Building Social Skills in Gifted Youths? 1319
UNOStudent asks: "I'm currently a Biotech undergrad at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and have spent the past several semesters mentoring gifted youngsters and have been presented with a challenge this semester. My student is unbelievably smart, however has very limited social skills, is unable to cooperate with peers, doesn't understand why they make fun of his uncombed hair, etc. Since many of us may have grown up in a similar circumstance, I'm looking for suggestions from my fellow geeks on ideas for how to challenge him mentally, while building essential social skills." How would you build social skills in someone more concerned with math, science and computers?
3 tips that would have made my life a lot easier (Score:0, Interesting)
2 - Once they're older, teach them how to deal with such people in an assertive manner that will be effective in defeating and suppressing anti-intellectuals.
3 - Get them laid early in life.
Work = People (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Role-playing games. (Score:4, Interesting)
Asberger's Syndrome (Score:5, Interesting)
Acting lessons (Score:5, Interesting)
Acting teaches how to communicate intentions and how to show interest when listening.
Acting can also provide a second social network (with people just as interested in role playing as you, except without silly costumes), with few social interconnections to the tech social networks (so you get to be a social hub.)
Finite time, you can't. (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember, if they were like everyone else they wouldn't be gifted.
Smile. It goes further than you think... (Score:5, Interesting)
The lesson is that social interaction doesn't require a major breakthrough. Slowly build up your confidence and you'll be amazed at the results which follow.
Re:Surely You're Joking (Score:4, Interesting)
Getting the kid involved in any social skill is better, intellectual observations tend to be solitary. Team sports are of course good, but as most geeks are completely ungifted there, something like the science olympiad or governors academies are great. I learned a lot from each, how to work in a group, made some good friends.
If you have it in your area, JETS (Junior Engineer Technical Society or something like that) is a wonderful competition. A group of people that work as a group to solve some hard engineering problems and think outside the box. Get 100 young geeks together in a large room, they compete, they break for lunch and massive studiest of the aerodynamic properties of paper, then some more competition. Wonderful memories.
Play to the geek skills of random knowledge and challenge, but avoid the solitary activities and also downplay the sex angle unless they bring it up, let him do what he wants, just give some direction and motivation.
Most of all, let the kid have fun!
Fight for what's right, or cave... (Score:3, Interesting)
social situations for smrt people (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the major diff between smart people and dumb people is that dumb people don't have to think about everything so analytically. that's not to say there aren't smart people who can think analytically about social situations, but just that is something that takes time to develop. Also not to say all smart people develop the ability to emulate social skills either.
my opinion is that in smart people, social skills is a developed trait, while in most people, they don't have to think about it because they aren't focused enough to let it get above suboncious level.
when you're a kid, there hasn't been time yet. kids aren't really rational about anything, even the smartest ones. myself at the time included, even tho i thought i knew it all.
my best advice would be to sit him down and try to explain in an analytical way how social skills are just another thing for him to dominate his peers in. i think that would've motivated me more, before i had figured out that I had to teach myself how to emulate the social skills that appear relevant in others, yet lacking in smart people.
but who knows honestly
Weightlifting, sports... (Score:1, Interesting)
If he is really dedicated it will do several things:
provide some self-disclipline, keep him healthy, make him feel better about himself.
A lot of not being social has to do with feeling that you dont fit in. When he starts feeling better about himself this will start to change.
More importantly, when people start noticing the muscle, and commenting, and talking to him, it will REALLY start to change.
Whats better, is that he will gain some respect around school, and can protect all his geek friends.
Not to mention it gives him something not geek like to talk about
Re:more words:Dyslexia and Dyspraxia (Score:5, Interesting)
In what has been described in the blurb, I see what I was when I joined year 7 at my UK school.
The best way I coped with social situations was literlly to relate them to computer programming. Each individual is an object, they have the same properties, but diffrent values.
The best way to socialise with one another is to exchange the diffrent values you have and try to find similar ones. When you do, its best to follow the similar ones, and thus you can become friends with them.
If they have diffrent values but express intrest in the ones you have, you could show them about that value. Thus you have also made a friend through diffrences.
I still find it hard to socialise with girls, however, with time comes perfection, as I currently have a girlfriend.
You need to, without making them feel unwanted or put down by suggestions, make them think a bit about their outwards apperence. Hand them a comb in the morning, and make a small joke about why to use it. (E.g. better look snappy, you never know who might walk through the door - or something similar without the cheeseness).
Do get them tested for all three, both of my points, and the parent posters point, as early diagnosis is very helpfull.
Good Luck
NeoThermic
An Extreme Example... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, I *tried* to get this kid into something that even the geek crowd would think was recreational, but nada. No music, no movies, no video games, no sports (assuming foozball counts as a sport). Sure, he's headed to Yale, and he knows assloads about engineering already (he could talk down to a master's student from GA Tech), but I can't imagine how lonely the guy may one day end up. It's *possible* that he'll meet a girl who'll fall in love with him for what he's like now, but his playing field is severely limited as such. And yes, I understand that his idea of recreation was the things he was into, but it isn't exactly common ground when it comes to finding friends. He basically reminds me of the guy from Sneakers who made robotic dogs, but more limited.
I finally decided that it wasn't my place to help this guy. That might be the case with the student in the article. I personally think that it'll take a psychologist/psychiatrist, and not the
Bright Futures Program (Score:2, Interesting)
This year when i run it, ill be sure to have it running more smoothly (as i ran it for only 2 semesters for the first time) and hope to allocate some more funding for extra parts from my "budget"
Hope this gives the original poster some idea's as to what to do with a little bit of creativity.
What worked for me (Score:4, Interesting)
1) The kid should make no apologies for his brains. Unfortunately, many such kids are bright enough to realize that people like you if you're stupid, and thus try to act like an idiot to try to make friends.
2) Show the kid that social issues can be solved just like mathematical and scientific problems. Individual people, especially children aged 8-12, are pretty easy to predict, so encourage the kid to try experimenting with various approaches, changes in appearance, etc, and noticing how each classmate reacts. You might try having the nerd take notes and create a report findings to the teacher, and if their not inflammatory, to the rest of the class.
3) Provide opportunities for the kid's intelligence to be used to the benefit of classmates in a context which matters to them. For instance, give them a mathematical puzzle to solve as a group with a reward based on how quickly they can do it. Suddenly a nerdy kid becomes useful, and everybody's friend.
4) Make sure the kid knows that eventually the nerds win. Big time. They control almost everything, from sciences to many businesses to sports teams to governments. Also make it clear that bullying is a sign of weakness, not strength.
5) Let him find some nerdy friends. They often exist.
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Here are some ideas which you should never ever ever try:
1) Don't blame the nerd for bullies. Teaching a nerd not to be a victim is fine, but to blame the nerd is to tell him that you support the bullies. Dumber kids might not see that connection, but a nerd definitely will.
