verhrzn Posted April 18, 2012 Posted April 18, 2012 If someone is not good at reading social cues, and body language, how can they learn? I've tried reading several books about the topic, but not surprisingly, learning social skills from a book hasn't proved very fruitful. If you don't acquire these skills naturally throughout your life, how can you learn about them and improve on them?
zengirl Posted April 18, 2012 Posted April 18, 2012 The ways I can think of: 1. Behavioral therapy with a therapist who specializes in such things. People with ASD often see them, but I don't think one needs Aspergers to benefit from behavioral therapy. 2. Traveling and being forced to make new friends. Constantly. (This is where I gained the bulk of my better interpersonal skills.) 3. Sales training. (This is where I gained many of my interpersonal skills, but some of them kind of sucked and were mildly manipulative. I grew out of them.) 4. Through existing friendships. 5. By talking to strangers. Both #4 and #5 are trial and error, and a lot can be done with a therapist, as in #1, to help you see trends if you're not good at that yourself. I also think some books might help, but you'd need books that are specific to the issues you have and they'd be more like workbooks with things to go out and DO and TRY to see the results. Basically, most interpersonal skills are gained through trial and error, though we can have people -- a friend, a family member, a professional -- help guide us. Some people have more support than others. I'm sure there are many more ways. The thing is, gaining them, like gaining everything, requires a lot of failure first.
Star Gazer Posted April 18, 2012 Posted April 18, 2012 In addition to what ZG said, I think you need to change your attitude and perception about yourself and others. No matter what "skills" you have, if you continue to forge the negative attitude and perception that you're currently weighed down with, your interpersonal relationships will continue to fail. 1
zengirl Posted April 18, 2012 Posted April 18, 2012 Oh, and improv classes! Improv is a great way to start to relate to people better. You have to work together with scene partners, go out of your comfort zone, and so forth. 1
veggirl Posted April 18, 2012 Posted April 18, 2012 1. Behavioral therapy with a therapist who specializes in such things. People with ASD often see them, but I don't think one needs Aspergers to benefit from behavioral therapy. 2. Traveling and being forced to make new friends. Constantly. (This is where I gained the bulk of my better interpersonal skills.) 3. Sales training. (This is where I gained many of my interpersonal skills, but some of them kind of sucked and were mildly manipulative. I grew out of them.) 4. Through existing friendships. 5. By talking to strangers. All great ideas! Can't wait for the point by point rebuttal on why these won't work! 1
Author verhrzn Posted April 18, 2012 Author Posted April 18, 2012 All great ideas! Can't wait for the point by point rebuttal on why these won't work! Well I've been failing at 2, 4 and 5 for 26 years, so... obviously needing some fresher ideas around here.
dasein Posted April 18, 2012 Posted April 18, 2012 1. Stop thinkng nerds are the best class of men to date, stop thinking of yourself as one. Nerds are normal well adjusted people only on television. Who knows what they are going to do? No wonder you are frustrated with men. BTW, I used to -be- one years and years ago. Went to a socially attuned college and turned myself around though. 2. Start broadening your social network away from work. Start by talking to everyone if it's only a hi. Make small talk even if it's boring. People know people, there is a snowball effect, even setup possibilities, and have always suspected your social group is too narrowly focused. 3. Join a church if you are religious, some club if not, not a scifi or comic book club either. Preferably something that gets you out in the community, meetup groups or a local charity. Get away from work socializing and get comfortable -out there- in the world. Good luck.
mesmerized Posted April 18, 2012 Posted April 18, 2012 Some good advice on here. I also recommend traveling and forcing yourself to do things that you wouldn't normally do in your own city. You're elsewhere so even if you get embarrassed, it really doesn't matter. I've done that and it's very helpful. It also boosts your confidence a lot.
