I don't really do small talk so I don't know.

I also trynot to do Smalltalk. I mean, smalltalk can be done with bots, and it's not a true human interaction IMO.

I really stopped trying in college. People never invited me to do things, so I stopped making much of an effort. Now, unless someone shows me they are genuinely interested in getting to know me, I have no reason to get beyond that professional boundary.
It doesn't help either that there are very few people I have met who I can both relate to and respect as a person.

as for tips, probably the best advice I can give is if it is something you want, put yourself in situations where there are people with whom to interact. Join a club, take a class, consistently show up somewhere, and eventually someone will take notice.

You know, if you look at this as a blessing rather than a curse, imagine that bullshit types of people others have to get past to find the one good person in their life, or the few good people. Now, if we get blown off or scoffed at by the majority, but we get accepted / make friends with one or two, perhaps find our life mate, then we skipped past some bullshit other people had to muddle through.

Uh? I understood none of that...... aaaah?

For me there are three states.
There is state 1 which I experience most of the time, which is where people see "weird blind person" and either completely ignore me, or, on the occasion they're forced to interact with me they do so in a manner  which maintains as much distance as possible.

This is people's default setting and there really isn't a lot  can do about it, especially since initiating contact in this state all comes through those stupid things like eye contact (something which blind people are frequently condemned to solitary confinement for not  able to do).

There is then state 2. This is the state where you actually have a person's attention, the person might be starting to actually recognise you as a human being and you have some control over the situation.
This is the state where it pays to learn the art of conversation, of being able to understand another person's feelings via empathy and employ a few basic tricks of vocal tone, sentence structure and facial expression to actually increase engagement.

Then  if your very, very! lucky you can get into state 3. This is the state where you've gone past someone seeing you just as a  of the human species, and can actually move on to them seeing you as a person with interests, desires a sense of humour etc.
This is the state where you might! actually be able to engage in some conversation about more than external factors, possibly , share jokes and generally get some sort of significant interaction which might lead to actually making a friend.

The problem is,  getting people as far to stage 3 takes a hell of a lot of work. You usually encounter people in stage 1, and most of the time that is where people stay. There is the rare (extremely rare), environment where people will begin at stage 2 or even stage 3 by default (as happened to me at university), but as I've got older, I'm increasingly aware of  how few and far between those environments are. In most social environments people are firmly stuck at stage 1 and you might have to claw them out of it with a hanger.

The further from stage 3 people are, the more work I find it to get them there, and the less success I have at actually managing it, the less inclined I am to try, particularly since where most people are lucky enough to be born into stage 2, and even 2.5 by default, most people don't see getting to stage 3 as quite as much an achievement so will generally just ignore it and bugger off.

So, bottom line, socialising is possible in the right environment, there are! skills you can learn to converse and act, (people have even called me charming on occasion), however most of the time all learning those skills does is give you a slightly reduced chance of ending up sat in a  corner doing nothing at any social gathering rather than it being inevitable, one reason why its wonderful to be married to your best friend and attend social gatherings with them, especially if your best friend has  the advantage of being pretty and female and generally less jaded on the hole social contact thing than you are anyway, for all she often enough ends up in exactly the same place.

Hmm. Well speaking only from my own experience, I have always been a musical geek, sometimes to nearly the utter extreme. Doing things normal kids did was never in my plans when I was a kid. While I think a lot of the people around me tried to give me space and freedom, they didn't really understand me, and very often didn't have patience for my reduced emotional intelligence. As I grew up, I was always paranoid because it seemed someone was always looking over my shoulder, and if I did something wrong, I'd be scolded for it before having any time to understand what was so wrong about what I had done. Thankfully, I don't think my blindness had much to do with this. I also wasn't ridiculed or picked on because of my blindness either. Being blind has led to a few awkward encounters, but nothing horrendous. I feel really bad for those who had to endure what they did, because even though I didn't have to endure it, I still have trust issues today. Not because I'm blind necessarily (though that could be part of it), but because I wasn't understood very well and it seemed when people weren't ignoring me or overwhelmed by my weirdness, they were scolding me for it. I understand now that it wasn't their fault; I did some pretty stupid, embarrassing stuff and I was just really hard to identify with, but nevertheless I am always afraid of offending or overwhelming people even now, and I am rarely able to stand up for myself in a time of conflict without feeling guilty or wrong for it. I often feel naive and insignificant. For this reason, as well as just being a natural introvert, I really do feel better alone. I love having a few close friends, and in fact I tried too hard to seek them out when I was a kid, but I'd rather be alone than have a few shallow friendships. Sometimes I yearn for company, but only from close friends. I'd never go out on the street and talk to random people. I wouldn't even know what to say lol