2) Don't give the nerd self-help books. That just encourages more reading and less social behavior, which makes matters worse.
3) Don't force the nerd to spend time with a particular classmate. The nerd doesn't enjoy it, because the classmate is clearly pretending to be a friend, while the classmate immediately resents the nerds presence because it was imposed by an adult. No one wins.
Well... (Score:2, Interesting)
He doesn't need to embrace the culture of his peers, he just needs to find things that interest him that create lanes of communication. I know I wasn't interested in football when I first got to Michigan (I grew up in NYC and attended Stuy), but I quickly realized that it was something that allowed you to chat with a lot of people, and since I've always enjoyed sports, I took the time to learn a lot about it. This doesn't mean that he has to do some rote memorization job so he has something to talk about, it just means he should look into what his peers are interested in, and if any of it interests him, he should take the time to learn about it (his way).
His peers will be interested in chatting with him, and knowing him, if he can discuss the subjects they are interested in talking about it in a novel and interesting way for them. If he's smart, and interested in coming up with novel ways of thinking about things, I doubt he'd have a problem with doing this.
Your student has to understand that we have to function in the world of our peers--whatever that is. Maybe he'll eventually become an academic and be able to lock himself up in an ivory tower, or some cube farm with a whole bunch of other people that are interested in programming. But until he gets to that point, it makes sense to at least try to understand his surroundings rather than trying to make them understand him. Ask him if he thinks its easier to understand him, or its easier for him to understand his class mates?
Unfortunately not very many of us can surround ourselves completely with people who all share our interests, but I've certainly had a lot more fun socially trying to get engage myself in what my friends and aquaintances are interested in, instead of just trying to engage them in my interests.
If he needs a jump start, try getting him to do something, whether its cutting his hair, wearing jeans (or not wearing jeans), etc, that you know he thinks *I* can't do that, but is actually something minor... He's probably backed himself into a niche with his peers that will take him some effort to widen.
A few ideas. (Score:5, Interesting)
First, the kid is smarter than just about everyone around him. Way smarter. You know it. He knows it. Make sure that he understands that just about everyone else already knows it as well, and those who are too dumb to recognize it aren't worth impressing. So he doesn't need to beat them over the head with the fact.
Tact is often 90% of the battle. People who are intellectually gifted but socially maladapted tend to be insecure about it, and will retreat into whatever they feel they excel at. So it's pretty frequent that "the smart guy" is the one who ends up jumping down peoples' throats over minor errors. It's not a good friend-winning strategy, but people tend to build themselves up by tearing others down.
So, he has this brain on him. How to get him to use it for good instead of evil? How about teaching him how to tutor his classmates? If you can drill into his head that he needs to be forgiving of mistakes, and compliment people for their effort, it could lead to some positive interactions. For geeks his age, positive social interactions are often few and far between.
Fashion shouldn't be too hard. He doesn't need the $50 jeans or the $200 shoes. Just throw away everything that's too threadbare, or actively hideous. The goal isn't to turn him into a GQ model, but to simply raise his fashion sense to the point that his clothes aren't a limiting factor. The same goes for hygiene. Get him to do something with his hair. Doesn't much matter what.
He might want to take up weight lifting or running or cycling. Something to give him a bit of confidence in his own body. Karate might be cool as well. If he can find something he enjoys in the way of team sports, all the better.
Now the word we've all been waiting for: Girls. I can't say I'm wise in their womanly ways, but let's get a few of the serious no-no's out of the way. Treat them with respect, show interest in their hobbies, don't insult their friends, and for god's sake, don't bitch and moan about how girls all want guys who treat them like dirt. That attitude is both insulting and wrong, and I've seen way too many guys who do it. Occasionally, it's true, but far more often it's just a defensive measure to keep the guy from having to evaluate what he did wrong.
Find something he likes, and find a way for him to get others involved in it (even if it's "just" his fellow geeks).
Just remember that you won't be able to do anything without his cooperation. If he's totally stubborn, help him with the scholastics and hope that he figures the rest out on his own.
Diagnosis comes first (Score:1, Interesting)
Once that's out of the way, more generic solutions are appropriate.
Social skills are a two-way street (Score:5, Interesting)
Today, I am a fairly stereotypical introverted nerd. However, I have heard from my family that I was actually a fairly extroverted kid.... until school. There I committed three sins: I was ugly (a tooth issue not diagnosed correctly until later), uncoordinated and couldn't play sports well (just nearsighted enough to ruin my depth perception, also undiagnosed for many years), and I knew stuff (could already read and do simple arithmetic in kindergarten). Hattrick.
I'm sure I wasn't a social wonder in kindergarten, but who is? My point is, I never had a chance. Now I'm introverted. What choice did I have?
Mind you, I'm happy enough with the outcome; you can't hear my tone so this might sound bitter. It's not; to me this is just how I am, I figured this out years later.
"But what about his hair?" Well, social skills form via feedback, which must be both positive and negative. If a kid is simply ejected from society at a young age, then he's never had an opportunity to learn about hair styling; he literally doesn't know about it. I recall not caring, either. So even to the extent that you may have a kid clueless, it may even be a result, not a cause.
Can society take the whole blame? Beats the tar out of me, but I doubt it. Maybe he's got a light case of Asperger's syndrome... I'm pretty sure I don't, though. But you can't write the effect of his society off, either. I recall trying to reconnect and being firmly ejected over and over.
How does this help? I don't know. Let me know if you find out. Seems people don't get mature enough to allow kids to re-enter society until somewhere around high-school. Getting out of his age group might help.
(Stuff like this makes me strongly sympathetic to the homeschooling system, which often involves significant out-of-age interaction, short-circuiting the need for every kindergarten class to reconstruct society from scratch; is it any surprise they get it so wrong? What do you expect from five-year-olds?)
Re:Surely You're Joking (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe this is lost on most techies... (Score:2, Interesting)
Comb his hair.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Asberger's Syndrome isn't real (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Easy... (Score:2, Interesting)
If you let kids live entirely within their own small world where they're the king thanks to their innate abilities then it seems perfectly reasonable that they'll turn out a bit stunted. If you show them that you need to be both smart and personable to get by in the real world, and that not _everything_ comes naturally even to "smaht kids" (insert fake boston accent here), then the kids might just turn out to be well-rounded adults.
No allowance and get a job (Score:2, Interesting)
build social skills by... appealing to the geek... (Score:2, Interesting)
For me growing up there were two things that helped.
The first has been mentioned alot, sport; specifically martial arts and cricket... I also cycled but that did little for social skills
However, the thing that helped most as a young teenager was when a mentor encouraged me to build a model, a mental macro if you will, of "normal" social behaviour. I then would run this model as a simulation before taking action (for a bright kid, this is a brief second or so of introspection before answering); It worked fantastically well (I managed to integrate with a large number of peers rapidly after learning this technique).
