The external alexx_kay agrees with your internal one, as well as reminding you about his exhibitionistic streak :)

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*grin* Well, I was considering writing you a porn story for Valentine's Day, but perhaps I will write a post about us and our geeky love thing instead. I used to be mysterious you know--this too is all your fault.

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I'm currently reading EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE by Daniel Goleman. Like so many writers on the susbject, he really stresses the importance of nonverbal communication in social interactions. In his chapter on "the social arts", he talks a lot about synchrony: rapport being established by the degree to which people unconsciously synchronize their body movements during a conversation. He also discusses the importance of internalizing "display rules": the cultural consensus about when it's appropriate to display which emotions.

I shouldn't still worry about such things, but discussions like this make me despair of ever acquiring the level of social skills I want. In life I've usually had close friends, but often had trouble melding into a larger community. Yet I've known blind people -- including you, Kes -- that have managed to become popular. (One of your techniques seems to be that you *create* social settings: parties, etc., so that you're often managing the dynamic rather than trying to figure out someone else's tacit rules. Am I right? Was this a conscious decision?)

Lately I've had problems with a community that I really had my heart set on joining. I think I tried to move too quickly. One of the women said that some of my interactions come across as awkward, and suggested I might have a social learning disability. She now wants nothing to do with me.

Do you have any suggestions about learning these relationship skills?

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I think these are some really good questions, and that they reflect many issues which have nothing to do with blindness. I also think the woman who rebuffed you sounds like a passive-aggressive person who has some definite issues of her own: a well-socialized person does not ostracize a new member of a group who is obviously just trying to learn the new dynamics and get comfortable. I feel really awkward in new social situations, and often when trying out a new community feel as if I will never click. Sometimes I just decide not to continue because I get the feeling, as in your case, that this a group with lots of people who don't want to open up to newcomers. That's not social awkwardness, that a solid decision to prefer to be around people who welcome you and want to make you feel comfortable, in other words, are people worth getting to know.
I don't think I manage social situations, well, maybe I do. However, my parties are thrown for the sake of liking to throw parties, which I have always done. I think that springs from not having parties as a kid and a teenager, I love throwing parties for little or no reason at all. I do like smaller parties or social events, because, being blind, it is relly easy to feel outside of things or on the perimeter of what is happening at larger events. Of course, a lot of times, at larger events, there actually is a core or in group who organized the event or participate in that group or related groups regularly.
I think I am going to write a post on social cues, because a lot of blind people ask this question. For a lot of them, I think books like the one you are reading and/or vocational teachers have exaggerated the importance of visual cues. A lot of these cues are manifested in non-visual ways, like tone of voice, or the way in which someone responds to your conversation (short snippy responses versus relaxed spontaneous or effusive responses, for instance).
The thing I try to remember is other people are not always comfortable with meeting new people or new social situations, either, and that some of these people are just not going to seem interested in talking to me. That's their perogative, too. Others are just, like the woman who rebuffed your attempts to talk with her, nasty and feel the need to increase their own sense of self-importance by creating high school cliches of insiders and outsiders. Again, that's her perogative, but I like to think that I don't need to participate in high school behaviors anymore.

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