• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

Does anyone have any advice on balancing their social life and personal life?

Hi,

I’m just on here to learn about myself and others, hopefully some friends too. I find that I swing from being very alone or surrounded by friends but never both really so I either lose energy for myself or others. When I’m alone, that’s when I’m the most focused, comfortable, and I don’t know “stoic”. The loneliness never hits me unless I really put some thought and energy into it.
When I’m around people I like, my energy just skyrockets in a different way, less focus but more present. I keep cracking jokes, keeping conversations going, and am always interested. However, with my condition of NVLD (Nonverbal Learning Disabilities) I have trouble with nonverbal communication which is a major part of communication, which is why I’m so good verbally because I’ve had to compensate.

Because of this, I’ve had so much trouble having quality friendships and not just quantity because getting to that level takes extra steps for me that I don’t really know yet. Then what would happen is I have this strong feeling to just close myself off and become introspective again which I am also comfortable with. Does anyone have any advice how to balance these states? No problem if you don’t, just thought I should put this out there.
 
I tend to be the joker in the group too. Or the one who's just having deep conversations and revealing a lot, but also having people opening up a lot too.

I prefer time by myself, and yet I notice even then it's still dedicating a lot of time to reaching out to other people via instant messaging, this forum, or phone calls.

Quality friendships feel hard to come by. But, the more authentic you are in yourself, the easier I think it becomes to form a genuine bond with people. Socially, I find I leave a good impression on people. Yet I feel a lot of people end up enjoying my company more than I do theirs. Which sounds a little pompous - but I find most social engagements drain me in some way.

As for balance. Listen to your gut. When you feel tired, or worn out - let people know. I find when I'm drained socially, I have to announce that I need to go. At the end of the day you have to be honest with yourself first and foremost. Start from within and work outward.

There's a lot of placating and people pleasing in society, and whilst I'm guilty of it myself - in recent months I'm trying hard to move away from these tendencies, and to being a more authentic self. It's tiring maintaining social masks and pleasantries.

You have to set clear boundaries for what you do and don't have the energy for. Listen to your gut. Every animal in the world relies on their instincts, yet we humans often talk ourselves out of our gut reactions to situations, then look back with sorrow and regret when we realise our instinctual reaction was the right one, and we talked ourselves into doing, or saying something else.

Ed
 
I tend to be the joker in the group too. Or the one who's just having deep conversations and revealing a lot, but also having people opening up a lot too.

I prefer time by myself, and yet I notice even then it's still dedicating a lot of time to reaching out to other people via instant messaging, this forum, or phone calls.

Quality friendships feel hard to come by. But, the more authentic you are in yourself, the easier I think it becomes to form a genuine bond with people. Socially, I find I leave a good impression on people. Yet I feel a lot of people end up enjoying my company more than I do theirs. Which sounds a little pompous - but I find most social engagements drain me in some way.

As for balance. Listen to your gut. When you feel tired, or worn out - let people know. I find when I'm drained socially, I have to announce that I need to go. At the end of the day you have to be honest with yourself first and foremost. Start from within and work outward.

There's a lot of placating and people pleasing in society, and whilst I'm guilty of it myself - in recent months I'm trying hard to move away from these tendencies, and to being a more authentic self. It's tiring maintaining social masks and pleasantries.

You have to set clear boundaries for what you do and don't have the energy for. Listen to your gut. Every animal in the world relies on their instincts, yet we humans often talk ourselves out of our gut reactions to situations, then look back with sorrow and regret when we realise our instinctual reaction was the right one, and we talked ourselves into doing, or saying something else.

Ed
Thanks, I feel like that’s the right way to go about things. I don’t know why I felt the need to over complicate things when the answer is more obvious than I realize. Thanks man.
 
What worked for me was doing friends activities. So I was with friends while we did some activity.

Playing games, riding the bike, climbing, skating ...

That way It was easier to anticipate what was going to happen and my silences were not so obvious, since I was doing something with them.

On the long run, just those who have accepted me as I am (I dont need to mask that much) are what I now consider friends.

Even having some real friends I chossed to form a family in another country and left them, so maybe Im the not so good friend after all.

Its difficult to follow your own path in life without affecting others.

Welcome and may you find your own way to solve the friendship equation.
 
Hi @Victor Krumph, welcome!

I’m someone who knows a lot of people but at the same time, am someone whom those same people I know don’t know. I have the same conversations with them, usually along the lines of ‘hi/how’s your day/how’s so-n-so/what did you do this week/plans for the weekend’. Nobody seems to notice. I do have some more interesting conversations at times with these people but I’ve come to realize that this is all they want from me. They’re happy in their lives and they don’t see me as a friend prospect.

