“Can I be your [Facebook] friend?”

Well that depends on you level of the relations with that person.
At a really young age of about 18, I saw the smoke through the mirrors. That was back when MySpace was ruling the world while Friendster was on life support and Facebook was still known to the privileged elite. I knew that a “friend” on a social networking website was kinda like a Rolodex card or a “contact” according to LinkedIn.
I was setting my self up for realistic expectations. My MySpace had up to 20 “friends” partially because many went over to Facebook and by the height of my original Facebook account, I had up to 40 “friends” or “contacts”. Some didn’t friend me for reasons I have no idea, because my other friends were “friends” of various people. Even old elementary school teachers were too chicken. This was after I was 21. Wasn’t a student. Was it because I was too nasty in the past via the internet communication?
I knew when I “friended” some of my old classmates from my old town, I knew that I wouldn’t ever meet them in person again. Because I stopped seeing them once I left out of district, and you know how perceptions change as people progress and evolve.
However, the normal (or “nerotypical”) groups are the really socially demented ones. They brag about their friend count (some in the low to mid thousands!) and they are the actual “fake” ones with a “real” or “full name”. Their default pictures often  glamorize their shallow life. So I ask why is it ok for them  to be “fake” and demented while people like me who have socially awkward problems are the ones that shouldn’t be shunned? People tell me that they believe that I am a real person so why are these “fake” people getting enabled to be a plastic drama queen?
Never mind rich families (don’t matter if you are a republican Wingnut or a democratic Moonbat – because both are arrogant) that have enabled their children to give negative stereotypes of people of developmental disorders or disabilities. So if you try to friend a girl (sorry for the sexism) on Facebook, if they see your profile they may just get scared of you because they are afraid of unknown.
I’ve been burned of what I thought were my real-life “friends” that I tried to retain on Facebook as well (what’s wrong having an offline/online balance? there shouldn’t be) though in fact they treated me as a virtual person and had severely betrayed me. I had to cut these allegedly “important” people out of my life and the last year and a half after was the most painful social (in)experiences in recent memory before that leaving my local middle school and suddenly loosing contact of what were elementary “friends” a year before.
So between relationship levels, “social pyramids”, statuses, and privileged statuses, Facebook has not been successful in the last couple of years. Because I am not good for those “friends”. Simply I am a pile of dirt until I have to prove the higher social levels that I am good enough to be in their social clique.
That might had been a vague paragraph, but this is how the ellitests on autism teach (or preach) upon these individuals like moi. We have to THINK. THINK about how I am related to this friend, THINK what social level I am with, ARE these people ok to go out outside the packet-based world? ARE these people close enough to talk about various issues, should I THINK in case I screw up, if I might get pressed charges for being a creep?
These are the many “social” baggages I carry every day thanks to a small group of people making me feel useless. Or maybe I didn’t listen because I have esteem issues. I don’t know now. All I know is I am “socially” confused. This is why this blog exists.

Welcome to the Premiere!

Welcome to the go-live, the premiere, the first functioning day of A Puzzling View on Relationships! Beginning today, the blog will focus on one’s view in the broadest sense how confusing the real world is to socializing. If you are new to this blog, you’ll start to know that I suffer with an autistic disorder and I was essentially taught black-and-white standards of how to socialize. I had many therapists, speech pathologists, teachers  and psychologists essentially programming me how to socialize, and in some cases forcing me to grow up, meanwhile my “normal” peers can get away of being immature, party hard, and have been accepted for having a poor work ethic.
This blog contains works from The Forgotten Autistic from the “Love+ Relationships = Confusion” This blog was a spin-off from that blog to focus on that subject in a deeper sense. I’ve had a challenging live trying to figure out who I am, and not only that how to succeed life with the disorder, and the standards I was “programmed” to be. I focused on broader issues (also focusing on missing friendships, etc.) on the other blog, but to focus more on romance, various levels of relationships, even sexual issues, it was deemed a spin-off was in order.
Today is a new day, and there needs to be another voice focusing on issues from another perspective that might offend some, but one’s side of the truth needs to be heard. I hope over time I can give answers instead of seeing referrers coming from the search engines with questions as the search query.
So with that being said, Welcome to Day One of many days to come to demystify the crazy world of socialization.

Opening words!

For the last few weeks, I think I got some story web of thoughts and emotions, and most importantly, got a foundation holding up of this new blog. Lets kick this bitch off and hopefully we can hit many posts well into left field like the other blog, on getting on the point of family, friends, romance, sex and damn the negative bias known as “social skills” to hell where it’s supposed to be! To hell with the autism elite! To give the salute to the morons making socializing a pet project! To shut up the damned far-left liberals and their “zero tolerance” and their thin skinned approach of everything being “offensive”!  Let’s upgrade this bitch now to the finished product and open the doors to this blog and do a grand opening, of a go-live, a premiere date beginning now!

The best way to socially network…

is to click on log out
 
This screengrab of the logout link on Facebook was taken a few years ago (I thought I had one with the cursor pointing to it) after noticing my alleged “friends” really wasn’t paying attention to me but their other “friends”. They could’ve cared less about my stuff I put up and engaging more but I ether wasn’t good enough or I might not have the best packet-based presence as opposed to the offline presence.