Neurotypicals are fairly consistent in their social responses, I still dont *get* social politics, I doubt I ever will, but I can *predict* (predict isn't the best word, approximate, perhaps) the response to an action or comment based on past observations and this "mental macro"; and most of social interaction is based on acting and concealing the truth/opinions in any case, one of the first things I observed was the greatest negative response came when I answered polite interogatories with truth/fact (how do I look? what do you think of my new *insert object*?) etc
Of course, this assumes you are dealing with an Asberger's case like myself or something similar.
You will still encounter gifted neurotypicals who have no inherent deficiency in relation to social interaction, they are just to arrogant and inconsiderate to care either way... people like this can't be helped.
Of course, I could just be full of shit
hope this helps
err!
jak
Re:One word - Karate (Score:5, Interesting)
Speaking as a former "gifted" kid, and someone who started taking martial arts young, there's nothing like knocking the shit out of the school bully to give a kid some confidence.
A lot depends on age, as well... hell, a kid like that in high school, I'd say find a cool kid his own age and throw him into your average high school summer party. Losing a few inhibitions can do a lot for a person.
Anyway, though, show a kid with some smarts something he wants that he can only get through social activity, give him a few clues as to how to get started and I'm sure he'll pick a few things up (again, age - later on, sex is a big motivator.)
This is a great idea actually. (Score:3, Interesting)
When the DM went over the stats, and what they were for, and *WHY* the stats mattered in the game, he helped me to think, what would *MY* stats be, and how would that affect my game - or more accurately, real life.
Once they begin to realize that social skills (or Charisma for the D&D analogy) are important, you can direct them to resources such as Dale Carnagies "how to win friends and influence people". The thing is, you have to give them a reason to want to have social skills. At a certain stage they probably are vhemently against developing social skills because of just how different they are.
Get them to realize why "charisma" is important, and they will be intelligent enough to start researching this stuff on their own. D&D is not a bad way to start.
Re:One word - Karate (Score:5, Interesting)
Ditto, here. TKD, also. Never considered a psycho, AFAIK, but the bullying just stopped after I got my first belt. Might have had something to do with me demolishing a certain asshole in my sophomore year.
I ran into one of the bullies who terrorized me during junior high recently in a bar in my hometown. His take on it was that I had "changed" and there was something about me that told him not to try it anymore, so he looked for easier targets.
He'd really changed, too, when we talked. We'd both grown up a lot, and it was a great evening of conversation and reminiscence, and laughter at how stupid we both were. Holy memory, batman....thanks, DD
SB
Yet Another Word: Autism (Score:2, Interesting)
In Rain Man, it is the autistic savantism that is documented, NOT Asperger's. Here are the basic facts, of which you are obviously unaware:
1) Autism is a neurological disorder that is generally present from birth, and includes debilitating symptoms, such as heightened sensory sensitivity (to the point of pain), lack of verbal behavior, and severely retarded IQ.
2) The phenomenon displayed in Rain Man is called autistic savantism, which occurs in approximately 1 in 6 autistic individuals.
3) Savants do not have high intelligence, but rather exceptional specialized skills. This is one of the weaknesses of the film. Almost all autistic savants are still severely retarded, but they have particular skills that are amazing, but not completely out of the bounds of human sensibility. For example, an autistic savants may be able to take one look at a tree, and tell you exactly how many leaves it has on it, instantly. This is because they don't count, like we do, just see, and understand. Something similar, but normal, is the fact that normal people can remember a complex tune after only one listening, and reproduce it. Somehow, our brains are more able to organize auditory phenomena, so that they can be accurately recalled.
Autism is a crippling disease, and is almost certainly not something that this particular child has, or else he would probably find no place in normal schools.
Re:One word - Karate (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One word - Karate (Score:5, Interesting)
So I can tell you that being a cashier will only teach the kid to smile and nod while thinking, "Shut up and pay, shut up and pay, there's people behind you, they're going to yell at me for being slow and it's your fault, shut up and pay." Smile-and-nod skills are important, but there are better ways to learn them where no one yells at you.
I can't give advice, only say what worked for me (Score:4, Interesting)
At least, to some degree. I am still something of an introvert, though lately I simply don't have enough money to go out. (I don't really have enough money to put gas in my car this week.) Before you ask, since broadband costs per month about what it would cost to go to dinner someplace decent once, I don't feel like it's an inappropriate use of my money.
I was considered a "gifted child", I went to a private school only for gifted children for a year and a half or so, before I was apparently kicked out for being violent or something. I have no recollection of the event, besides crying on the way home, and that they gave me a coupon for a free ice cream cone. After that day I went to public school, which was bad from start to finish. They had a GATE ("gifted and talented education" program) which was a sad and pathetic joke. For example, because I was one of the younger students, they wouldn't let me participate in their astronomical pursuits. The only thing I really remember from the GATE program was the speed-reading machine, which looked to be of a fairly ancient vintage, and which has pretty much ruined reading for me because I kill off novels in just a few hours. Now that they're $7 for a goddamn paperback, I can't afford to buy new books, except every so often I'll throw down the money for a nice hardcover - the last two non-textbooks I bought were Cryptonomicon and Quicksilver, can you tell I'm a Stephenson fanboy?
Added to all of this was the fact that my parents split up when I was five, and my father (who is an alcoholic, in recovery, and hasn't touched alcohol except to hand it to one of his sons :) in several years) was not around for most of my development - actually, he wasn't really around for most of the time before I was five, either. We have a great relationship now but that definitely altered who I was, and arguably not for the better. Of course, we'll never know, but one thing it certainly must have done was harm my ability to socialize. In addition my mother was somewhat manic depressive and had her own problems forming attachments and my half-brothers were troublemakers (and only lived in the same house as me for about a year and a half, little of which I remember) so the only male role model I ever had was my "Big Brother" as in Big Brothers and Big Sisters. He was a great guy (Hi, Gary!) who worked for Parallel Systems (I think that was the name, they were someplace in or near Santa Cruz which is where I am from, it was definitely Parallel but I don't remember if it was computing, systems, whatever.)
Now the moment you all are waiting for, the moment where computers enter the picture. Actually throughout this time I had a series of computers. The first one I ever owned was a Commodore 16 which my father got me, he got it "cheap" whatever that meant, probably in trade for something. It had no storage, but it did have the box and the manual, and I fiddled around with BASIC. Gary loaned me his Apple ][+ with two floppy drives for a while, and that was much better. Later, I got a shiny new Amiga 500, and a BSR 1200 baud "phone modem", and the rest, they say, is history.
