Hey all, it's Jess. If you can see my desk just ignore it, it's a mess. Mary Christmas, happy holidays. A lot of you know my description of autism, like my go-to description is an archaeological difference. It impacts us in five ways, socially, emotionally, cognitively, behaviorally, and sensory. To look back on a year of social distancing, I have learned a lot about myself. Mainly that I am an introvert off the charts, who is never really a social person. I never really liked hanging out in groups of people. I started with social anxiety for a really long time. I didn't learn social skills until like college basically. Well from what I've learned, I guess I just wanted to give you some tips that I used on becoming a little bit more socially confident and struggling less. So I want to talk about social skills that you can use when you're with friends. Not really in a work environment or something like stuff that like you know school, I'm out of school so I wouldn't have any helpful advice anyways. So this is more for people who are late diagnosed with autistic, but also if you always know that you are autistic, but you still struggle with social skills and trying to figure out your social bubble. And your bound reason stuff, then hopefully I can have some helpful tips for you to. The first tip that helped me is like as an autistic person is to have a framework for the social event. So I'll identify the reason that I'm going to the social event. The reason is to get to know this person or with a new person. It might be just to get together to talk with each other just to catch up if a friend I haven't seen in a while or just interested in like telling us each other what's going on in our lives if it's to talk about a specific topic. Or also like if it's going to do something together. So like your the purpose of getting together is to go with each other to see this movie because it'll be fun to go see this movie stuff like that. If there's a goal to achieve then like that that helps me like okay, this is why we're here. And it's going to have something that we can work towards in a finished event. So like maybe a book club Bible study the V1 there's actual like list of like an order of things the way that we're going to do them. Or even just something like shopping or doing art together. We're going to end up with finished products. So I'm not just like like the other thing is forming a plan of what you're going to do. So I'm not as like spaced out and like what's what's happening what's going on. What am I trying to accomplish here? And so I need time to make decisions because I can't just at last minute like just like hang out together. Okay, what are we going to do and just choose stuff to do? I like to have a plan of what we're going to do so that I can visualize a schedule. Okay, we're going to pick her up at this time and then we're going to drive which will take 10 minutes over to this place. And we're going to spend however long there and then drive look and that way you can also make sure that you have everything that you need so that you're prepared. If I need money and if suddenly like she just wants to go shopping and I didn't realize we're going shopping and I have no money or something. I don't have like I'm dressed right for like a last minute decision. So I always make a plan in my head at least. Another tip that helped me was being mindful of how I was feeling when I'm with certain people, certain amounts of people. The situations that I like specifically with a group of people would be something that we are like a group like what could be like working together on like Bible study. Something like that. When it's not supposed to be like we're going to all talk to each other. If there's some kind of goal in mind then I have a framework for okay I'm not going to talk about this stuff with these people. We're going to have a specific topic. We're going to have a specific environment that we're in. We're going to do something. And finding out what works best for you and where your comfort zone is really. Another tip is setting boundaries and sticking to them. One of my boundaries is that I don't go to parties. Unless it's people that I have been repeatedly hanging out with and there's probably not going to be new people in the party. I know myself better than they do and I know how I socially function in certain areas and so like sticking to what you know is good for you. And all the cat. He run it away. What was I saying? Basically just don't stress about trying to like go to all these social engagements to stay connected or for whatever reason the people are giving you. If you don't feel like going then just don't go. If it's something that you have to do then make sure that you take a break after doing that to kind of like recuperate and just spend time by yourself if you need to. I have like four friends that I spend time with like present day. I have a viral study group and I have my church and that's the extent of my social life. I am a social online. Of course, lots of online friends. But in person this year I have made one new friend. That's pretty good for being in a pandemic. Not everybody can say that they've made new friends in the pandemic. It's having to stay at home and stuff. But I don't pursue making new friendships because I know I wouldn't be able to give them the attention that they deserve from a friend because I have like my social life as as full as I want it to be. My last tip would be just if you're okay with it then tell the people that you're with that you are autistic and that you might have problems with certain social situations if it's going to be overwhelming or too many people or it's going to make you anxious or you're just not going to want to. And real friends will understand that. I have a friend. She's actually like asked me like, oh is this too overwhelming to you or would you want to go to this? I would be like, I love you. Thank you for asking. At this point in my life I can afford to surround myself with only people who know me and understand me and don't pass judgment on me for the way that I socialize or how much I socialize. I feel very blessed for the people in my life right now especially around the holidays. And as the first socially distanced Christmas is upon us I am all for it. But I still make a point to get together with my friends for coffee and catching up on things. So I hope you all have a great week. I don't know when I'm going to be back but Merry Christmas.