 Hello everybody Welcome to another video I've got some news to tell you and the news is that it's a new video today It's not not bad news That's not funny Is it? I don't know Welcome back to another video with me. Mr. Thomas Hanley from the Asperger's growth channel It's got to say it's lovely to have you here today to Cover another new topic a new interesting topic and that is Socializing Yes As I've said in a previous video the bane the bane of the autistic existence the mess and confusion of Grayness Black and whiteness not logical emotionally driven Connection how do we sort that out? What do we have to do? Sometimes it can be so confusing like walking through a maze a little maze and not having a map Sometimes you go down one end and you think you've got it all sorted out And then suddenly you put that into practice in the social world And it doesn't work Doesn't work why well today. I'm going to give you three easy actionable things that you can do to instantly improve your social game Your social game your ability to socialize Stay tuned. I Used to be very socially awkward. I had absolutely no idea What the hell I was doing it was more of sort of a random display of emotion and called logic and A lot of the time my relationships were confined to texts to Facebook messages Maybe a video call if I was lucky, but most of the time when I was at school and with my friends There weren't really that sort of close friends. I didn't feel like I could talk to them or interact with them I didn't feel like I was part of any group part of society and it is a very difficult thing to deal with and It's taken me a long time maybe three or four years of constant writing about it in my little on my little iPad constantly Trying stuff out doing my research looking for YouTube videos and how to improve myself and I believe it has paid off somewhat if you if you can tell maybe over the years my relationships and my Ability to make friends has increased. I used to only hang out with girls because I found them easier and easier to understand I know for some males out there and they be confusing But I liked them, but only recently around about the time when I went to Thailand That's when I made some male friends and that's when I really started to flourish I started to put a lot of my time into practically Engaging on the things that I've learned rather than just endlessly weeding And not being able to do any of it. So that's already a little bit of a ramble But let's get into the first point Number one numero one body language facial expressions They're really important. I know that there's a lot of people in the autistic community that like to Think that autistic people are perfect Not perfect, but have a way of being which is better than a neurotypical way of being I'm sort of in in in the middle ground on that part I think there's a lot of things that autistic people are great at and a lot of things that neurotypical people are great at When it comes to socializing Sure, there are some things about being autistic that are good such as being direct and truthful and able to verbalize and get over problems in a succinct manner, but there's also the tendency of neurotypicals to have a very well-established Social code that allows them to bond easily with each other Which to a lot of autistic people kind of feel like playing into the system and not really Expressing who they are and how they are individually, but it does work Everyone knows that it's just a social code. It's just that It's easy to get to know people once everybody knows What to do one of those things that neurotypicals are really great at is expressing body language body language is Very indicative indicative if that's the that's the right word of your mood and your state and your emotions and your interest For example, if you are Got a very wide body posture and relaxed You're more confident You're more dominant as some people may say But also, you know, if your feet and your your body is facing away from somebody It indicates that you don't really want to talk to them that much You see that in everyday life Sometimes autistic people don't pick up on it. We don't not naturally It has to be taught facial expressions a Lot of autistic people have this sort of strange smile that they do especially during teenage hood Someone says smile for a picture in front of a camera say cheese. We'll go like this We don't use the whole range of muscles in our face Because it doesn't feel natural to us and we don't want to do that But when we do that sort of weird smile thingy People don't like it people like to see the expression in your face This is just one example. Just saying So if you when you when you're smiling make sure that you're actually fully smiling Maybe even showing your teeth a little bit making sure that the little scrunch is happening in your eyes practicing these facial expressions in the mirror and Practicing them in reaction to what people say and how much of a good time you're having in your in your own head Thinking about a conversation. It does help and it works. Next is eye contact I know eye contact is painful On the power of being in a torture chamber having to look into those dead eyes those Seemingly unmoving and horrific things to look at They're so horrible the way that they just have a little circle that's pointing towards me into my circles Very strange, but eye contact is very important. It shows that you are interested in what someone's saying Shows that you're confident shows that you're attracted to somebody and If you don't make eye contact, you're either seen to be rude or aloof or God even weird I'm weird. I am You are too. You're a weirdo. Stop telling me that It's not nice a good rule for that 70 30 70% of the time make an eye contact if you're in a group Make sure to just distribute it around the group 30% of the time Look away and then go back when you want to say something else not just Stare away when you're talking like that and then coming back and stopping That doesn't work. You need to space out your conversations when you make a direct point or something that you want something to listen to make eye contact and Then you can start looking away if that helps. So what's the point at this point? Learn those body language skills practice those facial expressions Make sure that people are seeing who you are inside through the very minor or seemingly seemingly very minor things that we don't express In our posture and in our body language and in our eye contact and that way You'll have a lot easier of a time when it comes to socializing number two This is