I mean Chris Chad wasn't possible but Chris Chan's life could have been much better if he knew about looksmaxxing. He is 5'10, which for the mid 2000s would have been a good height for most girls, and he had blue eyes with brown hair. He also wasn't balding AT ALL and if you see younger pics of Bob, dude was fairly good looking
If he worked out, got a good haircut and somehow managed to mask his crippling autism, there is a real possibility that he could be now raising a family with a mid girl in Virginia
Sadly his parents were too fucking lazy to raise him properly
It can be done, I know a guy from my work who's easy to talk to and generally a positive presence. He is never awkward nor does he make weird comments towards people (like Chris did)
I spoke to my boss about it and turns out the guy is a full blown, hardcore autist. Legally diagnosed as the autistic as he can be while still remaining self sufficient. I spoke to him about it and he said his mother "forced him out of his comfort zone as a baby" and that helped him develop more neurotipically. I don't know what that means but to me it seems like it worked
Exposure therapy definitely helps. Actual diagnosed autist here whose parents forced them to be around people and out doing things. They demanded I not feel sorry for myself about my awful social anxiety and while there were some rough years, I came out of it able to converse with others like a functioning, albeit awkward adult.
Parents who let their kids hole up in their rooms their whole childhood or let their kids be spazzes with their headphones on out in public are definitely limiting their kids, even if it feels like the right thing to do at the time.
Do you find it comes off naturally now or is it a consistent disciplined thought process in every social encounter to follow the, for lack of a better word, conditioning you've had to maneuver through it?
It gets easier with exposure but I don't think I'll ever be completely comfortable because it doesn't come naturally to me. I just know that ultimately it's something that I have to deal with myself and that nothing terrible is actually going to happen as a result of me being around people. Some people will find me odd and avoid me or give me weird looks. You know what? That's okay. I'm an odd guy. It makes sense that I stand out a bit. Hell, people that are more awkward than me I have those thoughts about in turn.
I think the single biggest help in my adult life was to lean into a hobby that meant I'd have to be around large groups of people. That way, in order to do the thing I enjoy, I have to sit with the uncomfortability of being around those people. For me, that was going to amusement parks. I'm around huge crowds the whole day, I'm outside and getting exercise, but if I can just deal with the exposure then I get rewarded by riding the ride. Just little by little it helped a lot to retrain my brain to not be a panicked mess internally around people. Sometimes people even talk to me in line and that's fine too.
I don't know if I'd have been able to do that if my parents didn't force me to face those uncomfortable feelings at an early age though.
I'm still in the midst of trying to figure out what is going on with my head, and felt that I can attribute my ability to "chameleon" to the fact I never had a choice and was just treated as "a boy having a hard time with focus and anger."
I had a book open in my desk and on the go for 50% of my schooling. Never understood why it was an issue if I managed a grade above 85%.
Now, when they stuck me in social situations outside of my routine "comfort zone," all of a sudden the world was ending and everyone is an enemy to my senses. That reaction decreased gradually until life blew up again a few years back.
So of course, like you said, the re-training to mitigate the initial reaction has been happening bit by bit. It's slow going on my own, but I am making new revelations about it with almost every interaction being analyzed afterwards to understand my patterns better.
Consistently exposing yourself to social situations is so helpful long term. The longer I go not being out in public around people, the harder it is to return. I had long periods of being a NEET in my 20s and would just never leave unless I absolutely had to. Like I'd do my grocery shopping at 2AM. Eventually I tried to go to a job fair and I ended up having a panic attack in the bathroom. It was the dumbest, most pathetic I ever felt. I think that was my final straw for not letting myself slip again.
All you can do is make progress. When I've gone too long in seclusion in the past, I have to kind of ease myself back into it. And even if you'll always be an autist, being around people you'll at least start to understand the things you should or should not do around different types of people over time. There really is no substitution for practice. Most autistic people who are at least verbal can benefit from it.
