Quote Originally Posted by Liam_Harper View Post
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.