Hello again everyone,
I’m very happy with the comments from the last post I made. Many of you had positive and constructive feedback about socializing. Made me realize that I’m generally overthinking the whole thing.
I mentioned that I was a chatterbox with a tendency to delve too deep into things and talk about whatever spontaneously comes to mind. Usually I can hold a conversation for the first couple of meetings, but then I’ll be at a loss of words for relatability.
When I thought more about why I can’t relate to others, it’s not because of any distaste towards people or their personal likes/dislikes… In fact, I would prefer to be viewed well in someone else’s perception. Generally treating others with kindness, complimenting specific items of clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, and inquiring about basic things like music, weather, architecture, outdoors etc.
But when I look into myself… I went through life having mostly no preferences…
For example, when asked where I’d like to eat, I have been trying to expand my preferences. However, most of the time when I eat outside of my selective food items (mostly bread-based with some cheese), food can be difficult to chew and swallow. My music tastes are broad, but I don’t usually seek out new songs, and have difficulty discovering new songs.
Let’s continue this conversation about socialization, and extend it to preferences, likes, and dislikes. The problem with having an identity that doesn’t revolve around external activities outside of the usual hyper-specific autie hobbies, I’d like to become more relatable, learn to discover new likes and dislikes, and overall gain the ability to do this. I’d imagine it would make life quite a sum easier to change my perspective, but sometimes my mind is blank and unable to seek things out.
If you want to discover new things, just push yourself to try one thing per week you've never tried before, no matter what that is. It can be scary, but you will find as many new things you enjoy as there are things you don't enjoy. For music, I like to listen to different genres because that lets me explore many new artists with an overarching musical theme that I know I enjoy. So like I know I love grunge, probably not gonna be a hard experience to get into Mother Love Bone. Or I'll pick an all new genre and get a feel for it.
Relatability is a tough concept, because in my experience that's one of the gaps that's super hard to bridge between NT/ND communication. It's not really possible to make yourself more relatable, because others have to relate to you, and that's subjective from person to person because that's something they have to do in their own head. But, I have found the more you try to relate to other people, the more they try to relate to you. So take that how you will.