Dealing with social awkwardness

This came up in another thread, and I decided to springboard it here.

When I was in school, I had trouble fitting in with my classmates. I didn't know what was socially acceptable and what was not. Due to the nature of the beast, that ability to pick up on social cues didn't come automatically to me as it did to others--strong probability of ASD here. A neurotypical might say, as I must have heard thousands of times, "Well, good common sense ought to tell you...." but it didn't. I would have needed someone to sit down with me and tell me in a matter-of-fact way exactly why whatever I was doing was annoying the p!$$ out of everybody.

There is a dangerous side, however, to relying on others to explain what is acceptable and what is not. Especially when it's kids or teenagers we're dealing with. That danger is, being led down the garden path. The others tell you yes, keep doing that, you're totally being cool right now, when in reality you look like a jackass and they are laughing at you. They are laughing at that stupid silly thing you're doing, and they are laughing at how gullible you are to believe them when they tell you it's what the cool kids do. That's happened to me a good many times. Notably, I remember a group of girls in seventh grade who toyed with me on the subject of smoking. "Do you smoke? No? Why not? All the cool kids smoke." Later it became, "Oh, you smoke now? Well, we all quit." I'd quit, and sure enough, "We all started again." On and on it goes. To this day, I honestly don't know whether any of them actually smoked or not. It didn't matter. Their game was, whatever I was already doing, tell me that the "in" thing to do was exactly the opposite. Then laugh behind my back as I flip-flopped, trying to keep up. Obviously they were having fun with my fear of not fitting in.

Working with supported employment, I will have a job coach. Plus, we are all adults now and not in the seventh grade anymore. I am not as afraid of this kind of treatment, although in an office environment, it does still exist. My MIL has told me stories of being new on the job, co-workers pretending to be helpful, and then telling her the opposite of what she was actually supposed to do. This happens in the corporate world, because people are competing for promotions and want to give themselves the edge, so they'll try to make others look bad. MIL also told me how she dealt with that.

For those who need things mapped out, as I do, I highly recommend etiquette-for-everyday-life courses, reading books, and finding out what the social norms actually are. Relying on your peers can backfire.