Back then of course internet access was available only from schools or very expensive services, so I BBS'ed, and made friends that way. I really only had a couple friends growing up, and at this point I had made a few more (like five) from summer school, other ingrates like myself who were of course all intelligent and mostly misunderstood. (A couple of 'em really were violent, thieving little bastards, but they were people that I could get along with for the most part.) But the BBSes were a whole new world in which I could represent myself with words until I had the confidence to meet people face to face and employ my drastically underdeveloped people skills, which like most other skills, improve with use.
One of the people I met through the BBSes was another social inept like myself (he, too, improved greatly over time, partly due to social
Sports, but not team. (Score:3, Interesting)
The kind of person who stands out and doesn't fit in will not suddenly become a social creature because he is on a team. What, you think teammates don't give each other immense amounts of shit?
But the sport idea is very good. It doesn't have to be team-based in order to be social. The sports where the person is competing against himself (new high score, faster time, farther distance, etc) fit very well with the mentality. It will hold his interest, put him amongst others who are interested in the same sport but not competing against him for position/whatever, and improve his health to boot.
Martial arts is good. The added self-discipline is a big boost. I recommend fencing myself, but TKD or karate would work just as well. Distance hiking, indoor/outdoor rock climbing, etc, are good. You only need to be 14 to get a sailplane pilot's license in many states, and -- trust me -- that's a serious conversational icebreaker. ("It's a two-seater airplane, but longer, and the wings are thinner and longer, and the whole thing's narrower, and very responsive." [Listener's eyes start to glaze over.] "Oh, and also, there's no engine.")
The Social ASpie (Score:3, Interesting)
ASpies are usually filled with a great passion for certain topics that interest them. One way to get them interested in being social is to introduce them to others who share their passions. Even this can be awkward for some, though.
It is useful, in some cases, to teach them that there are very real, practical reasons for gaining social skills. Rare ASpies have been known to be capable of focusing their amazing learning abilities on attaining social graces, from what I understand. They create sets of rules to operate by. They search for patterns in the behaviors of others, so that they can apply their rules. It sounds horrible -- as though it were some sort of act -- but to some degree, a great deal of social behavior is an act, isn't it? Why else would there be etiquette books and finishing schools?
Perhaps what you wish to teach is not social "skills," but, rather, the ability to find pleasure in being social. Can that be taught?
Well, maybe it's best to start with those aforementioned folks who share your student's passions. Start by making things fun!
Picking up chicks.. Feynman had it right. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, it's horrible, flame away, but it works like you wouldn't believe. Good insights into the female mind. I played around with it as an experiment many years ago to help get my people and relationship skills up. It's actually sickening how well it works. 3 second rule is gold in all walks of life. And for gods sakes, get some new clothes and get a haircut and shave. $150 worth of weights and 45 minutes a week will change your appearance forever, and it MATTERS in interviews.
The feynman stuff is as true as EVER. You don't buy a chick anything. You should be trying to get her to buy YOU stuff. Now there's a challenge.
Treating social interaction as a grand experiment is a lot of fun, you might learn something, and maybe get some, too.
Along the same and more depressing lines, check out the Ladder Theory [laddertheory.com] of male/female relationships. It's amusing, but has a ring of truth to it.
Good luck!
Three Words - Job in Retail. (Score:5, Interesting)
Other benefits:
1. Money. I mean, who couldn't use some more money? You can buy clothes, haircuts, women, toys; hell, he could even buy a gold brick if there's nothing else he wants.
2. Dress sense. Unless you're in a job that supplies a uniform, you're going to have to learn how to put together a good outfit. Some outfits will suck, especially at first, but soon the good outfits will outnumber the bad.
3. Talking to people all the time who don't give a nut how smart you are. As far as they're concerned, you're dumber than they are.
4. You will learn that a company will stab you in the back, then figure out if it's cheaper to pull out the knife and stab you again, or use a new knife. That's a VERY valuable lesson.
If he'd rather not work, then he's probably already too far gone to help, but the College / University that he's going to should have dozens of clubs. That's probably an okay substitute.
the secret to being social (Score:5, Interesting)
As a coder and socialite, I can fill you guys in on the secret.
Coding is a VERY PRECISE SCIENCE.
Talking to people is a VERY RELAXED ART.
On nights that I'm in "code mode" I don't go out and socialize, or party, etc. I write code. The problem with geeks is that we don't spend enough time in social situations. Just like everything else in life, you have to put time into things that are worth doing. In the same way that you can soak up some code by spending time with it, you can soak up social graces by being around people (that aren't close friends).
PEOPLE ARE NOT COMPUTERS. If you don't put a comma in the right place, or you don't puncuate your sentences properly, your conversation will still compile. The only way to mess up a conversation is to OVERTHINK or OVERANALYZE it. The best thing to do is just talk to everyone as if they were a close family member or friend. Ask them about their day... Ask the cashier at Publix or Kroger if she/he's been busy today. They'll chat with you.
Also, don't chat with people just for a predefined GOAL. People can see right through that (especially girls). Share a few sentences with the grocery bagger EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE NOTHING TO GAIN FROM HIM. It will do 2 things - it will relax you when talking to a stranger, and it will help you build your basic conversational topics.
Hell, start small. When you call 411 and ask for a number, and the chick is looking it up, ask her if she's been busy. Ask her if shes based out of your town. If it's a dude, do the same thing. Learn to just talk to people and act like you care what they are telling you. But DON'T BE CREEPY. Listen to what they say and follow up on it briefly, but don't linger on things. When your bags are done being placed in your shopping cart, tell the person, "good luck."; or "have a good day". or whatever. Being social is not nearly as complex as learning a programming language; so stop looking at people like every period, semicolon, comma matters.
People are very basic.
The end result is that you'll be more relaxed in general when talking with people. You won't have a "goal" when talking to someone, and people won't think that you do and they'll just talk about whatever with you.
Alcohol helps, but it's not a solution.
Once you find the "keyword" that you and the little slut have in common, you can milk it and show your intelligence on the subject and then bed her.
Stay tuned for Chapter 2: Intermediate conversation - In this chapter we'll discuss how to tell her things like, "Don't wake me up when you leave tomorrow..." and "I really appreciate the head, but I'd be really impressed if you made me a sandwich..."
Re:Asberger's Syndrome isn't real (Score:3, Interesting)
The kids at school I couldn't make friends with were exactly the sort of people that I wouldn't want any child of mine socialising with anyway. I submit that your definition of functioning socially is too narrow. When I was a kid I started a environmental conservation club for kids. I consider that to be socially responsible. I don't recall seeing any of the "normal" kids with their social skills doing anything like this. I have a strong social concience. I have weak social skills. I might be arrogant, but I'm generous. The end result is that I think I am a nicer person than the average idiot, bless 'em ;)
while modded funny this is actually accurate (Score:5, Interesting)
Well it didn't normalize me but the thing I discovered was that when drinking heavily I was charismatic and appraochable. I had spent 2 years in the gym but had no luck with women. *bang* as soon as I have as much booze in me as a squad of navy pilots on leave I was irrisistable. by the time I was 18 there was a list of girls who would go to parties only if I was going to be there.
