I need help understanding different personality types!

[Liam_Harper]

Basically social anxiety makes chatting and talking very difficult. The anxiety part makes you see potential dangers where there aren't any, such as "what if the thing I say comes across as rude, or over-friendly, or stupid, or offensive" and in addition, you tend to be more sensitive to emotions so rejection or ridicule would hurt a lot more. It doesn't mean talking is impossible or that socially anxious people dislike talk or company in itself, it's just that it's difficult. This is a disorder, it's your brain being wired differently so while you can work on it, you can't just snap out of it or grow a thicker skin.

Not belonging isn't necessarily true, everyone belongs somewhere and can make friends, but it's easy to perceive it that way if you fall into the trap of thinking social interaction is an impossibility for you. Having that much struggle to simply chat to someone can be discouraging. Honestly it can be a bad habit sometimes, it's unhealthy to get too deep into an "everyone hates me" pool of self pity, you tend to push away those who care. It's not always the worst thing to point this out (just in a nice way, not an angry one). Even if they don't seem to listen, they can understand it.

The best way to handle the situation for talking can be to accept they won't often initiate conversation. Nothing wrong with poking to chat as long as it's not constant or demanding, it can often be nice. Asking questions or bringing up a subject of mutual interest can help since that's a lot easier than being expected to contribute your own topic or flow of conversation. For example I'm terrible with chatting about day to day things, but I could ramble about something ingame all day. Quite a few with autism have that trait of very specific focused areas of interest. If they're quiet or drift away it doesn't mean they're being rude or dislike talking to you.

[JackHatchet]

The best way to handle the situation for talking can be to accept they won't often initiate conversation. Nothing wrong with poking to chat as long as it's not constant or demanding, it can often be nice. Asking questions or bringing up a subject of mutual interest can help since that's a lot easier than being expected to contribute your own topic or flow of conversation. For example I'm terrible with chatting about day to day things, but I could ramble about something ingame all day. Quite a few with autism have that trait of very specific focused areas of interest. If they're quiet or drift away it doesn't mean they're being rude or dislike talking to you.

I think what bothers me the most is when the two issues you mentioned are combined. I don't like when people say "everyone hates me,' but will refuse to initiate conversation with me. Even if I start with some small-talk. It just kinda dissipates into a non-conversation. I don't hate anyone. I'll talk about anything. I'm a social butterfly extrovert.

But I get what you're saying. There's probably a wide variety of factors involved. I know that people who have depression or the "everyone hates me" blues isn't always autistic. And autistic people don't always have depression. And then on top of that social anxiety is an entirely different issue that others may or may not have.

Which is again why I really like these more personalized responses. I know a few people suggested I can Google Autism or read up on it with some Wikis or what not. But those don't feel like real life experiences from real people. I'm not looking for a book to tell me that people are X, Y, and Z. I'm looking for experiences of how people with X, Y, and Z may also have A, B, C. Or how they handle things differently. If I expected everyone to behave like a book told me they would--I'd be no better off than if I did nothing. Kinda like that 'wise' saying how a wise person is the one who admits to knowing nothing. I don't want to get caught in a trap where I read about something, and then learn that it's wrong. i'd rather build my foundation with real life experiences. Because I don't want to make assumptions based on a book. I want to build my wisdom from experience.

[StarRosie]

Basically social anxiety makes chatting and talking very difficult. The anxiety part makes you see potential dangers where there aren't any, such as "what if the thing I say comes across as rude, or over-friendly, or stupid, or offensive" and in addition, you tend to be more sensitive to emotions so rejection or ridicule would hurt a lot more. It doesn't mean talking is impossible or that socially anxious people dislike talk or company in itself, it's just that it's difficult. This is a disorder, it's your brain being wired differently so while you can work on it, you can't just snap out of it or grow a thicker skin.

The best way to handle the situation for talking can be to accept they won't often initiate conversation. Nothing wrong with poking to chat as long as it's not constant or demanding, it can often be nice. Asking questions or bringing up a subject of mutual interest can help since that's a lot easier than being expected to contribute your own topic or flow of conversation. For example I'm terrible with chatting about day to day things, but I could ramble about something ingame all day. Quite a few with autism have that trait of very specific focused areas of interest. If they're quiet or drift away it doesn't mean they're being rude or dislike talking to you.

Someone give this lad a medal!

Man, as someone with autism (Aspergers.), I've been struggling and rewriting a post over and over to try and offer some insight and help on how to get over some of the 'hurdles', but you summed it up pretty well. I think, one thing I'd note is that in some cases. We WANT to talk, just the anxiety is so crippling that it's really hard to approach someone and just...talk. I know that my head plays dozens of doomsday scenarios when I dare try to say "Hi." to someone.

I think what bothers me the most is when the two issues you mentioned are combined. I don't like when people say "everyone hates me,' but will refuse to initiate conversation with me. Even if I start with some small-talk. It just kinda dissipates into a non-conversation. I don't hate anyone. I'll talk about anything. I'm a social butterfly extrovert.

I guess my only advice would be, build common ground, it can actually help more then it seems when there's more common area for you guys to talk about. And be a bit patient if they're struggling to have small talk or a conversation.

On the "Everyone hates me" bit, my guess is that their autism might be walking hand and hand with depression. And from my experience with both, the two make for a truly crippling combo that usually leads to a lot of mentally beating myself up up over the little things. Sadly, I don't have any advice here on this bit, as I'm still struggling to figure out the best way to tackle it myself.

[Limonia]

I am one of those people who can just "drift off" as you call it. And it's not because I don't care or because I don't want to talk to anyone. But because (and I don't want to speak for anyone else with autism) for me personally, I "drift off" because I can get "sucked up" into my own little world, where all that exists is just me and whatever it is I'm doing. That "phase" can lasts for a few hours, a day, or on rare occassions, it can last weeks.

I know these kind of phases as well. During those times it's not that you don't care about others, but somehow you... sort of don't care about others anyway. It's complicated to explain. But your own interests or whatever are kind of "more important" for yourself than socializing during those moments, so that you forget about all the social stuff. And because I could never initiate a conversation anyway, it's even easier to "forget".
And it's even worse if you actually promised to reply to someone or something like that because you're then scared to talk to them because they could say something about not calling back earlier and it could maybe hurt you (even if it's a person you know that would never react like that), so talking to them gets even harder than it already is.
Oh, I'm so so bad at explaining, I hope you can understand what I mean.

Basically social anxiety makes chatting and talking very difficult. The anxiety part makes you see potential dangers where there aren't any, such as "what if the thing I say comes across as rude, or over-friendly, or stupid, or offensive" and in addition, you tend to be more sensitive to emotions so rejection or ridicule would hurt a lot more. It doesn't mean talking is impossible or that socially anxious people dislike talk or company in itself, it's just that it's difficult. This is a disorder, it's your brain being wired differently so while you can work on it, you can't just snap out of it or grow a thicker skin.

Not belonging isn't necessarily true, everyone belongs somewhere and can make friends, but it's easy to perceive it that way if you fall into the trap of thinking social interaction is an impossibility for you. Having that much struggle to simply chat to someone can be discouraging. Honestly it can be a bad habit sometimes, it's unhealthy to get too deep into an "everyone hates me" pool of self pity, you tend to push away those who care. It's not always the worst thing to point this out (just in a nice way, not an angry one). Even if they don't seem to listen, they can understand it.

OMG, this somehow describes me perfectly, I'm kind of surprised about it.