I’ve
never been very good at the whole social thing. Everyone thinks I’m shy and quiet, and I admit that I am incredibly
introverted, but I think most of it is that I just suck at connecting with
people and coming up with things to say. I don’t enjoy being socially awkward and if I could participate in the
conversation I would, but for some reason I just never developed these skills,
hence the title of this post. Now part
of it is because I have an auditory processing disorder and the name basically
says it all, my brain doesn’t process auditory information as well as it’s
supposed to. [Apparently I’ve had my
brain scrambled a few too many times.] About 50% of the time I don’t fully understand what is being said to
me, this leads to a lot of smiling and nodding. I will understand eventually but it may take me a while so if
you have a question to ask me you may need to be prepared to come back later
for an answer. Usually about 30 minutes
after a conversation ends, I suddenly realise what the person was talking about
and end up thinking “Damn, I could have said this and this.” And if there are more than a few people
involved in the conversation, forget it. By the time I process what the first person has said, three other people
have already responded and I have no idea what they said so I just sit there
and try to not look too confused. This
also happens in noisy environments (such as a pub) because my hearing is very
sensitive and I’m also unable to discriminate between what the person is saying
and the background noise. It causes some
trouble in terms of articulating what I want to say as well. I always know what I mean but I can never
seem to get the other person to understand, and then I get frustrated and give
up, likely leaving the person I was talking to thinking that I’m a moron. Luckily I never had any desire to be a
teacher.
Although
this disorder plays a big role in my social awkwardness, like I said, I’m
pretty sure I just never developed the skills that allow you to make small talk
and connect with people. [They've shown that a
lack of social skills is often correlated with having a high IQ, so I’m just
going to go with that.] My therapist was
really happy when I told her that I started this blog because according to her
I’ve found a way to use one of my “gifts” (writing) to connect with other
people. For a while now she’s been
having me email her in between our visits when I’m having a rough time or if
there’s just something I need to talk about (because I think she figured out
that I don’t really talk to anyone else) but this actually ended up becoming
the best way for me to talk to her. I
don’t get frustrated with not being able to explain what I mean and I can
connect with her a lot more, so now when I go to my sessions she just pulls up
my emails and we talk about what I’ve written. Unfortunately, being able to connect with people via my writing isn’t
going to make my inevitable social encounters any easier. I’m sure there are a number of things I could
do to help improve my social skills but I have a lot of other stuff on my plate
right now so I don’t think I’m ready to make that commitment yet. Maybe one day, provided I get past my
extraordinary ability to procrastinate.
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