Shyness vs Lack of People Skills

[142857]

I hate it when people say that I am shy.

For much of my life I have been fairly withdrawn, which I think is different. I'm simply not very good at socialising and knowing how to talk to people, although I have gotten a little bit better over the years. But I know I'm not shy.

I am often uncomfortable at social gatherings and will tend to try to monopolise someone that I feel comfortable with, or spend my time entertaining the kids, or find an excuse to duck outside.

My wife is in a choir, a very good one (they were on national TV at Christmas). I went away to a weekend retreat with them, to a very nice lodge in the mountains. Since I am Australian someone brought along the words to "Waltzing Matilda" and told my wife that they wanted me to teach them how to sing it. :blink:

My wife was really really nervous. Later she admitted that she thought that I would freeze and be unable to even speak if I were stood up in front of a big group of people. She has known me for more than 6 years but she still thinks that I am simply shy since I don't like socialising. Anyway I stood up there and gave a completely ad lib talk on the history of the song and what the words meant, told a few anecdotes, and sang the song. The only thing I was nervous about was that my singing wouldn't be up to scratch since they all took their singing very seriously. As it turned out they wanted me to join their choir, since they have a shortage of men with the lowest vocal register. Fortunately Waltzing Matilda doesn't require much range - I can sing in tune but my range sucks.

When I go bowling I do a stupid "dance" when I score a strike, and I don't really care what people think. I will stand up and talk in front of a group of people, conduct a training course at work that lasts a week, even ad lib a training course if I need to. I love chairing a meeting of high-powered consultants. I like to pontificate. And I love explaining things to people, so I often have people queued up waiting to talk to me at work. So why do people just assume that I am simply shy?

 

[Ruby_Aspergic]

Me too. I am almost TOO confident, and I want to socialize SO BADLY. I just can't figure out how to do it. So then people think I am shy and think they are doing me a favor by pretending I'm not there.

 

[Chris]

I think I'm a combination of shy and lacking people skills to be honest. I had an incredibly frustrating time in my last couple of years of school. Some people started talking to me online and I just couldn't bring myself to actually be friendly back to them at school. I couldn't even go up to them. I think that's a lack of confidence. But if you go further, I've no idea what I would have said and the rare occasions I met them outside of school, I didn't know what to say. At all. Luckily they were fairly talkative. In the situations where I do have confidence for one reason or another, I am absolutely dumbfounded for how to interact with people suitably. I just try and be polite until I know someone properly - but to know someone properly it takes me a long time.

 

[Emor]

When someone I talked to over Facebook confronted me at school I couldn't look at them in the eye and mumbled Hi and they didn't hear me and walked off . LOL.
Sometimes I interrupt people when I have something to say but usually what they're talking about I find boring.
Sometimes though when they're talking about something interesting I don't say anything 'cause I'm too shy. But usually when people are talking about something I find interesting I tend to come across as a jerk 'cause all I do is correct them. I don't so much now, but I used to.
I think I generally don't have much motivation to say anything in conversations.
I have some friends at school but when I'm near them I rarely say anything 'cause they don't talk about anything that interests me, and when I start talking about something I'm interested in I can't stop. Thankfully they tend to find it funny, but sometimes it puts people off me. I'll be at the table sitting with them throughout lunch and tbh, I'll be so bored I'll just be having a conversation with myself in my head about something interesting rather than shoes or w.e.
That's why I tend to sit on my own at lunch. Call me egotistical, but I just prefer listening to my internal dialect rather than other people talking about stuff :/...
I do have one friend though who I sit next to in Physics and we just talk most of the lesson about stuff 'cause we have similar interests and even when she doesn't know much about the subject I'm talking about(like platyhelminthes) she gets me to explain.
But yeah. If I find a person annoying it's so not a lack of confidence. It's just I can't be bothered talking to them.
Yeah, this post's all over the place.
EMZ=]

 

[umbrellabeach]

Like Chris, I think I'm both shy and lacking in people skills. I have trouble socializing and acting "right," but I also don't think I would like public speaking or anything. I'm also incredibly private, something most people could never understand if their life depended on it. I hate it when people don't leave me alone and try to get all up in my business.

