I’m 30 and horrible at keeping friends. I don’t know if it’s the unschooling or the autism, but I’m told I come across as hostile when I think I’m being nice.
I know the basics. I make eye contact but not too much, I ask people about themselves and their interests to show I’m interested, I don’t dominate conversations with myself and my own interests. I try to be a nice person people might want to keep around, too— I give money when someone’s in a pinch, I remember birthdays, I help move, et cetera.
Eventually people either people tell me I’m being a dick in ways I never realized, or more likely, they just eventually stop messaging me back.
The one thing I’m sure I struggle with is body language. I’ve read a lot that you need to mirror the other person’s body language, but I don’t know how to do that. Especially since I normally meet people at work and we’re usually pushing big carts around and moving products and I’m just not thinking about my body as something expressive, just practical.
I’m sure I have many more blind spots that I’m not even aware of.
So like… are there classes for this? Some kind of specialized therapy? I don’t really want to try anymore unless I can stop being a dick
I don’t think that’s quite right. I’m a basketcase and they know it. They’re always pretty rightfully annoyed with me for catastrophizing. I also used to try too hard to reassure them— eg, someone would say he feels like a bad person and I’d remind him of the good things he’s done— and they had to explain to me that that’s a dick move.