On missed connections and "sealing the deal"
And, okay, not literally in the sense that I'm talking about getting a girl that that I'm attracted to into bed, though I suppose it's worth noting that that particular set of challenges are certainly a subset of the issues I'm going to be talking about. Or, at very least, very strongly related.
Basically, I've been living in Manhattan for just over a year now, and I've made no significant headway in terms of new friendships or relationships. I do, however, have a bevy of new facebook contacts- of people I've met once or twice, chatted with once or twice, generally seemed to hit it off with, and who friended me back on facebook. In real life, I'm still quite isolated socially, with a very tiny circle of friends that scarcely grown over the past year, and which, by many measures, has even shrunk a bit.
The reason for this disconnect, I've realized, is pretty firmly rooted in my Asperger's. While I've generally developed a fair number of the tools to appear normal and participate in an engaging conversation now and then (at least, after several drinks), the one place where I have always and continue to fail is in the realm of parlaying those interesting conversations and first contacts into an ongoing relationship with someone, where I might meet up and hang out with them a second or third time. Even in the era of facebook and meetups, which are certainly ideal avenues by which to re-engage someone that I just met and signal interest in continuing some degree of correspondence, it's just something I fail to parse constructively. At very best, I meet someone, we hit it off, we friend each other, and then I'm at a loss for how to initiate a second contact. By the time I've come up with something, it's typically so much after the fact (on the order of weeks or months) that that contact feels forced or after-the-fact. And, once that happens, the vague "am I getting this wrong" worry starts to creep in, and I can't help but interpret any further missed connections or terse responses as complete lack of interest, further discouraging.
I did just recently manage to reconnect with one such missed connection, but rapidly found myself out of conversation material and struggling to maintain this contact. This is something I want to be able to get right, because it speaks to my ability to get along as an actual adult outside of college more strongly than anything else I can think of: in college, particularly a small college, everyone's routines and dense living arrangements essentially ensure that one will cross paths with someone on nearly a weekly basis. There is little one can do apart from cultivating relationships under these circumstances: a second, and third, forth and fifth contact are effectively ensured by nature of the living and work arrangements. But, here I am living in New York City, one of the largest -though also densest- cities in the world. My odds of running into the same person several times, absent intentional effort, are quite small, though not quite exactly vanishing to nil, as I've recently discovered with one person. But, I've also discovered, in this same set of contacts, even this serves as little guarantee of establishing a relationship without "sealing the deal", and establishing some other manner of further, intentional contact. But, I'm still deeply at a loss for how to manage this.
Do any Aspies/NTs/undiagnosed Aspies have any insights?
Basically, I've been living in Manhattan for just over a year now, and I've made no significant headway in terms of new friendships or relationships. I do, however, have a bevy of new facebook contacts- of people I've met once or twice, chatted with once or twice, generally seemed to hit it off with, and who friended me back on facebook. In real life, I'm still quite isolated socially, with a very tiny circle of friends that scarcely grown over the past year, and which, by many measures, has even shrunk a bit.
The reason for this disconnect, I've realized, is pretty firmly rooted in my Asperger's. While I've generally developed a fair number of the tools to appear normal and participate in an engaging conversation now and then (at least, after several drinks), the one place where I have always and continue to fail is in the realm of parlaying those interesting conversations and first contacts into an ongoing relationship with someone, where I might meet up and hang out with them a second or third time. Even in the era of facebook and meetups, which are certainly ideal avenues by which to re-engage someone that I just met and signal interest in continuing some degree of correspondence, it's just something I fail to parse constructively. At very best, I meet someone, we hit it off, we friend each other, and then I'm at a loss for how to initiate a second contact. By the time I've come up with something, it's typically so much after the fact (on the order of weeks or months) that that contact feels forced or after-the-fact. And, once that happens, the vague "am I getting this wrong" worry starts to creep in, and I can't help but interpret any further missed connections or terse responses as complete lack of interest, further discouraging.
I did just recently manage to reconnect with one such missed connection, but rapidly found myself out of conversation material and struggling to maintain this contact. This is something I want to be able to get right, because it speaks to my ability to get along as an actual adult outside of college more strongly than anything else I can think of: in college, particularly a small college, everyone's routines and dense living arrangements essentially ensure that one will cross paths with someone on nearly a weekly basis. There is little one can do apart from cultivating relationships under these circumstances: a second, and third, forth and fifth contact are effectively ensured by nature of the living and work arrangements. But, here I am living in New York City, one of the largest -though also densest- cities in the world. My odds of running into the same person several times, absent intentional effort, are quite small, though not quite exactly vanishing to nil, as I've recently discovered with one person. But, I've also discovered, in this same set of contacts, even this serves as little guarantee of establishing a relationship without "sealing the deal", and establishing some other manner of further, intentional contact. But, I'm still deeply at a loss for how to manage this.
Do any Aspies/NTs/undiagnosed Aspies have any insights?