On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:14:28 -0500, Warp wrote:

>   One reason for the latter may be lack of social skills and experience
> at socializing. This can be a self-sustaining problem: Lack of
> experience and skills stops the person from getting them through
> experience because he is unable to properly socialize, get new
> acquaintances, and so on. The person may be unable to reach out to
> others, and even if sometimes others reach out to him, he may be unable
> to reciprocate, and the social situation might not go anywhere beyond
> just a short and formal conversation.

Very much so - I used to have problems like this myself; it is possible 
to break the cycle, but it's not easy to do.  What I did was forced 
myself into situations where I had to socialize; I ask people in the 
office if they want to grab lunch (that's a big one for me), went to my 
5th high school reunion, and also got involved in doing presentations at 
trade shows and eventually into teaching classes. 

From the reunion, well, that was a disaster, actually; I ended up talking 
to a girl who was in my English class and she asked what I'd been up to.  
My first book had just been published, and I told her that; she was 
interested and asked what it was about.  Rather than say "it's about 
troubleshooting Novell's NDS" (which she clearly wouldn't have 
understood), I said it was about computers.  Her response was "Oh.  I 
hate computers." and that killed the conversation.  In retrospect, I 
wasn't the one lacking social skills in that situation.

But I also realised how few people I went to high school with that I 
actually knew.

I still struggle with it from time to time.  I've never been diagnosed as 
having any sort of social "disorder", but I was always a loner and had a 
very small group of friends.  When I was in elementary school, it was bad 
enough that I had some sessions with the school therapist (which I had 
actually forgotten about until just now).

Jim

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