I also figured out that all I had to do was act like I did when drunk and I was much better with people (the eye contact, energetic voice, the warm smile, being happy to see people, etc). You do not have to ever have the "social skills" all you really have to have is the ability to emulate the social skills. this is basic acting people. It doesn't have to come naturally but you do have to be able to study what charismatic people do and be able to parrot it.
Body building also doesn't hurt. Women as well as men judge you initially based on the only thing they have and that is appearance. Besides it is just like any other RPG, it is all about leveling.
Martial arts? been there done that. If you live in fear this might seem like the answer. Unfortunatly your charismatic martial artist is about as common as your charismatic astro physisist (maybe less, I understand that Hawking used to be great fun at parties). This is only a good idea if he is getting beat up and then, only if he feel the opposition is not going to feel his new found skills entitle them to equalize the situation whether it be through numbers or weapons.
If he is as sharp as you say; above and beyond all else remember he doesn't have to socialize with people his own age. Grab him a few PHDs and post grads from fields that interest him and let them play together. Or see if he can just start college early (some places will pay for it if he his still a minor) The people who are mean to him now, will dead end shortly after high school and that they will never matter like they seem to right now. It is a couple rough years but after that everything gets better.
This one should go AC as some of it sounds like bragging and the rest might sound sociopathic to some.
Social Dancing (Score:2, Interesting)
I mean, first of all, dancing is a coed contact sport... who else can claim that? Secondly, especially in highschool and college, the girl:guy ratio is at least 2:1, which is very good odds. Third, dance people tend to be very close and very social, so you're learning from the best. Finally, being a dancer skyrockets your attractiveness to whole new levels. When girls see a guy dance, they just fall over themselves. Not to mention it gives incentive to look good and dress nicely.
Dancing is also very fun and will keep you in shape. It's a nice break from the rigors of normal life and learning, but it also keeps your brain active, since you have to be constantly thinking about technique and staying 5 steps ahead of the game.
There are many forms of dancing. Personally, I do ballroom dancing. Now, when you hear that, I know the first thing that comes to mind is your grandparents dancing to old music, but there are a lot of fun social dances that are done in clubs as well as competition dances, which take a lot of training, but are also very fun to perform. Popular club dances are Salsa, Hustle (not the 70s dance, it's a modern dance based on it and danced to techno!), West-Coast Swing, East-Coast Swing, and other variations of Swing. In my area, Salsa is extremely popular, and there are at least 3 clubs that have salsa nights a couple times a week. There are a ton of competition dances, but I won't list them here, you can easily google it.
Anyway, back on topic - dance for a few months and hang out with the dancers outside of pratice... it will improve your social skills extremely quickly and give you much more confidence in social situations.
Re:Yet Another Word: Autism (Score:3, Interesting)
Generally aspergers children tend to have speech , He did'nt talk till he was 2, and neromuscular issues and need OT (sensory integration, in particular) as well. Hence the old thing about geeks being uncoordinated. Also ADD can go with it as well. ADD is a neurolgical disorder as well.
It's easy for people to say I knew XX and they Aspergers, and they did'nt act anything like Y. Aspergers kids have a broad range of behavior. My son is psuedo-social, he can fake it for a while. Other asperger kids will sit by them selves and tend not to look people in the eye. My son gets by with looking at someone's face, but will not focus on thier eyes, he picks the nose or cheeks.
BTW ALBERT EINSTEIN and THOMAS EDISON, both had aspergers and they are kind of the uber geeks.
My son could do multiplication long before he could do addition. He used to get confused, he as ked me isn't 2+3 = 6. I thought this was strange, so I would okay whats 2+4?? you guessed it 8. 4+6??? 24. That was a little tough, to help him through, how do you teach a child addition, yet they know multiplication???
Anyway, with aspergers, it very hard to lump them all together. Just becuse you met one person with Aspergers, Autism or PDD, you can't expect everyone with this range of issues to behave exactly the same way.
Ultra-radical idea? (Score:4, Interesting)
Take them to Burning Man [burningman.com]!!!
I guarantee you - if you have never been, you and your outlook on life will be different.
If you want the least frustrating experience - find some friends to go with, or ones who have gone. Or, find out if you have a regional burn group - and go to the regional burn, or any one of the other events that the group may sponsor or host. Get involved with the art, with the sound, with the sights - get involved with the people!
Believe me, you won't feel too weird anymore afterward - Burning Man introduces whole new levels of strangeness into your life.
My first Burn was last year. My only regret is not going sooner. The people I met, the friends I made, the art I experienced - I was made anew.
As part of this re-making, I learned something that should be common sense, especially for someone my age - but it wasn't. It is something fundamentally important, that I missed all of these years - and learning it led to my final decision to go to Burning Man. If it hadn't been for the wonderful friends I have, I might have missed this simple truth:
A stranger can only become a friend through getting to know them. If they act like they don't like you, or don't want to talk to you, it most likely isn't you. It's them. In other words, if you are being polite and doing everything to be friendly with someone you don't know, and they still shun you - move on. It is they who have the problem, not you.
Teach them that, let them learn it - then take them to Burning Man.
Both of your lives will never be the same again.
or...Music & Dance (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Empathy (Score:4, Interesting)
Essentially, it seems the reason is that because there's more of them than there are of us, that it is our duty to change. Because there are more of them then there are of us, they're the normal ones that we should be more like.
You may be right in that I find it difficult to know what another person (non-geek) is thinking. That makes me nervous and anxious. So how come the other person doesn't know to empathize with me feeling anxious and nervous? Why is it only a one-way street? It isn't that I don't try, I'm just not very good at it (with non-geeks). If they are better at empathy, is it just at empathizing with others like themselves (non-geek). If so, then isn't that just as limited as our ability to speak to other geeks better than we do to non-geeks?
Note: I realize I am sort of making an us/them type argument. It's just that I believe that people are just wired in different ways, and some people will always get along better with one group than another.
Re:One word - Karate (Score:2, Interesting)
Yep, find a local group of gifted children (Score:4, Interesting)
Put gifted kids together.
Yep, that is the best way (from my personal experience).
It not only helps them to gain some social skill from the interaction with similar kids, the moral support I got from these groups was very healthy too. You are surrounded by a bunch of kids who all have the same problems, and that helps you to deal with the bullies. I developped a "I am more intelligent than this jerk, so I dont care what he says"-attitude that helped me survive school.
Granted this is arrogant and needs to be overcome when you reach adulthood, but IMO it's still better than what other people I know have experienced. Not knowing that they were more intelligent, they felt as "cheaters" because they performed well on tests without learning, something that was preached by their teachers to be "impossible". Thereof their whole succes in life seamed a lie to them and they lived in fear that this lie will be discovered one day. Also they felt isolated because nobody understood them.