Networking

A definition from a dictionary website defines networking as: “a supportive system of sharing information and services among individuals and groups having a common interest”
So how is someone with such small network supposed to “network”? And how is he supposed to meet new people, especially if he doesn’t want to be in his peer groups? And where in the hell is he suppose to start, since he keeps hearing the “can’t dos” over the “CAN dos”
Hell, let me be so old fashioned: giving a business card to some stranger in hopes to ether “network” or strike up an offsite conversation is almost the same cause-and-effect as befriending a stranger on Facebook. How can someone get ahead in life if he keeps getting road blocks?
Oh then just get a job.
Sure, yeah I could get a job through a work program, but even that where do I draw the line of when to or when or not to network. How am I supposed to engage in a conversation with a common interest?
There are so many “social” road blocks for someone like me to try to get his social life better, but because I can come off as awkward and I was “labeled” as someone with social skills issues, this vicious circle keeps going round and around because I have to question every thing like “is this someone that I know close?” “Should I give my card to them?” “How well did I know this kid in school”, etc., etc. and etc.
This blog exists because a few little social quirks have caused someone like me to become a huge iceberg for the wrong reasons.

Update, part three

Phase III has been complete. About twentysomething posts from The Forgotten Autistic about love and relationships have successfully been copied over and most of them are live and can be read in the Love + Relationships = Confusion. I don’t have followers yet, but I am seeing one or two people liking the posts, but to those people who are indirectly following the blog expect tweaks before September 10th about 8 or so days from now.
The last phase will be a new logo for the blog and additional tweaks leading to the premiere.
If you want a history of the phases:
Phase I: Alpha Stage – the blog was set to private to logged users only.
Phase II: Beta Stage – the blog went live publicly including the a few test posts based on the vision of this blog
Phase III: Copying the post on love and relationships from the other blog onto here as historical reference.
The plan is still on the general idea of love, friendships, etc. to be intended for a general audience from the eyes of someone with an autistic disorder.
I hope this blog will be a success – even if people won’t get answers to the questions they search online.

The Best Breakup Song (of any Relationships)

Click onto this embedded YouTube video and the classic Guess Who’s No Time just is the visual tell all of the soundtrack of my relationships going to hell. In few of those occurrences (it happened during the summertime – the crushes) and in other cases it was the friends turning on me. I was about 18 or so when I got the hang of the lyrics and figured out the pain I would have to endure.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNirREMmZIw]
 
Here’s some of the key phrases in the lyrics

“No time for a summer friend”

I felt that way in the summer of 2010

“Seasons changed and so did I”

Why do they call the season “fall” other than falling leaves?  I wonder now…

“No time for revolving doors”

jesus that was the story of my life – people coming and going every two years!

“You need not wonder why”
“Theres no time left left for you”

That last verse is just exactly how I was treated with no one actually saying that to me. I wasn’t good enough for them.
I’ll be posting more sappy songs on here over time, but I thought this would be a good one to start.

2013: The Year of Realism

As I had mentioned in the tellall earlier on, I had to go through some massive pain from the last two years. I’m going to simply break this down:
2010: Coming to some belief that my “friends” started to turn their heads against me. I was probably in denial.
Meanwhile I still thought a romantic future was coming sooner than later
2011: Started to see through that these “friends” made me feel like nothing. I was actually enabling their social ignorance by allowing them to be self-absorbed while they never (if barely) reciprocated back with me in social conversations. Again still in the denial/acceptance phase, depending on what day or time of the month I was feeling at that given moment.
Any hopes of a romantic future started to get bleaker and bleaker. I started to let go some of the painful past of anything that was relevant to romance.
2012: Came to the conclusion that those friends weren’t meant to be; and unfortunately another bad thing happened for someone who that can’t get a break out of bad luck. As for romance, the year that I am 25 years of age; and being very inexperienced, there probably aren’t that many people out there that would be willing to date someone who is that, especially when I live in an area where there are so many privileged brats (you know the “daddy’s little girl” types) that they wouldn’t want to date someone who might come off as socially odd.
As we begin the last quarter of 2012, I am already setting up expectations for 2013 (if the Mayan calendar doesn’t expire – gotta put that into equation.) Those expectations are the following:

  • Pay attention to the metaphoric screen blinking “Game Over”, i.e. my life is done as I knew it
  • Start to look into the idea of working – again!
  • Seek some independence
  • As lameass as it appears, I am starting to isolate myself from being around in the public. I go to any place, the mall or the beach and I just get so frecking emotional when I see so many people in 4somes or an alleged bf/gf couple touching and kissing and doing other touchy-feeley crap I will never be able to experience. This shouldn’t be construed as “pessimistic” its “realistic” I will admit, that I feel fine when I am not out in large social situations and within a half hour after being isolated, its like nothing happened.
  • By detaching myself from the social world, this will test my abilities to be “less emotional” I have been criticized as being “too emotional”. By detaching myself from the “real world”, it will probably continue to build  a “glass wall” between me and the real world so therefore I can be fully autistic, and see things in a third person point-of-view and not get attached to the social world. This will also build up my white collared demeanor and learn to have a heart of a stone, because professionals aren’t supposed to have emotions.
  • Continue with electronic ways of doing things without human intervention. This includes purchasing items online, such as eBay, and using self-checkout systems at the local grocery store.

This is the hard truth I have to deal with. Its painful, but hey its the blunt truth. If I had a real father in my life, he probably say half of what I just wrote. He’d probably hit me in the ass to do some of the mentioned. Though, I never lie because if I did, I’d be known as Dan Rather and making BS for CBS News. This is gawd’s honest truth to power. This blog won’t always be sexy, but again life isn’t sexy – its overrated.