(Now, not to be too hard on them—they’re terrific people and I am welcome to join in their activities. But the timing doesn’t work for me and it’s always in a fairly large group, and I always end up being the fly on the wall in a large group, so pursuing that further hasn’t been something I’ve wanted to do.)

I’ve also come to realize that when people expect a certain presentation from you, and you try to alter your relationship, they’re not necessarily going to reciprocate. That’s not on you—that’s them. For example, there is a nice couple associated with my husband’s job who have always been very welcoming and supportive. I was facing a decision concerning managing my time and visiting my niece who was about to have surgery and thought I’d reach out to the lady—because she’s really good with kids and managing life in general. So I did—and her response didn’t seem to fit my scenario. “Oh I don’t know anything about that, I can’t advise you.” Okay, that’s fine. But the way in which it was done—and maybe this will include some of the difficulty you face—made me think that the openness of asking her a personal question had just crossed some social boundary. It has changed our conversations. She still asks me how I’m doing but now I understand she’s only expecting an “I’m fine” or some short, positive report. In return, I only ask her about her family. It makes for a very artificial feeling conversation for me, but I realize that to her it’s quite engaging and deep. (I think.)

The take-away from this for you might be, if you want better friendships than you have, you might have to look elsewhere. It’s hard to retrain the ones you have because it can be too great a paradigm shift for them. But don’t shortchange them, either. First see if you can start those better friendships from among those you know, just be aware that if it doesn’t work out, it may not be you. It might be them.

I, too, am not good at finding quality friendships either. Recently, I made the very conscientious decision to allow in one of those many acquaintances I’ve known for years. She’s amazing. She’s also better at managing friendships than I am. But something has come to light recently (involving a host of other parties) and despite her assurance that we will still be friends when all the pieces fall back down, I am deeply concerned over something I said in confidence to someone in a position over us —months before opening up to her as a friend & learning more about her as a person —will negatively affect this thing she loves doing. Actions have consequences. My aunt says it’s obvious those other people were looking for an excuse & I’m not to blame, but I am distraught about those consequences nonetheless. There is nothing I can do. So even though I found an exceptional friend, it sort of has turned out that I’m not quite the same caliber of person I thought I was.

What I’m trying to say that might (or might not) be useful to you is to consider your actions as a friend before seeking out the sort of friend you’re looking for. Are there areas you can change is? Nonverbals are just a wee small part of communication. Maybe you have some strong points you can emphasize instead?

Here’s a further example. My brother is like you in that he’s the life of the party, the comedian, the one everyone likes to have a good time with. But when someone needs the snow shoveled off their roof, he might or might not show up. He’s a bit unreliable. He’s a computer genius but people have told me they won’t let him solve their tech issues because he doesn’t finish what he starts—often leaving their computer in a sadder state than before. (He knows this, too.) So he’s not only not reliable, his word isn’t good, either. This causes people to not trust him—but they’re happy to have a superficially good time with him.

Now, I am not all implying anything about yourself with this illustration; I’m only saying that friendships have other components than nonverbal elements. Neither example I’ve shared depended on nonverbals, but rather on trustworthiness, honesty, and dealing with consequences. These are bigger picture ideas than nonverbals.

In fact, with my friend, maybe only 3% of my friendship with her is in person. Instead, we’re either on the phone, we share articles to read & ‘talk’ about over text, I send emails with photos I’ve taken or things I’ve written. Her preferred method of talking is by text, so we have these great, extended conversations on one topic that last several days. (I really wasn’t interested in having text based conversations before this.) Very little of our friendship relies on using nonverbal language. Which is probably a good thing—she’s very concerned about saying, as she puts it, unfortunate things, and I tend to either let the other have the floor all the time or I don’t pick up on when the other person has lost interest or moved on in the conversation, so being able to read our conversations in text has been a great help for both of us.

I hope something here has been helpful & that you can find ideas to help you work around your disability. Someone who accepts you as a friend will accept that part of you as well. Only, we can’t forget to accept other people where they’re at, either. Sometimes the friendships we have can’t be deep, and while we must take responsibility for our own actions, we also have to realize it’s not always on us. Or at least these are the things I’ve learned.
 