 

[IContainMultitudes]

I think the profile of an introvert that the writer of this article gives is one that I fit pretty closely:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-for-your-introvert/2696/

I like how this writer points out that introverts are not necessarily shy, that they're just people who find social interactions a little tiring and who don't seek out the same level of social interaction as others. I think that telling someone with this "orientation" that they need to "get out more" and be more "outgoing" is sort of like telling a cat that it needs to be more like a dog.

I enjoy having meaningful conversation with people, and I usually do ok interacting with small groups of people, but I'd rather be at the dentist than spend the evening at a large party. On the rare occasions that I do go to parties, I usually can't stay for much longer than an hour or so without starting to get that "my brain is starting to run on fumes" feeling.

I know this is something separate from Aspergers/AS, but I have a feeling that there's a pretty significant overlap between Aspies and introverts (I wonder what that Venn diagram would look like). I think our culture probably would benefit from an "introverts' rights" movement along with an "Aspie/AS rights" movement (I think it's coming even if we have to wait a while for it); I wonder if there's a movement that could emcompass both.

 

[umbrellabeach]

I think the profile of an introvert that the writer of this article gives is one that I fit pretty closely:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-for-your-introvert/2696/

I like how this writer points out that introverts are not necessarily shy, that they're just people who find social interactions a little tiring and who don't seek out the same level of social interaction as others. I think that telling someone with this "orientation" that they need to "get out more" and be more "outgoing" is sort of like telling a cat that it needs to be more like a dog.

I enjoy having meaningful conversation with people, and I usually do ok interacting with small groups of people, but I'd rather be at the dentist than spend the evening at a large party. On the rare occasions that I do go to parties, I usually can't stay for much longer than an hour or so without starting to get that "my brain is starting to run on fumes" feeling.

I know this is something separate from Aspergers/AS, but I have a feeling that there's a pretty significant overlap between Aspies and introverts (I wonder what that Venn diagram would look like). I think our culture probably would benefit from an "introverts' rights" movement along with an "Aspie/AS rights" movement (I think it's coming even if we have to wait a while for it); I wonder if there's a movement that could emcompass both.

Wow. That is one of the best articles I've ever read! I completely agree that extroverts don't understand introverts, that female introverts suffer more, and that society has expectations that everyone will be outgoing like they are - I've experienced all this. (And I've been accused of holding other people up to standards because I wanted them to listen to me for a change - ha!) It's like the guy who wrote that article reached into my mind, pulled out all my thoughts about this, organized and rewrote them, then posted them on the Internet.

 

[Sean2222]

Wow. That is one of the best articles I've ever read! I completely agree that extroverts don't understand introverts, that female introverts suffer more, and that society has expectations that everyone will be outgoing like they are - I've experienced all this. (And I've been accused of holding other people up to standards because I wanted them to listen to me for a change - ha!) It's like the guy who wrote that article reached into my mind, pulled out all my thoughts about this, organized and rewrote them, then posted them on the Internet.

Not much to add other than the fact that introversion is part of the asperger's anyway. How are you going to relate to others in a way that makes you consistently look for social stimulation? I just can't maintain anything, one day I might want to talk to someone else. bUt then the next and the next and next I want to stay away. I iwll go through periods where I just shut off and no matter what or how I feel about someone else I can't be around anyone during those times. Yet if I truly want to critique what is that motivates me not to be social, there's really nothing tod do with shyness. It's simply the asperger's and other disorders that get in the way which make being introverted a way of life. Although I can agree with alot of what is being sid in this thread because I feel most of that tsuff and I have definitely gotten mor eout of life by myself. Doing the exact same things with others at times has made me unhappy, of course ostracized and out of place, and very difficult to get anything out of the activity when I have to focus so much on what's going on around me as well. Socializing and people has felt like it just holds me back. It's a sif I hav a choice, either do one thing or another. I can never focus or do more than one thing or eveything suffers and it all becomes a waste. But don't get me wrong, if I keep things more on a one on one level I tend to be able to do alot better with all of these problems. Groups more me (more than 2 people) are just a total hell and something I try to avoid. Even online, I'll go in a group setting such as chatroom and can't follow anything going on, same old story. Everything is happening too fast, too much, too many people, too many distractions.

-sean-



-sean-