And they were the lucky ones that did well in school instead of malperforming because they got bored.
The day they first joined a group of very intelligent people generally comes to them as a relieve and sometimes even as an "enlightenment". I literally saw a woman in her fifties burst in tears on her first Mensa meeting. Having contact to other kids that understand and respect him will not only teach him social skills but also show him that he's not alone in the world, but that there are others just like him.
So dont wait for him to make this discovery later in life, but get him in touch with similiar children now. Contact the gifted children program [mensa.org] of Mensa [mensa.org] or a specialized organisation like the American Association for Gifted Children [aagc.org] to see if they have a local group of gifted children.
BTW, from my experience gifted children are far more likely to accept someone much younger or older in their groups than "normal" children. I guess they are happy to find someone that understands them at all, so age doesnt matter that much. (I still wouldnt advice to put a 5-year-old in a group of 16-year-olds ;)
I also was a member of a chessclub which is important as it gets you in touch with "normal" people. Not hyperintelligent, but not the typical school bullies either. But it didnt gave me the same emotional satisfaction as the gifted children group.
Finally, dont expect wonders. I still wasnt "Mr. Popular" in school, but I always had some few, but good friends, even some (even fewer) girlfriends and was happy. But even then, and despite the fact that I got to a highschool for "better" students, it was sometimes pretty rough at school. But when I got to (I guess the US equivalent is college), I fund it very funny that the same people that bullied me before became very nice to me. Suddenly they were concerned about their marks and guess who they did turn to with their problems in Math ;-p ;-p
I didnt abuse my new power and didnt let them abuse me with this new promise of "popularity" either, but kept friendly and acquired a nice middle position in the hierarchy. I suddenly got invited to parties and became a somewhat more normal, but rather shy student.
Now, at university, I'm almost on the top of the food chain
Re:Role-playing games. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Asberger's Syndrome isn't real (Score:2, Interesting)
Keep in mind that we are talking about children as young as 5 or 6 who begin to experience social problems related to this "syndrome". If some kid has a problem, do you honestly think you can help him by saying "Why do you want friends anyway? You'll be rich some day and they'll work for you." That is nonsense.
I remember when I first noticed my problem. I couldn't learn baseball. I kept asking very precise questions that the other kids wouldn't bother answering. I kept making mistakes. I played a few games, messed everything up. Soon no one would play with me. Then I started to get beat up. That can be very sad for a six-year-old.
It just isn't enough to say "it was their problem." It wasn't. They just wanted to play the game, not explain things to me. It was my problem. Both the kid and the parents have to accept that before it can be solved.
Re:Step 1, dress the part (Score:3, Interesting)
If you tell a kid to conform, he will conform and hate you, or be misserable, or something along those lines.
If he does end up deciding to conform, he'll likely be a poser - yeah, a poser. One of those kids that dresses like the popular kids, but is nothing at all like the popular kids. Yet he tries to act like them anyway, and comes off as a goof, only increasing the scorn that he receives from his peers.
The best way to get people to like him, be nice to him, and such? Help him have self-respect. Help him to like who he is as a person, so that he'll be able to have confidence. people like being around others that have confidence - this is why the popular kids are popular: they know how to make others feel good, and thus make the people they want to associate with (ie, the other popular kids) feel good by reducing the unpopular kids to ash.
I've written more on the topic here [slashdot.org].
Re:One word - Karate (Score:2, Interesting)
The best bit is that you go home able to work on those geeky projects for yourself, not burned out after the 24th straight day of 13 hours of uncompensated work (salary sucks) and blow off everything that came before. You are full of mental energy and may have even had the chance to work past some problems while waiting to talk to someone about their _fabulous_ selection.
Character Building or, pitfalls of gifted programs (Score:2, Interesting)
I was identified at age 5 as a gifted student. After a brief and demoralizing year switching schools and climbing my way back up, I moved into those advanced classes again, and was moved into a gifted program in 5th grade (The first year a separate program was available in my school system). To add to my separation from my classmates, I have worn glasses since age 4, and can't see more than fuzzy shapes 18 inches away without them.
When I say separation from my classmates, I mean specifically the majority not in the gifted classes. Being one of 5 people culled out of 200 (small town, I know) makes you one step above special ed kids in the social order.
Teachers, take note, public praise in class for those students that do well is a good thing, to some extent. However, excessive use of encouragement in several grades served to draw attention to our difference from our classmates. There is such a thing as too much encouragement, too publicly.
One might think we'd band together. However, that wasn't exactly the case. 5 headstrong kids with wildly different interests doesn't exactly work. Oh we'd try, but to some extent it was merely that we didn't exclude each other, rather than that we were close or included one another.
Gifted class instructors seemed much more intent on focusing on maximizing our future potential and SAT scores 8 years out than on teaching us effective communication and interpersonal skills. In retrospect, study of politics and the acquisition of power probably would have been a more effective motivator as a reason to learn social skills.
But I digress. I got lucky. My father finally struck upon a plan to get me more involved in team activities, with a motivator I could understand.
Air Force Junior ROTC in high school. Laugh if you will, but here's the motivator.
If you want to go to college, you have to have money, be particularly outstanding, or be financially disadvantaged. Unfortunately, my family was essentially lower middle class, made too much on paper to get much financial aid, and made too little to afford it. Most small business owners in rural america fall into this category.
So, know what you have to do to get into a military academy? You have (or had at that time) to be sponsored, usually by a state senator or representative. For some people, this happens behind the scenes because of thier scores, others have to apply, and find someone to sponsor them. But, to get in on merit, there is one scholarship, and sponsorship, available per year from each ROTC school.
So, by excelling, I had an opportunity to go to a truly good school. Hence my enrollment in ROTC.
Now for the lucky part. I made a lifelong friend, joined the drill team, and learned, in a structured environment, how to deal with others in my age group. How to work in a team, and how to develop my leadership skills.
My friend, to whom I am eternally grateful, took me out, taught me to drink beer, smoke, a variety of other things, and challenged me in ways I hadn't been challenged.
Oh, I'd played baseball (badly, poor depth perception) and swim team (slowly, good stamina though, 400 meter medley), but those were challenges my brain could only help so much with.
No, conquering fear, that was the challenge game we were into. My friend took me to a set of cliffs, dropped a rope over the side, and taught me to rappel. He and another buddy taught me to ride a motorcycle. Then we got into motorcross. The variety of reckless dares taken based on the "No Balls" motivator was staggering in retrospect.
Now these were sports! Things I could do that took physical exertion, but required significant nerve and concentration. Chall
Re:One word - Karate (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:McDojos (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, my TKD learning was twenty years ago...but from what I hear, you're right ( my instructor was an old friend, at the time, circa '82). I know little or nothing about modern schools/teaching, other than what I hear from people like you.