Hi,

I’m just on here to learn about myself and others, hopefully some friends too. I find that I swing from being very alone or surrounded by friends but never both really so I either lose energy for myself or others. When I’m alone, that’s when I’m the most focused, comfortable, and I don’t know “stoic”. The loneliness never hits me unless I really put some thought and energy into it.
When I’m around people I like, my energy just skyrockets in a different way, less focus but more present. I keep cracking jokes, keeping conversations going, and am always interested. However, with my condition of NVLD (Nonverbal Learning Disabilities) I have trouble with nonverbal communication which is a major part of communication, which is why I’m so good verbally because I’ve had to compensate.

Because of this, I’ve had so much trouble having quality friendships and not just quantity because getting to that level takes extra steps for me that I don’t really know yet. Then what would happen is I have this strong feeling to just close myself off and become introspective again which I am also comfortable with. Does anyone have any advice how to balance these states? No problem if you don’t, just thought I should put this out there.
You're lucky. Having noe friends and no social life (despite deperately wanting one) makes my balance of social-personal life rather ...... lopsided.
 
The balancing act?

I had a sense of that today... At about 10 AM I did some volunteer work for a couple hours... Drove from downtown to the edge of the city, then drove back to the middle of the city to pick up some friends for our annual Christmas antiquing run, which meant coming back almost to where I was in the morning a further north...

Antique run went well, then we went for some supper

The point? :rolleyes:

Got back to my friend's place at about 4:30 PM, he invited me in for some tea, but I had been out all day, longer than them so I just declined politely and just got home...

More to the point... I can keep a fairly busy schedule, but I try to measure my free time and activities... I enjoy the arts sector and that alone could keep me out seven days a week, but I choose to limit myself to no more than two evening functions a week (work week), have had that same approach for many years now... But it means making choices...
 
I hope something here has been helpful & that you can find ideas to help you work around your disability. Someone who accepts you as a friend will accept that part of you as well. Only, we can’t forget to accept other people where they’re at, either. Sometimes the friendships we have can’t be deep, and while we must take responsibility for our own actions, we also have to realize it’s not always on us. Or at least these are the things I’ve learned.
Thank you so much I'll remember to take this approach in friendship. I realize that even though I’m the one taking the first step, I don’t have to do all legwork but I should focus on my strengths and working on my weakness. Thanks for your story and input!
 
You're lucky. Having noe friends and no social life (despite deperately wanting one) makes my balance of social-personal life rather ...... lopsided.
Sorry to hear that, I wasn’t always not alone. Where I used to live, no one really understood me so I’m sure that’s the case for you. From my experience, time and effort really changes things so good luck!
 
The balancing act?

I had a sense of that today... At about 10 AM I did some volunteer work for a couple hours... Drove from downtown to the edge of the city, then drove back to the middle of the city to pick up some friends for our annual Christmas antiquing run, which meant coming back almost to where I was in the morning a further north...

Antique run went well, then we went for some supper

The point? :rolleyes:

Got back to my friend's place at about 4:30 PM, he invited me in for some tea, but I had been out all day, longer than them so I just declined politely and just got home...

More to the point... I can keep a fairly busy schedule, but I try to measure my free time and activities... I enjoy the arts sector and that alone could keep me out seven days a week, but I choose to limit myself to no more than two evening functions a week (work week), have had that same approach for many years now... But it means making choices...
Interesting. So setting ground rules for yourself to discipline yourself for your own good is a good approach. I’m still learning how to plan things for myself since I used to let mostly my friends and family make plans that include me. I keep a calendar of all my working days and leave my days off free for those plans. I’m thinking at least one day a week to myself and another to others, I’ll try it out see how it works. Thanks for the help!
 
What worked for me was doing friends activities. So I was with friends while we did some activity.

Playing games, riding the bike, climbing, skating ...

That way It was easier to anticipate what was going to happen and my silences were not so obvious, since I was doing something with them.

On the long run, just those who have accepted me as I am (I dont need to mask that much) are what I now consider friends.

Even having some real friends I chossed to form a family in another country and left them, so maybe Im the not so good friend after all.

Its difficult to follow your own path in life without affecting others.

Welcome and may you find your own way to solve the friendship equation.
Thank, you I’ve tried that approach and I am going to keep doing so and maybe add on some new hobbies. Glad to see others trying as well :).
 
Sorry to hear that, I wasn’t always not alone. Where I used to live, no one really understood me so I’m sure that’s the case for you. From my experience, time and effort really changes things so good luck!
Thanks for the thought, I truly appreciate it. You are new here, but most people are aware of my situation. I don't want to bore people, so I will be brief, if you want more then PM me. I am a mental cripple born without the ability to make connections to other people. I am incapable of feeling love, of friendship, or bonding. There is just nothing there. I suspect that part of my brain got shunted over to cognitive ability. I have been like this my whole life, and as I am 71, I doubt that is going to change.
 