ThaWholigan Posted April 18, 2012 Posted April 18, 2012 I don't know how to follow the already brilliant responses so far..... This is an area in which I have had to improve on myself over the years due to being hideously ill-equiped at interpersonal skills, and I am now at a level where I am actually rather good at it now. Everything I learned was through trial and error and it was NOT easy at all, but I eventually started to have fun with my social experiments. These are some of the things I have done but many of them are unorthodox for a few: 1. Learned to act. This is something I didn't get from an improv class unfortunately, but very oddly through endless hours of TV&Film, and watching my father who actually is an actor. I learned how to use my voice effectively, how to structure my sentences verbally and how to adequately judge personal space. My analysis proved to me that I was doing something right. I started to think of myself as a movie character and used this to explore all the ways I could interact with people. It didn't always work and I came off even weirder than usual at times, but eventually it got easier to interact and settle down into my default character with ease. So 2. This is a little unorthodox but when I was about 6 years old, I started learning to rap. I had poor verbal reasoning skills but rapping helped me speed up the process of speech therapy as I could not speak properly for a number of years. I kept doing it and I used to rap and sing for people at school in the playground as a way of interacting with people to make myself more at ease with talking to them. Eventually by the time I was 14 it literally became a career option by accident, and the more I explored talking to people, the better I got at rapping. This might not be the best option for you (although it might work ), but I would learn to write and recite poetry or something of a verbal art to help you come across to people in an authentic way. 3. This is a no-brainer but experiment with your responses to people. Leave your emotions and your ego at home and just have fun with your interactions. College and Uni were my golden years as I pretty much became comfortable being my natural self around people, through experimenting with what I said, talking in accents, cracking my offbeat jokes, and I even started to use sarcasm, something I couldn't even tell before. Having fun is perhaps one of the more important parts of interacting with people socially in an informal setting. Expanding your vocabulary is important with this, as you become more dextrous with your words. 4. Most important: I practiced empathy. I learned to relate to other people in terms of being in their shoes, especially in the current interaction. I didn't use mirroring or anything like that, but I simply put my focus on them rather than on myself when talking to them. It increased my interest in others, aswell as becoming VERY empathic in the process, and people increased their interest in me as a person because I came across as warm and accomodating. I do not judge people either and am naturally very accomodating which is one of the reasons why people like talking to me. There's more but I can't think off the top of my head at the moment, but these are just a few of the unorthodox ways I improved my ability to relate to people. 5
NXS Posted April 18, 2012 Posted April 18, 2012 Start listening to people having conversations, focus on the tempo, the lulls, the pitch and the overall energy of the conversation. There's always cues when someone is finished or about to finish a sentence. A drop in pitch and a split second silence, that's the cue for someone else to speak. Don't interrupt people when they're talking unless it's to give them responses that you're listening e.g. hmm, yes, or repeat the gist of what they just said etc. Listen to what they're saying instead of trying to formulate your answer while they're speaking. Let them finish their point. When answering try to keep the same energy as the conversation, for example if someone is making a light-hearted comment don't answer with some depressing comment that pulls the conversation down. Don't be a narcissist that waffles on endlessly about yourself, people get bored of this very quickly, take an interest in other people's lives and ask questions. When you want to talk about say something that happened try and make it interesting, have a structure and point to it e.g. an observation about what happened, or a joke, or question that you want clarity on. Practice in your mind how you want describe this event before you even start and tell it in a way that builds up to the end. This will make people interested in listening to you. And again, listen to people. . 4
Feelin Frisky Posted April 19, 2012 Posted April 19, 2012 Just devote yourself to positive energy and be proactive in your social approach. What I mean by that is to assert yourself--take action--before falling into self consciousness. Volunteer for things when circumstances call for someone to lend a hand, try to speak first when in situations like a meeting on your job so that you're not waiting for "around the room" to get to you to avoid tenseness and self consciousness. Think of yourself as Miss Definitely and not Miss Nah. Go, go and go. You don't have to worry so much about social cues if you are leading (initiating).
Els Posted April 19, 2012 Posted April 19, 2012 Practice. You would be surprised how many things can be achieved just with practice. Yes, it'll be slower and you may not be as good as the person who is a 'natural' with it. But almost anything can be practiced to reasonable levels. 1
Leigh 87 Posted April 19, 2012 Posted April 19, 2012 I noticed in one of your old posts... If I can recall, you said you were standing around with a women, who was talking about how she made blueberry wine? Well - personally, I am very interested in other people. People say I make them feel good. It would have paid to have: - been like " wow cool, blueberry wine, sounds interesting" - ' how do u make it" .....And learn about how she makes it. I love learing new things, myself, even if I do not intend on remembering much of it!! It is just interesting to hear about how other people can do things, that you cannot do. ARE you genuinely interested in leanring about other people? Do you like hearing about things other people enjoy doing? If not, learn to me:) Zen is right - travel is also key, and can help u in interacting with more people. Possible, if your open to it.
Leigh 87 Posted April 19, 2012 Posted April 19, 2012 Just devote yourself to positive energy and be proactive in your social approach. What I mean by that is to assert yourself--take action--before falling into self consciousness. Volunteer for things when circumstances call for someone to lend a hand, try to speak first when in situations like a meeting on your job so that you're not waiting for "around the room" to get to you to avoid tenseness and self consciousness. Think of yourself as Miss Definitely and not Miss Nah. Go, go and go. You don't have to worry so much about social cues if you are leading (initiating). Yes yes yes yesssssssssssss I learnt to be a positive person!!!!!!1 People like you far more. And, being super nice and helping people feels great:)
ThaWholigan Posted April 19, 2012 Posted April 19, 2012 Feel this thread needs a bump.... To echo sales training, there are negotiation courses aswell that go with sales training, they are supposed to be really good.
RedRobin Posted April 19, 2012 Posted April 19, 2012 If someone is not good at reading social cues, and body language, how can they learn? I've tried reading several books about the topic, but not surprisingly, learning social skills from a book hasn't proved very fruitful. If you don't acquire these skills naturally throughout your life, how can you learn about them and improve on them? Take some public speaking classes, acting, or an improv class... would be my suggestion. Those things are all about reading other people. Especially the improv class. The ones I've taken teach you how to offer positive cues to others so that they can easily reciprocate back. It has done wonders for one of my male friends.
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