Too late to learn new social skills?
I am 32 years old and I feel like it’s too late for me to learn new social skills. It doesn’t help that most people my age have established friendship networks and aren’t interested in making new friends. It makes me unable to practice new social skills and someone my age struggling to socialize is either considered “weird” or even a potential serial killer.
Comments
I've found out that, even though I am not "normal" now, by just putting effort in to socialize with other autistic people on forums that my social skills have improved a lot, and those skills and confidence have somewhat translated into real life. I don't get as many weird looks from people and my interactions with them turn out a lot better now. I was in a place before this though where I had intense enough social anxiety that I couldn't handle even replying to threads or responding directly to people.
I think if you could find a way to socialize with people online, in a space you are comfortable enough to talk about your interests and other things, it could let you practice your social skills. I know you've already used forums for quite awhile, but you've mentioned before that you find it hard to get involved in threads that interest you. Maybe you could start by pushing yourself to do that, and see if you get used to it and if that boost of confidence helps you?
It took me quite awhile to get used to not being in my "comfort zone" on forums, but it did work, and now I have a lot more topics to talk about and people to talk to + practice my social skills with. I think that's worth trying.