It's good to take a risk to go do something with someone but then if they won't reciprocate on something you want to do in return, you can keep your distance from them when outside a certain group/event.

You can also try inviting a potential friend to do something you like to do, especially if you know they like a certain something that you like, that is outside of the context of an organized group that you might meet a person.
Also, I like to use Facebook and LinkedIn to help determine my social boundaries. Facebook is only for personal friends and if someone's communication changes, they may get deleted but probably not blocked. I let people know this upfront and get no complainers if they get deleted from my friends list now. If someone starts to ask/complain, immediately invite them to an event you want to do at your convenience. I always like to give people chance(s) to gain or regain a more quality friendship with me, but it's good to make that door harder to open if there is a repeat.

For those people who don't want to be personal enough with you or you can tell don't want to build, offer to add them to LinkedIn instead.
This helps me deal with social balance and properly sets my boundaries to let people know where I stand, but it also gives people the opportunity to make special connections and not bs.
 
First, let me say I like your approach of separating and compartmentalizing who/what/where/when. I think that makes a lot of sense. I don't have enough people I'm connected with for that to make any sense to attempt, but I do keep a quasi-junk email account that serves a similar purpose.
For those people who don't want to be personal enough with you or you can tell don't want to build, offer to add them to LinkedIn instead.
I read this and it just struck me that I've heard this argument many times but from the opposite point of view. Do you know how many times I've heard that I'm too personal? Oh my gosh. I've never seen it from the perspective that I could say anything in retort.

Them, expecting a non-answer: "Morning! How's your day?"
My new answer, redacting my genuine reply: "Great! I just added you to my LinkedIn account!"
 
Hi,

I’m just on here to learn about myself and others, hopefully some friends too. I find that I swing from being very alone or surrounded by friends but never both really so I either lose energy for myself or others. When I’m alone, that’s when I’m the most focused, comfortable, and I don’t know “stoic”. The loneliness never hits me unless I really put some thought and energy into it.
When I’m around people I like, my energy just skyrockets in a different way, less focus but more present. I keep cracking jokes, keeping conversations going, and am always interested. However, with my condition of NVLD (Nonverbal Learning Disabilities) I have trouble with nonverbal communication which is a major part of communication, which is why I’m so good verbally because I’ve had to compensate.

Because of this, I’ve had so much trouble having quality friendships and not just quantity because getting to that level takes extra steps for me that I don’t really know yet. Then what would happen is I have this strong feeling to just close myself off and become introspective again which I am also comfortable with. Does anyone have any advice how to balance these states? No problem if you don’t, just thought I should put this out there.
Interesting thread. And at first I thought this would be an "Same thing here" answer. But unlike you, I suck on the verbal side (sometimes I can't even write) which makes it extremely difficult for me to have interactions with other people at some times, and when I do, it's very exhausting.

I'm in such a phase now where I have to recover from a week of communication, and with Christmas coming up, this puts me in a difficult situation. Or maybe not so difficult, because by now I learned to listen to myself and recognize when I'm ready to be among people again. No matter how much my mom likes me to spend Christmas with her, I already told her that I won't go.

Recognizing when I need alone time is something that came with time. And being able to say "no" was the next step. General idea is that people have to be social, and having lots of "friends" equals being liked and successful. Unfortunately it took me decades to learn and internalize that this is nonsense.

I can't give you a step-by-step recipe on how to learn to balance your needs for alone time, and the need for social life. Other than saying "listen to yourself" it's something you will have to define for yourself, as balance doesn't mean it has to be 50/50.

But one thing you will have to do is to say "no" when you don't feel up to socializing.
 
Last edited:
What worked for me was doing friends activities. So I was with friends while we did some activity.
This is a great way to make social activities less strenuous.
I am a mental cripple born without the ability to make connections to other people.
Same here, though I can bond. It only takes forever, and it works only with people who think similar (doesn't mean they have to have the same opinions or even interests, of course. But the overall pattern has to overlap). Other than knowing the concepts of many feelings (love, regret, guilt, grief) I have no idea what they actually feel like.
But I don't consider myself a mental cripple, and you shouldn't, either. There's certainly a lot of things you can do with your mind.
I always like to give people chance(s) to gain or regain a more quality friendship with me, but it's good to make that door harder to open if there is a repeat.
Good point!
 