something that is inspired by me little child Tom little tiny little Thomas That sounds don't know why I'm saying tiny comparatively. I was fairly tall if you didn't know I'm six foot three now Hooray, I'm a tree When I was younger, I used to think the best way of making friends making people like me was to tell people Why I'm great sounds like a pretty okay and logical thing to do in the mind of an autistic person But in practice even with other autistic people if you go up to them and tell them all the reasons why you're great and You boast and you tell people about all the accomplishments that you've made and you try very hard to beat your friends in some casual Social game just because you want to win and show that you're better That's not good Nobody lacks them. You see humans have this tendency to be a bit egotistical to some degree Everybody has it. You just don't admit it if you if you disagree you do and even if you get upset about that That's just even more of a convincing argument Because your ego is hurt stay in a point boy man woman For the best way to conduct yourself in a social environment Is just to be modest when you're having a conversation With somebody you know start off with the old boring sort of chat that people have though that nonsensical Just complete boring talk that people do when they want to meet someone new Go for all of that Ask them about themselves If something comes up that's related to something about you tell them about it, but don't ever Just insert it into a conversation and if they tell you something great about their life Make sure you appreciate it and you show them that you're interested in it rather than just can Instantly switching on to something that you did that's better or similar and better Nobody likes it taking me a long time to learn that Egotistical Tom here At least I know it and I can hopefully work on it by talking to a camera number three now You need to monitor You need to analyze and observe People's interest and disinterest. This is something that a lot of people on the autistic spectrum a lot of people on the autistic spectrum struggle with and The reason behind this is a tendency to be a bit mind-blind Which is a term that has been used about autistic people and the gist of it is is that is very hard for us to put You put ourselves into someone else's shoes So when we're talking about something that we like we automatically assume that the other person likes it as well Combining that with our inability to read Facial expressions and body language as well makes for a potent combination of Talking to people who don't want to talk to you and talking about things that don't interest them Now you could make the argument that if someone isn't interested in what you want to talk about You shouldn't be friends with them But the thing is is not everybody finds everything interesting even if they are Extremely similar to you. I mean like my best friend like we get along on so many fronts Some things she doesn't want to hear me talk about some things I don't want to hear her talk about and that's alright because everybody's interested in different things I know that navigating the social world can be a very difficult thing once you start out There's a lot of factors to consider a lot of things to work on I like to think of learning these social skills not as masking not as Self-overriding your identity as a person and getting rid of your neurodiversity. It's more like learning a language You know like you need to express yourself in different ways in order for someone to understand you Because if you don't then they won't The thing is the thing that I found is that the more that I've learned about how to communicate with neurotypical people The more that they actually listen to me when I talk about things to do of autism. They actually learn things and Have different ways of thinking about the differences that we both have some of the benefits that we have and the negatives that we have There's a lot of promise in learning these skills Learning how to monitor someone's interest and disinterest Can be a little bit of a task takes a lot of practice one of the easiest ways of finding out finding this out is to first Go over those first steps learn how to do them Particularly the first one about eye contact If someone is making a certain amount of eye contact with you when you're talking to them And then for some reason there's less of it it's likely that they are either disinterested in talking to you or Disinterested in what you're talking about and you should probably talk about something else. I know it can be so Amazing to get the chance to a little little plin for yourself to talk about special interests things that you love and are passionate about but now everybody wants to hear it and Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't But social interactions a little bit of a ping-pong game you don't you got to test stuff out you got to bring things up You got to ask them questions You find that you they're not making as much eye contact Seeming a bit disinterested in what you're saying Ask them something about themselves Doesn't matter how vague the question is it'll allow them to Become interested in the conversation and for you to listen To something that they want to talk about if you don't like it Show those disinterested things, but you know, I think autistic people generally are Interested in people and they want to hear about people's opinions and ideas Which is also one of the things that I love about you guys autistic people Asperger's growth Legion Socializing can be hard I'm not saying that it's easy. I'm not saying that you're just gonna wall sin to it just by reading off a few little points that I've made But get the ideas of those points into your mind. Do your own research Practice stuff right about your experiences. What went what went wrong? One went what went right? What are the sort of thoughts that you've had ruin it past someone that you close to Get an idea of how to interact in in a situation and modify yourself and work on yourself Every single time you go into those interactions God, it's like learning a university degree subject All these Thomas II Tom lectures for you guys to enjoy Honestly, please take these things into account. They help a lot and they have been extremely helpful for me making friends Getting girlfriends sounds like my player there. I'm not definitely not They help Thank you. Don't know why I ended it with a thank you I'm not like a public speaker or anything. I know oh wait now. 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