he had BO. To this day I still die inside a little thinking about that conversation, but he did fix it. He was absolutely mortified, though. We never mentioned it again and pretended like it didn’t happen.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know if I'm socially awkward because of the weird parents I grew up with or because of being undiagnosed with autism, but I have been so grateful to the people who've moved through my life and told me things I needed to know in a very direct, straight-forward way. "Don't start a conversation with someone with the phrase you know what your problem is." "Stop saying 'you should ...' to people." "When you reach out to invite someone to something instead of saying "what are you doing this weekend?" instead say "I was thinking we could go to X Sunday morning - want to come?" "Don't open the window or change the thermostat in someone else's home, just ask if they can make it cooler."

What? What’s wrong with asking people what they’re doing this weekend? It’s a very common prelude to an invite. [/quote

It's intrusive.

I think the objection is if you
Ask this as a means of inviting someone to do something with you rather than just casually expressing an interest in what they’re up to.

When it’s an opener to an invite, it’s socially impolite because it puts them on the spot to tell you their plans and if they say “nothing” and it’s followed by your invitation to go rock throwing on skunk mountain, they are now stammering and stuck because you’ve trapped them and they have no polite “out” —
But if you lead with “hey Larla—do you want to go wine tasting on George Clooney’s yacht with me this weekend?” then she is informed upfront about the activity.