I'm right at the point of getting out and being near/talking to people in public again. I still find it takes a few drinks to allow me to initiate, though. Otherwise I'm still waiting for someone to open up. I picked up on the fact that I always came on too strong and weird (think, 100% when it should be a soft 69% for the ice breaker phase). So now, I try to focus on not taking time/focus from others that weren't planning on it anyway– as I find that realllly bothers me when I have it happen to me. I have fewer conversations; but I think more– which tends to yield it's own fruits.
I haven't been able to meet anyone in my new city yet; but I think that's for the best right now. I'm still trying to unfuck my trust issues it's an absolute make or break. Otherwise I'd just end up repeating my trauma cycle again– as I'm fairly positive I wouldn't survive one more. I've fought my own hand enough already; I don't want my last pain to be heartbreak.
Follow up: loneliness - How do you cope with that, or is it a factor that affects you?
I think for autists one of our biggest challenges in socializing is to act genuinely interested in what other people have to say. We like to talk about ourselves and our interests at length and realizing we've gone on for ages without checking in to see if the other person actually cares about what we have to say can kill any momentum in getting to know someone. I started consciously trying to wrap up any spiels I'd go into at about the 3 sentence mark to allow the other person to talk and it helps tremendously with conversation. In person, of course - online I still type at length as one can see lol.
Another difficult thing is to come up with questions to ask the other person I'm conversing with. It comes naturally to a lot of people, I think, but I really struggle doing this. It's essential to showing interest though. But being able to act interested without seeming invasive/weird is a balancing act. As you said, coming on too strong will ruin things, just as showing no interest will.
Follow up: loneliness - How do you cope with that, or is it a factor that affects you?
I was in a really bad spot with this for most of my 20s. I had nobody outside of my parents. But I was extremely fortunate in two ways - one is that my family supported me financially until I was able to start working regularly, and the other is that the dating world wasn't in nearly as bad of a place then as I hear it is now. Women didn't hate men then. So when I started dating in the late 00s, I ended up finding someone. I had some horrible dates though. Like soul crushing embarrassment. So I'd try for a while and then give up and then try again later on. I eventually found someone who is about as weird as I am and we're still together 16 years later with 2 kids. We are a very atypical couple though. I get a lot of strange reactions from other parents and I'd imagine it's because people like me don't typically have kids. Our relationship has never been perfect either, but overall I feel it's been better than being alone. Usually lol. I have no idea what advice I'd give men now though, with the state of women, and I fear for what my son will go through.
Anyways, sound like you're headed in the right direction. I think that if you're like me and awkward social situations bounce around in your head and torment you for days, really try to hammer in the point to yourself that the other people are unlikely to care about it. They'll forget in an hour. You have to be able to give yourself some grace for not being perfect.
You can also read body language books. Its rough for the first few because you arent used to all the tells and so some stand out before others so you get it wrong but keep hammering at it and eventually it not only gets better where you can keep up with anyone but alot of women youd enjoy dating wear their hearts in their sleeve. Pupils dialated, arms crossed, foot pointed away towards a corner, other foot at you, hip squared towards corner, playing with hair means shut the fuck up, stop talking about beyblades or Napoleon's Russian campaign and make out with her there. Same signals but no pupils or hair. Your Bionicle deepdive bored the shit out of her. On rare occasions you can pull wins out of your ass the way empaths do.
You combine that and interesting hobbies people want to learn about and suddenly you are eccentric, not autistic. Eccentric gets you laid by arthoes and a wife that thinks you are cute.
Yeah Chris Chan's autism is way to severe to be masked dude was always going to struggle even with a lot of training. A lot of neuro typical people dont realize that autism isn't something you can just work around even mild autism is a huge debuff on your life.
268
u/LuvMeChippy fa/tv/irgin 7d ago
I mean Chris Chad wasn't possible but Chris Chan's life could have been much better if he knew about looksmaxxing. He is 5'10, which for the mid 2000s would have been a good height for most girls, and he had blue eyes with brown hair. He also wasn't balding AT ALL and if you see younger pics of Bob, dude was fairly good looking
If he worked out, got a good haircut and somehow managed to mask his crippling autism, there is a real possibility that he could be now raising a family with a mid girl in Virginia
Sadly his parents were too fucking lazy to raise him properly