I have been working on development of better social skills most of my life, so I have more of them in some ways, than an average Aspie or Autie. I plan to share some of the little steps that helped me to do this, so other interested Autism Spectrum folks can do the same.
As I mentioned in my last post on this blog, it seems to me that one of the biggest social impediments that Aspies and Auties have, is not reading microexpressions. Microexpressions are fleeting expressions that people have on their faces for a fraction of a second. A microexpression is usually involuntary, and therefore reveals true feelings. This gives a huge social advantage to anyone who can read a microexpression.
Since people on the Autism Spectrum have trouble making eye contact, we get kind of left at the starting gate in reading microexpressions. If we can overcome this tremendous social disadvantage, we have a chance to become immensely better at social interactions. Reading microexpressions is not going to fix all of our troubles due to being on the Autism Spectrum, but it will fix a lot of our bigger social interaction problems.
You can not read microexpressions unless you see them. Not making eye contact, is going to leave you out of a lot of what is happening, socially. I do not know whether every Aspie and Autie is able to overcome our lack of eye contact, but probably most of us can learn to do it.
Whenever anyone tries to learn to do something difficult, the biggest determining factor in success is how badly you want to learn it. I can tell you from personal experience that learning to make eye contact is really difficult for us. I have been working on it for a long time and I still need to get better at it.
It occurred to me that I need to get blunt about why you might want to put forth all the effort it will take from you to learn to make eye contact. A big reason that it could matter to you is finding love and friendship. If you learn to make eye contact, you will be on the road to reading microexpressions and recognising when someone has good feelings for you. Less loneliness and more love are some great motivating factors.
Another good motivating factor to learn to make eye contact, is to avoid pain. Most of us have been through some bad social experiences - a lot of them. If we learn to make eye contact, this alone will help us to have less bad social experiences. NTs often interpret a lack of eye contact as evidence that someone is lying or is untrustworthy. This is not fair to people on the Autism Spectrum, but something we just have to deal with, unless we really want to change it.
I even backslide sometimes and get worse at making eye contact for a while. I am not sure whether other people on the Autism Spectrum have this particular aspect of trouble making eye contact, but I do not even like looking at myself in the mirror. That is where I started my work at making eye contact. I can now look my mirror image in the eyes. I think that if you recognize this problem of looking at your eyes and face in the mirror, then you can start doing this too.
Once you overcome the obstacle of making eye contact with your mirror image, you can move on to making eye contact with others.
One way that I tried to get better at social interactions whwn I was young, was to take speech classes. For an Autie or Aspie, this is torture, and it was for me, too. The payoffs can definitely be worth it.
A basic feature of public speaking improvement, is learning to make eye contact with your audience. When you receive a critique of your speech, you will be told how well you did or didn't do at making eye contact with your audience. You will probably have to make a lot of effort to improve your eye contact. Just bolster your determination to learn to make eye contact by reminding yourself why you want to do it; you want more love and friendship and less loneliness in your life.
As I mentioned in my last post on this blog, it seems to me that one of the biggest social impediments that Aspies and Auties have, is not reading microexpressions. Microexpressions are fleeting expressions that people have on their faces for a fraction of a second. A microexpression is usually involuntary, and therefore reveals true feelings. This gives a huge social advantage to anyone who can read a microexpression.
Since people on the Autism Spectrum have trouble making eye contact, we get kind of left at the starting gate in reading microexpressions. If we can overcome this tremendous social disadvantage, we have a chance to become immensely better at social interactions. Reading microexpressions is not going to fix all of our troubles due to being on the Autism Spectrum, but it will fix a lot of our bigger social interaction problems.
You can not read microexpressions unless you see them. Not making eye contact, is going to leave you out of a lot of what is happening, socially. I do not know whether every Aspie and Autie is able to overcome our lack of eye contact, but probably most of us can learn to do it.
Whenever anyone tries to learn to do something difficult, the biggest determining factor in success is how badly you want to learn it. I can tell you from personal experience that learning to make eye contact is really difficult for us. I have been working on it for a long time and I still need to get better at it.
It occurred to me that I need to get blunt about why you might want to put forth all the effort it will take from you to learn to make eye contact. A big reason that it could matter to you is finding love and friendship. If you learn to make eye contact, you will be on the road to reading microexpressions and recognising when someone has good feelings for you. Less loneliness and more love are some great motivating factors.
Another good motivating factor to learn to make eye contact, is to avoid pain. Most of us have been through some bad social experiences - a lot of them. If we learn to make eye contact, this alone will help us to have less bad social experiences. NTs often interpret a lack of eye contact as evidence that someone is lying or is untrustworthy. This is not fair to people on the Autism Spectrum, but something we just have to deal with, unless we really want to change it.
I even backslide sometimes and get worse at making eye contact for a while. I am not sure whether other people on the Autism Spectrum have this particular aspect of trouble making eye contact, but I do not even like looking at myself in the mirror. That is where I started my work at making eye contact. I can now look my mirror image in the eyes. I think that if you recognize this problem of looking at your eyes and face in the mirror, then you can start doing this too.
Once you overcome the obstacle of making eye contact with your mirror image, you can move on to making eye contact with others.
One way that I tried to get better at social interactions whwn I was young, was to take speech classes. For an Autie or Aspie, this is torture, and it was for me, too. The payoffs can definitely be worth it.
A basic feature of public speaking improvement, is learning to make eye contact with your audience. When you receive a critique of your speech, you will be told how well you did or didn't do at making eye contact with your audience. You will probably have to make a lot of effort to improve your eye contact. Just bolster your determination to learn to make eye contact by reminding yourself why you want to do it; you want more love and friendship and less loneliness in your life.
