How Social Isolation Is Killing Us

Acceptance and empathy. It can take a lot of practice. You need to ascertain where the person is mentally and emotionally, and meet them there.

I think the best you can do to build strong relationships -- at my 41 I don't know what friendship is anymore -- is by putting yourself into social situations which present problems to be solved collectively. Sports is a good one. Not losing the game requires a lot of problem solving and cooperation. It is rewarding to people to solve problems because it was key for our survival along the ages -- a Darwinian thing.

Some 10 years ago I joined a new management team in the company I was working for, and our director took us on a trip to a seaside town where we would work on a "teambuilding" activity, we would do some sailing. Sailing a midsize boat when you know zero about it can be very demanding. You are solving problems all the time to yourself, to the crew and to the ship. At the end of those two days sailing we were a completely different team. I felt that I had made 3 new friends and spotted a new enemy, a person I couldn't get along with. I keep their friendship till this day.

>I've started wondering if I am on the spectrum.

This is an honest fear of mine. Maybe "fear" isn't the right word, but I feel like I exhibit behaviors that would indicate I'm on the spectrum, but they're always intentional and rooted in the idea that I don't want to bother or disturb others.

So I keep to myself, avoid eye contact, and don't initiate conversation if it's for "selfish" reasons. I need an excuse to be social that isn't just "because I want to". If I have such an excuse (like I'm part of an established group, or it's business related, or so on), I have absolutely no problem. Only when the purpose is personal or self-serving do I have problems. Not because I don't want to interact, but because my fear is that in doing so I'll just upset or annoy everyone else. I've been actively fighting this peculiarity for many years (with professional help) and while it's gotten better it's still very difficult. And I think from an outside perspective this comes off as a bit like mild autistic behavior.

It's not easy until it is, but it didn't really come naturally to me. Acceptance and empathy are important as my sibling mentioned already, but those are hard things to just "do".

I've been continuously trending toward more comfortable in my own skin as I've gotten older, though I've also actively worked toward breaking down my internal belief systems and assumptions about people, the world and what people expect of me.

I've done that by exploring a lot of psychology, philosophy, spirituality and mind-altering experiences to get out of my own head. I think the most profound effect has been from combination ayahuasca/san pedro plant medicine ceremonies though I don't know how much all the prior work I'd done toward breaking down my ego academically set me up to take advantage of those experiences.

I think the biggest thing that makes people feel uncomfortable in social situations is anxiety and insecurity... which are both just forms of fear. Fear of being vulnerable, fear of being perceived as "less than", fear of being rejected or humiliated by exposing too much of yourself.

These are all things that might not be conscious thoughts, but the underlying signal does come across in body language, intonation and automatic reactions which can make people feel uneasy.

I think the first step is to become more mindful of how you're carrying yourself in social situations, which means focusing less at "succeeding" in a social situation and more seeing about what you can learn from them. How do "successful" socializers carry themselves? How does their reaction compare to how you would have reacted? Why would you have reacted the way you would have and why do you think they reacted the way they did? Eventually you stop thinking about it and you say something you see gets a more positive reaction (like asking an interesting question of someone) and you consciously avoid doing something that probably would have gotten a negative reaction (like bringing the conversation back to yourself for the third time)

Another thing that helps is realizing that other people are in the exact same boat for the most part and they aren't judging you as much as you might think and are much more willing to forgive a fuck up.

Fucking up in a social situation and not being weird can actually be really good since it's an opportunity to let other people feel like you won't care if they say something stupid... it's like an agreed step down of the social threat level.

Alright, prob wrote more than necessary, but soooo bored waiting on this holiday commute.

Only around specific and punctual activities, and it's mostly city centric, not location or neighbor centric.