I do get some chuckles out of the advertisements I see, but am not in a position to gainsay them in any serious manner. Sigh. Getting old sucks (out of shape for this, too many broken bones and other basic ailments)
Dance. Heh. It can be called a dance, tho. As long as you don't have to use it - then it's called brutal frontage, as I understand. Or is that an old saying now, too? But put simple, as you said, it's not a dance. Only the graceful on the mat can call it a dance. In real life, when used, I called it survival. Weird, how that changes, eh?
Cheers
SB
Re:Get him drunk (Score:5, Interesting)
You need to expose these kind of people to real social situations: including drinking, etc.
The best example I can come up with is as follows:
Back in high school I used to hang out a the local Starbucks a LOT. Most of my high school clique did too. (If if makes anything make more sense, I've always been a computer geek, but was very popular in high school. I wasn't just hanging out with Linux geeks at this Starbucks...)
In any case, this kid named Eric started showing up. He was the most shy person I have ever met, but obviously wanted social interaction. He'd come up to Starbucks, pull up a chair next to our table, and not say a word. When you asked him a question, he'd mumble a response so low you'd have to ask him to repeat it 4 times. He wouldn't speak, he wouldn't say anything at all.
About a year later, we convinced him to come to a party with us. And he drank. He got drunk. And he talked at a normal tone! He actually TALKED.
It wasn't an instant cure, but over the months following that, Eric came out more. At first he would only talk while he was drinking. But as time went by, he became comfortable with talking, and when I last saw him, his social problems had entirely disapeared.
You might be kidding about the "Get him drunk" comment, but I ask everyone to think for a sec: "Why do most people drink?" in the first place?
Even for those of us without hardcore social interaction problems, it's because it still helps us loosen up, etc.
You may not be as off with your "Get him drunk" comment as people might assume.
Re:One word - Karate (Score:1, Interesting)
>than a sport
Ah yes, the fast food generation's view of martial arts. I just love the 'ex-marines' teaching part, truly enlightening.
That belt of yours aint worth crap since you only understood half of what martial arts is about.
The overwhelming majority of martial arts teachers DO NOT teach their discipline to make you the next killing machine.
Having a marine teach martial arts is like having Roseanne Barr teach you cooking.
Re:One word - Karate (Score:1, Interesting)
A dear, dear friend survived junior high school in an inner city partly by making it known that she could instantly turn into a berserker. Social skills include adapting to your environment.
She recovered, built a good career and married a Microsoft millionaire.
Vitamins (Score:1, Interesting)
Basically, the production of various enzymes & things in their brain is compromised. You can get back much of this function with a comprehensive vitamin / mineral supplementation regime. I take everything in sundry, and have become far less autistic and far more socially perceptive over the last year.
Your doctor won't know or have a bar of this, but it does work. Find someone who is an expert in this, or learn it yourself, and you'll be surprised what you can do.
Sheltering (Score:3, Interesting)
Amen to that. It's extremely hard being the smart kid in a group of average kids. My older brother was the smartest kid at his school (and I mean this literally--he had the highest IQ score of any kid ever at that school). By first grade he was writing stories about violently destroying his classroom if he were teacher for a day, largely because he had a teacher who had no clue how to deal with smart kids. My parents started homeschooling when he was in 5th grade, and from that point on until he graduated, he spent most of his time in his room reading about astronomy (and then getting up in the middle of the night to take his telescope out), he taught himself ancient Greek (and learned it so well that he knew it better than his college professors) and Latin, and while he didn't have many friends while in school, when he went off to college he ended up with tons of friends and had all kinds of girls chasing him.
Speaking personally, it's so very hard to be a little kid and be working on an intellectual level that most adults you know aren't even on. The only person I knew who could even remotely understand me was the aforementioned older brother (I never was IQ tested, but my parents always suspected I was smarter than him). Adding to that was that I was a girl who was into things that girls are't "supposed" to be interested in or good at, and you start to get the picture of what it's like to go through childhood when you're so much smarter than everyone else. All I can say is that I'm very glad I was homeschooled, because while I've always had fairly decent social skills, it can get to be rather stressful spending all your time having to talk down to people who can't understand half of your vocabulary, and to have to make small talk about things that you think are absolutely inane. If I had had to spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week doing that, I think I really would have turned into a nerd with no social skills because I would have ended up getting bored with talking down to people and ended up avoiding people altogether.
Re:Sports (Score:2, Interesting)
I myself am an *extremely* non-confrontational/non-competitive person. Which can be good, and bad. Sometimes I'll accept loss rather than making an issue of something; but on the upside I'll try to work with rather than against people, I don't dislike others, and to my knowledge others don't dislike me.
Learning to accept defeats doesn't necessarily require engaging in competition. It sounds to me like your cousing wasn't just sheltered from competition, but was also sheltered from anything going wrong for him. If you always get what you want, then you'll grow up assuming that you *deserve* to always get what you want.
Re:Cross Country (Score:3, Interesting)
Stop calling them gifted, for starters. (Score:2, Interesting)
Put them in a situation with 'ordinary' people, out there in the world, and make no mention of the 'gifted' moniker ever again.
This is the biggest crock of shit modern education has given us from the 21st Century, incidentally. Every single human being alive today is 'gifted', with life.
Calling some kid 'gifted' on the basis of some wonderful -observed- factor of their personality, and giving other kids hard-core drugs on the basis of other -observations-
This very phenomenon of diversion, separation, and segragation, on the basis of some 'experiment' controlled through another human beings observation, in a desire to make a 'better human being'.
We may as well just start making Aryans again.
5,000,000,000 (+ 0's) people in this world. Every single one of them is 'gifted'. Most of them are thirsty.
All you're doing, by creating 'gifted children' is making a very, very small subset of another very small subset, of a small group of people, run from the infinite reality that every single human being has to face, which is the fact of the existence of every other human being on the planet at this point in time, here and now
Put someone above that for a second, and of course they will come to ignore their responsibilities to wipe their ass and not pick their noses in public. It will have driven them, slightly, mad.
We are all equally gifted. It is the only way to live.
Not so cut and dried (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course you are right that lack of social skills != Aspergers. But it's not true that all Aspergers affected people are like your friend.
Re:One word - Karate (Score:1, Interesting)
I have gotten a better paid programmers job now, but I still work as a cashier a few hours a week because:
-I am still learning from the people contact I get
-I know some nice people wirking at the store, and there are some nice custumers.
-It serves as a benchmark that allows me to callibrate how my social skills are doing at regular intervals. Lining up a hundred people to interact with me works great
Maybe it worked for me because I had enough basic social skills to build on. Also I did not have too manby negative experiences at the job when I first started.
Use the Rational API ! (Score:2, Interesting)
- I had zero (0) friends up to age 17.
- I noticed that there was a discrepancy between my assessment of social situation and other people's.