Sometimes I wonder what would have to change in order for me to be less awkward/more extrovert. Actually come to think of it, I could stem this whole thing back to being born premature. I know it caused my blindness, and I believe, to an extent, that it caused my brain to develop slightly weirdly and this resulted in something like mild Aspergers, which definitely messes with aptitudes for socialization. A lot of the socialization skills I have now are a result of me imitating other people, or learning that remark A leads to good result B. I've heard that a lot of people with Aspergers resort to this kind of strategy, but I am so good at it now that I'm not even sure what's a natural or a learned response for me anymore, and when I am socially overloaded or otherwise overstimulated, this confusion about my natural/learned behaviors is enough to top it all off and make me want to be alone for a while. I sometimes wonder if I had been born at my normal time, if I would be telling a very different story. But I digress.

I'm certainly not as weird as some of the people I know, though I am finding it increasingly easy to identify with quirky people and feeling comfortable around them, which is something I didn't think I'd ever do. So to sum up, I'm just a weird individual, and so when you catch me socializing, it's either because i'm being polite, or I'm talking to another reclusive nerd lol

Thanks, guys. to be honest, I don't see it as being that much of a blindness issue either. The only reason I brought up my experiences with bullying was because I think it changed how I form relationships, and makes me more suspicious of others, but that could just as easily happen to a sighted person.

I didn't think this was all that common, particularly the bit about starting to get to know someone, deciding that I just didn't feel a spark there, and proceeding to ignore their ways of reaching out to me. I usually do this with budding online friendships, since I don't get many chances to try and make friends in real life, and also it feels more low stakes. The fact is, I still feel guilty about doing it, though. If someone does something egregious, I block them, that's not what I'm talking about here, but sometimes when people send me Skype messages or whatever, I just don't respond until they take the hint, even though there's nothing wrong with them as people. It just takes too much energy to maintain a connection that isn't there, at least not from my side. I envy those who have an easier time of this, or at least have the charisma to pull off faking it. It's true, charisma is something you either have or you don't.

I realize, though, that I'm being hypocritical in a way. What if the other person feels that connection, but I don't? That has to suck for them, reaching out to me in hopes of keeping that spark alive, but getting nothing back. I've actually experienced that before. I met someone a few years back who I felt this amazing chemistry with. We hit it off so well, or at least I thought so. Over the span of a few months, it was like that connection had never existed, and that sucked for me, but if you're the one making all the effort to initiate contact and the other person doesn't reciprocate, it isn't worth it to keep trying after awhile, not unless you want to be known as clingy and annoying.

The only place where I think blindness does factor in here is when you try to have a conversation with an average person. Blind people don't tend to ask what you do, since unemployment is assumed rather than valued. That's sad but true, and I don't think the vast majority of sighted people ask that question out of malice, either, but it does make me extremely uncomfortable. As for other common small talk topics, it depends on how it goes. For example, I could talk to someone about music very enthusiastically if we have the same tastes, or even if they seem passionate about it themselves. Same with a TV show, or a hobby, almost anything really, as long as that other person is putting themselves out there. I mean, is it just me, or do a lot of people claim they love something and just leave it at that? Or they tell you one tiny aspect, usually the most boring detail about the thing, and then change the subject back to something super mundane? That bugs the crap out of me. If you love something, then tell me why, get me excited about it too. That's the only way that spark has a chance of existing. Even so, it really is a matter of natural chemistry in a lot of cases, at least I think so.

