I am doing some strange things lately, pretty much it part of an agenda to improve my social skills dramatically. My main goal is to do reasonably well in the professional world once I graduate from university. The second more minor goal I want to achieve, I want to get socially skilled enough to do at least as well as most NT guys in the dating game. I am not sure if I want to get married or be in a long term relationship, but I would be nice to experience what being in one is like.
There are the normal things of improving conversation skills, learning non-verbal communication, understanding non-written social rules (i.e body language) and other interpersonal skills. Along with combating my social avoidance and anxiety. In these areas only a little book knowledge (I only have a few ebooks and great website called A survival guide for people with Asperger syndrome)Â is required the rest comes from practical experience.
The things I am doing that might be considered strange are applying to sledgehammer to my personality, the way I see it I am just reverting back to what I was as a kid. A kid who wasn't ultra-nice, often arrogant and occasionally mean. Years of humility taught me to become a person who avoided conflict and try to please everyone. I want to become well more self assertive, ruthless, very judgemental, if not a little mean. I am a person with high standards of himself and expect others to do likewise. I am doing Judo classes to deal with my anger management problem and give me confidence to fight back (it is not likely I ever have to use my fighting skills for real).
The weird things I am doing are based on a couple of observations an Aspie IRL told me when we first met, he said I was soft spoken and needed to become louder. I can't remember exactly what I should do something to project the voice from the diaphragm and since we were at a concert, I told him I was not coping well with the sounds and he said he lost some of his hearing by listening to loud heavy metal music I believe over the years. So I have decided to follow his advice, I am going to listen a lot to my favorite metal bands really loud on my ipod shuffle and computer headphones for as long as it takes to lose enough hearing.
He gave me a few great observations about my behavior and tips so far, I see him as a role model for me, because he is an aspie who has succeeded in the NT world and personality wise he has some similarities to me.