- I resolved that I had to make a rational (as opposed to instinctive / empathic) effort to get into other people's shoes.
From then on, it was blindingly easy.
Put it this way to him:
* he can BE himself, look as such, and pay a price,
OR
* slowly learn "the language", get in the habit of reading all those cues, and do a little bit of acting.
"Be Yourself", although repeated ad nauseam in all sorts of poems, songs, sitcoms, alley psychology tracts and anysuch, is the worst possible advice.
Being clever helps. Most normals are sufficiently slow that one can run circles around them processing their social cues by means of one's nonsocial engine without even taxing it too much, and they'll hardly ever notice.
Once you get the hang of it, it can be fun, not unlike training dogs.
And if normals are of the clever sort, they'll understand your game, won't get offended, wink, and play on.
Re:Sports (Score:2, Interesting)
sometimes people have thoughts and ideas that sports-industrial-complex suppresses and fears. why do you like sports? odds are that you connected with a family memeber who watched them. you use it as a way to bond and spend time with people. ok fine. but anything could be like that - could be turned into a science - it just has to have some sort of social adhesives as well. like religion or staring at a wall. you can easily form groups around any thing. why pick sports? becuase its the most popular? thats silly. thats like picking reality tv shows or oprah to base your relationships around. that to me is the sadest part.
Re:One word - Karate (Score:2, Interesting)
Whithout loosing the skills, damnit!
Scare the student with a hideous counterexample. (Score:4, Interesting)
I was a terminal nerd at the time, but meeting an intelligent guy in his '50s who was less well adjusted to the world than most students, scared the hell out of me. It was like being visited by the ghost of Christmas future.
I'm still rather antisocial, but after watching a possible future played out so vividly, I started to take acquiring social skills a lot more seriously.
Re:Picking up chicks.. Feynman had it right. (Score:1, Interesting)
The material is a pain to read since its written in a harsh style (very macho) but that's part of the course: you have to become more of a MAN and the required knowledge for that has to be crammed down your throat, otherwise you'd not accept it - being a geek has made you reject this style of thinking for years.
It has helped me immensely in my people skills, picking up ladies, and in my strategic thinking in handling situations in general (including job interviews and family affairs). It's been quite a few years ago but I still have vivid memories of chicks wanting me all of a sudden, friends not understanding why I became so popular all of a sudden, etc.
Posted anonymously - I wouldn't want anyone to know that I have that particular knowledge.
Salsa lessons! (Score:2, Interesting)
If that fails, join a rock band. If you can learn to work with "artists", you can then work with _anyone_ (and having unkempt hair can be an asset under the correct circumstances). However, contrary to popular belief, this is probably not a good way to meet members of the opposite sex, or anyone else you might wish to form a non-professional relationship with
At the very least, throw away all those computer games so that you're forced to find something else to do with your apparently (possibly?) copious free time
Cheers,
Carl
FIRST robotics (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:One word - Karate (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately, this is where the "karate nerd" stigma comes from. I would argue that perhaps the option with the most potential, though will be tougher, is go for a "hard" school such as judo or jiu jitsu.
Hard schools are less likely to have bad instructors (a school that gets injuries more than once in a great while is looked down upon by the others), you gain strength _and_ coordination through constant sparing with others, no worries of cheap shots (no kicking or punching, at least in jiu jitsu), finally you learn how to choke out someone in ten seconds or break their arm like a chicken bone.
No matter what the solution ends up being though, it comes down to self-discipline: physical as well as mental.
-B
Obligatory Office Space quote... (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember on one project, I was so pissed off that someone had given us something completely stupid, and practically impossible to do. Mark knew exactly how to handle it -- he told me that they were expecting me to fail, and that I should do it just to prove them wrong. He knew exactly how to turn my anti-social tendancies into a benefit, not a handicap. [and I turned my part of the project in on time... too bad the contractor never did, and walked with over 50% of the hardware, and never produced any of the software, that he was supposedly 'working on in [his] test lab'.]
In a small company, yes, everyone will probably have to do a little bit of customer relations. In a large company, with good managment, they will know how to deal with various personality quirks, and how to get the most of each person. [And likewise, if a particular person is worth the trouble]. Unfortunately, Mark got promoted, and I was hung out to dry by a completely 'hands off' manager, and was fired by his boss for pointing out his mistakes repeatedly.
Mind games not competition (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes, but ... (Score:3, Interesting)
You need to check out Fast Seduction.
Yeah, it's horrible, flame away, but it works like you wouldn't believe.
Oh, I believe it. Back when these techniques were disseminated in books (egad), I used some of them briefly to enter (or at least visit) the world of non-geekiness.
But while it might "work" in some mechanical sense, so do illegal drugs (or so I hear) "work" at bringing pleasure. Like any mindless pursuit of pleasure (vs. happiness), learning those Fast Seduction style techniques, without actually learning how to love and interact with your fellow human being, is going to bring misery and a pathetic existence in the long run.
High IQ is not a reason to abandon team games (Score:2, Interesting)
If all the other guys are treating you badly than you should either join another team and ask yourself if you might be responsible for their behaviour too. Social interactions are often as hard to master as chess, both need training and reflection.
In my university the majority of the really smart ones that can do derivations on the blackboard, which remind you of Feinman, are working together in larger groups to discuss their research problems and to have fun, some even play soccer.
I feel sorry for you that you can't enjoy teams at all.
In the end you are jugding about people only because of their IQ. Such easy one-criteria-fits-all arguments are often used by people, who don't have the ability to think clearly and honestly.
Re:or...Music & Dance (Score:4, Interesting)
Concur...studying the piano and classical guitar did wonders for me as a child/teen, both from a discipline standpoint as well as from a social standpoint.
Never underestimate the effect of an instrument well played on a young girl's loins....
Re:One word - Karate (Score:2, Interesting)
Grow up.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One word - Karate (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess my advice is to pick a martial art that requires interaction with a partner as an integral part of the class - not just sparring. This helps them become comfortable with both their body and the bodies of others. It helps get around some sexual awkwardness too - you don't get all freaked out when you accidentally grab boobie when doing a lapel grab, because you don't have time to worry about it. And the girls have this happen to them all of the time, and they're quite gracious about it.
(No one's going to read this anyway at 1000+ comments, but I thought I'd throw in)
Re:Speaking from experience... (Score:3, Interesting)
The default attack of "the problem" has been to assume something's wrong with the geek. But if he's just showing up with "umcombed hair" and is catching flack for it, then it's obvious that it's an power game of might vs. right. And he doesn't have to accept it.
Tell him to stick to his guns. If people laugh at you for your hair, then they aren't worth knowing in the first place. He shouldn't start studying drinking, TV watching, fucking and all the other "popular" activities; instead, THEY should start studying science.
Social signals == handshaking protocol (Score:3, Interesting)