What I find interesting in my own life is that it's usually easier for people to want to reach out to me. That's true predominantly in the blind community. I've been around different platforms, including Vorail, and, for some reason, was deemed to have a, shall we say, not so ugly voice. People reached out constantly, wanting to be friends, pretending to be friends, and it was rather annoying. I found my "true" friends rather quickly and left the scraps to the depths of my inbox.
My approach is that I'd prefer to have 2-3 fantastic friends than 5-7 mediocre ones. My mom always said, "If you can have at least one true best friend, you're doing well for yourself." I find that I do, and that's something I've come to appreciate, but the other side to this is that humans are far more complex than needing only one "true best friend." What if I want to go out and meet new people to have the experience of doing so? What if that "one true best friend" isn't a Marvel fan like I am? Some of these one-liner pieces of advice horrifically oversimplify the wants and needs of being a human.
I hear where you're coming from when it comes to just ignoring the messages. Some people wouldn't know how to hold a conversation if you put it right in the palms of their hands. That's something you can or can't do, as are a lot of social skills. I don't do the boring exchange of messages, even if it lasts for but a few minutes. I want to talk about more than my favorite foods, books, sports, etc, although I am currently in a group chat dedicated to talking about nothing but Marvel-related things. I suppose that's not too crazy since a lot of people absolutely love Marvel, but it's an outlet for me in a particular way that I wouldn't be able to indulge otherwise. I sought out several music-related opportunities at my university, and currently sing in two a capella groups. That gives me my musical outlet, and even outside of rehearsals, a lot of the other members are great friends of mine. I've had my fair share of getting drunk with them and having rip-snortin' good times.
This also is a matter of where I am in the world. I'm at a university where there is diversity, and people are generally accepting of others' differences. Not everybody gets that luxury, so socialization isn't just pure skill, if you want to call it that.
Just reading your posts on here, I don't have a doubt in my own mind that you can hold a conversation or articulate your thoughts well. I think that sits well with others, but it may go over a lot of peoples heads (not people on the forum, but in general).

I can totally relate with what everybody is saying above in this topic, most people in the world go through the same thing visually impaired disabled or regular folk.

Since I lost my site it has been the opposite as everybody wants to talk to the mixed-race blind giants.
when I had the vision I had no issues with this as I was The big friendly giant and very popular. Now things I  used to brush off are starting to get irritating like people not knowing what personal space are and repeating the same questions like how tall are you and jokes in that nature.
I used to be the social hub which connected most of my friends on a daily basis, where we would decide what to do for that day or week socialise game party or play some type of sports.
the more I lost my sights the less sociable I got it seemed which a lot of people picked up on. I don't blame my friends for continuing on with their lives as everybody has their own problems and have their own path in life.
Fortunately I was always a gamer and tend to always have games consoles around which led me to start playing them war as I was not able to go outside by myself anymore.
Which opened me up to a whole new world they call online socialising. I think this happened at the right point of my life as it woke me back up and got me distracted from problems we come across in life as visually impaired people.
It seems my social popularity carried across online and was brilliant for the moments but as always unfortunately everything has to come to a end.
my vision was deteriorating over the years to the point now where I have none
Unfortunatly once again I could no longer be the social hub of my online friends.

Hello.

I agree with everything people have said above.

I guess I've wanted to make friends but the things people talk about are boring and I have no idea where to begin.

Small talk is boring, and I'm not one for clubs and things like that.

I've not exactly given up on making local friends, but don't have any hopes of doing so.

I've checked out vorail and while I've met some nice people on there, the people are from the other parts of the world.

I'm going to meet a close friend of mine in America soon and perhaps another person I met on vorail, I'm unsure about that. I'm excited to meet my close friend but sad also, sad because she lives in America and  I live in London.

My uncle had a friend over today and part of me is honestly sad, it doesn't help she's female.

But... Her laugh, god, it's so fake!

It could be nerves but I dunno, it just seams over the top.

So yeah, socializing sucks.