" Due to some of his personality traits he finds it hard to develop or sustain social relationships" . Not that I make much of an effort. It’s hard to grasp the unwritten rules.
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I struggle often with this!
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I’ve not been formally diagnosed, but I have a hard time because I don’t know what a normal relationship looks like. So I either expect too much and the the other person gets sick of be and thinks I’m weird, or I don’t expect enough and the friendship just fades away or never really develops. There’s no middle ground. I’ve tried to find a happy middle and never had luck.
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I don’t have the slightest clue of how to make friends, be social, what to say to someone…Or even be confident while talking to someone.
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In real life I’m quite good one on one…not so much in larger groups.
I’m lucky in some respects, in that I can remember every funny thing that’s ever happened to me. This gives me a lot to draw on during conversations.
Some people are good with math, others geography, still others language… etc. But my encyclopedia-type of mind when it comes to humour has always kept me in good stead socially.
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I have a really difficult time initiating and maintaining a conversation with others that aren’t within my immediate family.
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The problem is I just don’t care enough to develop friendships. That means I don’t put in the effort. I’ve never met another person that makes me want to put in that effort. It’s just too taxing. I prefer to sit quiet most of the time.
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Well, I do have friends and family and they are really trying to come through this “personality traits”, they want to come for me, go for me. But I’m failing at this relationships and I feel i have nothing to offer and after that - i withdraw.
I could be with someone tonight probably, but I am not because I’m afraid of how I influence other people’s mood basically. I am just too odd.
Copy, paste, report done 
Somebody simply post a few words, and I’ll try to show you how I would respond in conversation…as if I had just met you.
For me if it happens it happens , but I’m not going to go out of my way to make it happen.
Hi How’s life treating you?
Life is going well…
Spring is in the air isn’t it? It always puts a bounce in my step…pretty soon it’ll be t-shirt weather, swimming, biking, walking and all of that good stuff. Golden days of sunshine, and cool refreshing evenings!
@PatrickT Did that come quickly and naturally or did you have to think about it? The problem for some of us is processing things in real time, and responding, when it comes to face to face interaction.
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Nah…
I just blurted it out. I’m Canadian. Strangers up here always talk about the weather when we bump into each other. It’s a good, safe fall-back conversation starter and opener.
It’s difficult to know what they mean other than in my case they tend to see everything through a mental illness diagnosis lens, irrespective of whether that makes sense or not. Apart from very occasional use of the A word no professional has explicitly suggested I’m on the spectrum . To clarify I’m diagnosed with a personality disorder namely paranoid PD. PDs are supposed to develop in late adolescence/early adulthood. The problem being that my problems with social interaction and forming friendships stretch back as far as I can remember , and were certainly not something that just occurred in my late teens. I have always been this way. The subsequent paranoia being a reaction to bullying and peer group rejection especially in my teens,but not exclusively, for being physically and socially awkward.
Then there’s the issue that people on the spectrum undoubtedly have ‘personality traits’, as we all do, but what differentiates the personality traits of someone on the spectrum from someone who isn’t?
asd “personality traits” brings up about 96000 google hits
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What I’d like to say to my mental health lot-" Listen you ■■■■■■■ ignorant twats I’ve always been this way. It’s not a product of late adolescence/early adulthood indicative of a personality disorder ".
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Huh??
1515151515
I’ve been hurt way way way too much. I am very guarded in rl.
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I feel that despite social things being awkward for him some pdocs often say the same thing about most patients…
Hence maybe it’s a template report with bits pasted in? Rather than not grasping rules???
Or did I get the thread wrong?