I'm a 19-23 years old guy, many girls find me as physically attractive (face and body), but I am socially awkward. So awkward that I can probably be diagnosed with high-functioning autism (this means autism without mental retardation, but does not imply anything about high-functioning social skills).

However, I've realized this about 2 years ago and since then have been making progress in social skills. Although it's only social skills, while my intuitive judgment about social situations remains quite bad, in the way they work, I can look mostly non-awkward when I apply what I've learned, and not like a robot programmed to mechanically follow social rules. I know that in many aspects, my social behavior is better than the ones of an average person. However, the more intuitive something is, the harder for me to learn - things like touching, mimicking someone's body language, gestures, using certain intonations (while certain others are not hard), and... flirting.

I know much of the theory, but intuitively, I am oblivious to flirting. I know roughly how it looks like, because I've read some PUA material and because I do have a great deal of common sense. And I have tried to touch a girl while socializing, but most of the time it turns out badly (about the last time I did it, it probably looked like I was stroking her forearm muscle). I can always say "you're beautiful", but I know this is stupid.

PUA stuff is about picking up girls who don't know me, under the assumption that I have basic skills, which I don't. For example, if she is with friends, I have no idea how to keep a conversation with her friends, because I generally can't keep a conversation with a group of people - I can usually survive, but can not contribute much. But it is even worse. I've been several times in a situation where a girl I know from my everyday life is obviously attracted to me, I like her too, and I can't do anything about it - not even wait for her to take the initiative, because dominant girls like submissive guys, and it would take a lot of patience and pain for me to be submissive, it's just strongly against my nature, I'm the total opposite. So when it's up to me to take the initiative, I do almost nothing, or make several lame attempts, a few of them are ok, but not even close to being enough. I did get laid a few times, but it was always because the girl was my girlfriend before we met in real life (because we met online), very horny, and it still took me 1-2 hours to kiss her since we met, even though we were directly speaking about having sex before we met. And it was not even from a dating site, I can't do well in those.

My confidence is high, and after some efforts I even learnt how to make my body language reflect this (which, by default, used to express things that have little to do with my actual feelings and thoughts). I do not have social anxiety, in this sense I'm even better than the average person, I also learnt to keep good eye contact. I mostly come across as *insert many socially desirable qualities here* and nowadays few people would see me as awkward, I think. I'm assertive whenever I have to be, in fact I get quite angry if I feel that someone is unfair to me, so it's often hard to not be assertive, but I do control my anger quite well. Am strongly motivated, I'd go a far way to achieve whatever I want. I roughly know what attracts women and I know many things that don't attract them, contrary to popular belief. So you can see that most people in my situation would not only have no problems with girls, but in fact be really good at that. This is a strong reason why things that work on most people won't work on me.

I thought this would belong to this subforum, rather than the one for basic questions, because my question is quite specific and I'm not sure if anyone would be able to give a good answer. I'd especially love to hear from guys who are like me, especially if they succeeded

Our world has started a new trend lately where we like to diagnose unique personalities as having a mental disorder. It's just an easy way for doctors to make a quick buck by putting you on some medication that turns you into a vegetable. My point is, you need to get it out of your head that you have a special scenario that most other guys don't have.

I used to be socially awkward as fuck to the point where it felt like I was mentally retarded. Even my grades were shitty because my brain lacked the social components that made everything "tick". It felt like I was always half-asleep or something. Anyway, it's all a matter of your inner game. I think you'll be surprised to see what happens once you gain some more confidence and learn how the most basic social settings work, as well as how to adapt to them. But like all things in life, practice makes perfect.

Hop on over to the inner game forum to get started. Other than that, the best thing you can do is keep going out and getting better with people.

One of the easiest ways to start with is to go to the mall alone. Go buy yourself a pretzel or milkshake and see if you can greet the person working there and maintain eye contact when placing your order. Finally, thank the person with a genuine smile and walk away. If you can do that, give yourself a pat on the back (not literally - that's awkward) and then do something a little more ballsy until you get to the point where you feel really out of place. Then you can more easily analyze what went wrong and how to overcome it for next time. Keep working your way up, and do not be afraid of looking awkward. Everyone has days where they feel socially retarded no matter how much experience they have. Shake it off and don't give up.

Actually, I believe I cannot get a diagnosis, because the most important criteria is to be actually socially impaired, which is something I'm mostly not. I was only referring to the low-level mechanism that explains my weirdness, and I have strong evidence for my claims, but I am not going to debate you, because this thread is not about your belief. I see where are you coming from and I do not agree that the conclusion follows from your premises.

About your advice, as I said in my post, I don't actually have problems with confidence. I do believe I'm quite confident, the problem comes from not knowing what to do or even worse, knowing what to do, but when I do it, it's awkward, because I lack that smoothness. I find it very easy to imagine how would it look like if I do it smoothly, but when I do it, it's stiff and awkward. It's just the biological thing that remains, I've dealt with most of the other issues (I used to be such a nerd), but it also hinders my ability to model her mind and say whatever will turn her on.

My purpose is to either become more smooth, or if that's not possible, learn how to flirt while being biologically non-smooth.

I can tell by reading your post that you're extremely overanalytical. This leads to an overload when you're "in the moment", which is what will cause the sluggish decision-making. Don't put so much thought into it and just let things happen without thinking about it. Don't think about what you're going to say next or whether or not you should have your hands on your hips (don't ever do that, by the way). That's why I suggested the mall adventure, as that will ease you into social interactions and allow you to overcome this problem.

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