Interesting thread. And at first I thought this would be an "Same thing here" answer. But unlike you, I suck on the verbal side (sometimes I can't even write) which makes it extremely difficult for me to have interactions with other people at some times, and when I do, it's very exhausting.

I'm in such a phase now where I have to recover from a week of communication, and with Christmas coming up, this puts me in a difficult situation. Or maybe not so difficult, because by now I learned to listen to myself and recognize when I'm ready to be among people again. No matter how much my mom likes me to spend Christmas with her, I already told her that I won't go.

Recognizing when I need alone time is something that came with time. And being able to say "no" was the next step. General idea is that people have to be social, and having lots of "friends" equals being liked and successful. Unfortunately it took me decades to learn and internalize that this is nonsense.

I can't give you a step-by-step recipe on how to learn to balance your needs for alone time, and the need for social life. Other than saying "listen to yourself" it's something you will have to define for yourself, as balance doesn't mean it has to be 50/50.

But one thing you will have to do is to say "no" when you don't feel up to socializing.
Thank you, it’s really cool to see other perspectives. I understand everyone has a different experience and approach but it is a good reminder for me to listen to myself and say no when I need to. Thanks, glad to see other people who care, makes me feel warm this Christmas. I hope you have a good Christmas.
 
It's good to take a risk to go do something with someone but then if they won't reciprocate on something you want to do in return, you can keep your distance from them when outside a certain group/event.

You can also try inviting a potential friend to do something you like to do, especially if you know they like a certain something that you like, that is outside of the context of an organized group that you might meet a person.
Also, I like to use Facebook and LinkedIn to help determine my social boundaries. Facebook is only for personal friends and if someone's communication changes, they may get deleted but probably not blocked. I let people know this upfront and get no complainers if they get deleted from my friends list now. If someone starts to ask/complain, immediately invite them to an event you want to do at your convenience. I always like to give people chance(s) to gain or regain a more quality friendship with me, but it's good to make that door harder to open if there is a repeat.

For those people who don't want to be personal enough with you or you can tell don't want to build, offer to add them to LinkedIn instead.
This helps me deal with social balance and properly sets my boundaries to let people know where I stand, but it also gives people the opportunity to make special connections and not bs.
This is interesting. Most of the people I try to make friends with are of the younger variety so we often start first with sharing our social media once we’re comfortable enough. Hopefully it goes on there and we meet in person otherwise we solely interact on our socials. I’m still working on maybe a less awkward approach like “Hey would you like to hangout sometime, maybe at such and such”. In general, nowadays meeting someone outside of school or a place where there is an obligation to be there is more awkward at first than I feel it has been in the past. Thanks for the input, I’ll keep placing boundaries in mind.
 
This is interesting. Most of the people I try to make friends with are of the younger variety so we often start first with sharing our social media once we’re comfortable enough. Hopefully it goes on there and we meet in person otherwise we solely interact on our socials. I’m still working on maybe a less awkward approach like “Hey would you like to hangout sometime, maybe at such and such”. In general, nowadays meeting someone outside of school or a place where there is an obligation to be there is more awkward at first than I feel it has been in the past. Thanks for the input, I’ll keep placing boundaries in mind.
interesting. I don't like to share my fb social media until I have met a person in-person generally or at least had a video chat with them. Everyone is different.
 
First, let me say I like your approach of separating and compartmentalizing who/what/where/when. I think that makes a lot of sense. I don't have enough people I'm connected with for that to make any sense to attempt, but I do keep a quasi-junk email account that serves a similar purpose.

I read this and it just struck me that I've heard this argument many times but from the opposite point of view. Do you know how many times I've heard that I'm too personal? Oh my gosh. I've never seen it from the perspective that I could say anything in retort.

Them, expecting a non-answer: "Morning! How's your day?"
My new answer, redacting my genuine reply: "Great! I just added you to my LinkedIn account!"
Reading this today reminded me of a situation I was in recently.
Someone I worked with wished me happy Thanksgiving and Merry Xmas with my personal phone number. We traded personal phone numbers because it was good for communication when we were both working the same convention. The numbers were strictly for professional purposes only.
Throughout time, I found out that he doesn't want to socialize and wants to keep things professional. As a result of his indirect conversation to tell me that, I asked him to delete his number from my phone because I don't want to receive any more holiday "wishes" because there's no interest in building a social foundation. I told him I get too many e-mails, texts, and phone calls. I told him he could ask me for my phone number again when we're working another convention, and then delete it at the end of the convention.
So, I guess part of this is being able to express ourselves and set our own personal boundaries if people think they are being cordial and "nice".
 

New Threads

Top Bottom