I see a lot of posts here about social awkwardness. I'd like to recommend a book...

[MTA-]

I have struggled with making friends and being in social situations my whole life. I hear all the time that, especially in modern times, adults who struggle to make friends are common. Loneliness gets called an epidemic. Despite that, explanations are rare. Whenever I look into what may be going on with me, whether I'm talking to health practitioners or just googling, two possibilities come up, social phobia or an autism spectrum disorder. In my experience, if you're not phobic, or on the spectrum, there's no explanation for these sorts of social issues.

Seeing so many posts here about social difficulty, it's obvious it's related to neurodivergence.

I've known people with social phobia, and their experiences are not my experiences. I am not phobic about social situations, I quite enjoy them. It's just that when I go to speak, nothing comes out. And as for the spectrum, again, my experiences are just not like the lived experiences of that people on the spectrum have told me about.

The book is called Awkward: The Science of Why We're Socially Awkward and Why That's Awesome by Ty Tashiro. The author actually talks about a condition he just calls 'awkwardness'. And suddenly, what I am experiencing makes sense. As the title suggests, the author has a psychological explanation for what's going on, and a pretty solid theory about what to do about it.

Changing a lifetime of difficulty is a lot to put on one book, but it's a start, and it feels good to relate to an explanation of social difficulty, finally.

[STEM_Dad]

That's really interesting.

I watched a short video featuring the author, to get the basic idea...or at least one of his ideas about being Awkward.

I'll be adding that book to my reading list.