Coping with weirdness —Difficulties in College and surviving tips?

Ex-comfort zoner
Sep 2, 2018 · 5 min read

After failing to socialize in high school, I avoided talking about sex, money, religion. My mind was all occupied by studies, grades and future career plan. I did not have the confidence to meet friends and thus, meeting friends was never my prime concern.

Some basic rules I follow:

  1. No sex
  2. No religion
  3. No money
  4. Try to talk about common topics
  5. Talk about the weather

Besides, I picked up some other phrases over-time to help with my navigation. Another major focus of what I talk about is “me having no friends”. For a long time, I was preoccupied with anxiety about every aspects of life. Mostly they are ruminations of the past mistakes and future uncertainties, so I was usually counterproductively stagnant in the present moment. Whenever I encounter someone, my head would run through the following algorithm:

1) Male Female
I usually avoid sociable feminine girls as their rate of response is way beyond my processing speed. Bitch talk or small talk being another area of unknown.

2) Major Minor Double major
If they do double major, then I’d say:Wow that’s amazing. (That means I could praise them. I wish I could do that) Part of me was insecure about myself while part of me wanted to talk to the other person.

3) Courses enrolled
What did you get in your last test? What textbook did you use?

4) Recent Events involved
What other clubs are you doing? Is it fun?

5) Hobbies interest
If we have similar interests, that’s great, that means we can continue to talk.

6) Language trick: If they speak a foreign language, I can utter a few phrases.
Gracias, Bonjour, Arigato, Konichiwa, Xiexie, Mercy

7) Digging deeper: When I think I have established rapport by getting their response, I would move on to some deeper questions:

What is your long-term goal? How are you going to achieve that?
Do you think I am a weird person?
What do you think I can do better?
How are you doing with your boy friend/ girl friend?

I didn’t know what else to talk about and had no sense of “appropriateness” or boundary. I was blind to contextual cues and non verbal signals.

So, this is the library that I secretively built in response to other situations. I wasn’t really making connection but talking for the sake of it sometimes. I couldn’t tell if the other person wants to continue or not based on verbal response and most of the time. Most of the time, I would get the what-the-hell-are-you-doing look after I have shared something I find interesting. Sometimes, someone else would ask me“How is that related to what we have just talked about.”“Are you trying to say this to ask me or trying to clarify?”

I had to be told“I need to go now.”or “I am busy”in order to end the conversation. With this kind of interactions, relationships go nowhere sometimes because everything its hard to go deeper. Social interactions aren’t social interaction but analytical problems that I solve everyday.

The library remained some of my basic rules for a long time and I am less reliant on it now. Overtime, I attended courses, read books and take notes as if I were taking another course.

In my college days, I enrolled myself into a three-semester weekly peer-counseling workshop. Though I wasn’t diagnosed with Asperger at that time, another workshop wouldn’t have caused too much. It was for another item on my resume and also to help myself. I have learnt some verbal and non-verbal skills so that I can be a better listener:
1) Attitude: Non-judgemental attitude
Avoid quantitative words like“sounds like you are feeling a little”

2) Reflection of feeling with paraphrasing: “It sounds like you are feeling … because … has happened to you”

3) Validation
“Its ok ”

4)“If there’s a magical want that happened, what would you do to the current situation.”

5) No advice giving, but encourage problem solve

“when was the last time it worked? How can you make that happen again?”

I still remember another guy in the group has monotonic voice. He would always greet others with a firm handshake. Once he expressed frustration because, “I have already given everyone a polite firm handshake but I still can’t get some close friends.”I understood he meant to be polite an honest. His social skills were even more inflexible than mine. Perhaps, my formulas were more sophisticated. When I look back, it was quite likely that he had Asperger, or ASD.

I have also learnt how to receive feedback from others.

1) Say thank you
Thank you very much for offering me such valuable feedback. Appreciated.
2) I’m working on it
“I have been working hard on communication and is currently working with someone professional. I may make mistakes again. We all do.”
3) Please remind me in the future
“It would be nice if you continue to let me know if there is anything I can improve, I won’t have hard feeling and would feel forever grateful.”

When offering feedback, sometimes we need not to offer advice or opinions
1) I like your idea, it’s even better if you try to add this.
2) Great. I noticed some of your work is late.
3) I noticed you have been late to work more frequently these days.

Some of my friends found the workshops unhelpful as they are do not offer any quick solution besides listening service. I loved the training as it gave me a structured environment to learn about communication.

I have also joint Toastmasters Club, it’s an international public speaking club which also offered structured and encouraing platform to practice communication and leadership.

I have also learnt how to receive feedback from others.

1) Say thank you
Thank you very much for offering me such valuable feedback. Appreciated.
2) I’m working on it
“I have been working hard on communication and is currently working with someone professional. I may make mistakes again. We all do.”
3) Please remind me in the future
“It would be nice if you continue to let me know if there is anything I can improve, I won’t have hard feeling and would feel forever grateful.”

When offering feedback, sometimes we need not to offer advice or opinions
1) I like your idea, it’s even better if you try to add this.
2) Great. I noticed some of your work is late.
3) I noticed you have been late to work more frequently these days.

I never knew that there are so many ways to deliver one message and have been practicing all the skills since then. I hope my tips can help some others to navigate their own world.

Ex-comfort zoner

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