Help interpreting a social interaction? Sarcasm? Help!

Post Reply New Topic

Hey all, I had an interaction this morning that has me stumped and I'm hoping someone might be able to help me understand.

Background- our house has two bathrooms, both of which have needed significant repairs. At this point, I've got the one downstairs of us fixed up well enough, but the one on our floor has this super sketchy shower surround with cracks in it, and I'm positive that using it will cause more water damage to the house. My partner insisted on using it anyways during the time that the downstairs one was unusable (about 2 weeks total) and I agreed b/c I figured using it only a few times might not totally destroy everything (& because I plan to tear out the shower surround in the future & redo the room eventually).

But now, the downstairs one works just fine. This morning I woke up to hearing the upstairs shower running, which made me super anxious as I imagined all the water seeping in through the cracks & disintegrated caulking into the walls and floor. When my partner came in, I said good morning, and asked them if they could please not continue to use the sketchy shower stall now that the other shower worked, because I was anxious about water damage.

They got super defensive & instead of answering me directly, they got super sarcastic and said "don't worry, I took a dry shower, I didn't use water" which made no sense to me, as I'd heard the shower running and because only birds & other animals take dust baths. Once I realized they were obviously being sarcastic, I still couldn't understand why they said that or what they were actually trying to communicate to me, which was upsetting. I told them I was upset, and they said they'd felt like I was "scolding" them, when I asked them not to continue to cause water damage to the house. They said it was "too early for this" and they didn't want to talk about it.

I felt like I was being direct, and like my choices were either to say something when the situation came up, or to not say anything- and then the next time when it happened again & made me anxious again, it would be my own fault for not speaking up. I didn't feel like I was scolding and I don't understand why they took it that way. Their response made me feel very disrespected. I feel like if they had more complicated feelings about it and didn't want to discuss it right then, they could have just said that instead of making sarcastic nonsense at me. What does this mean? Did I do something wrong in handling this situation?

Maybe the sarcasm was just part of being defensive - people get uncomfortable when someone points out they did something wrong and instinctively try to defend themselves. Sometimes by attacking.
It is often short-term and they get back to reason after some time. If there are no further consequences to your relationship and your partner started using the right bathroom, I wouldn't worry.

Oh, that makes sense.. they didn't agree to stop using that shower, and they didn't want to continue talking about it this morning (understandable as we had to leave for work, but also frustrating that we weren't able to resolve it) So I feel like we will need to finish discussing it so that I know one way or another what the issue is and if there's anything I can do to help, & whether or not they will agree to stop using that shower until its fixed. I guess I am also just feeling pretty hurt that they responded the way they did, I'm hoping maybe they will calm down by the time I see them later, and that maybe they will even apologize for lashing out at me like that? But I'm not sure. . I guess as long as we can reach an agreement on what to do moving forward, I can get over it even if they don't apologize (they are normally very kind, this is a really unusual situation) I just hope that later we can talk about it without them reacting like this again :/

Thanks for taking the time to reply, btw. It hadn't occurred to me that their emotional reaction may have been because they felt bad for doing something wrong. I thought since it was directed at me, that it must be because of something I did or said, or how I did or said it. That's reassuring at least, though harder to fix than if I had done something wrong, since their emotions are outside of my control.

I wouldn't be much help here as I have a great deal of difficulty with sarcasm as well, but at least I can say that I share your problem. NTs either don't seem to convey sarcasm well or they simply assume that everyone can read their mind or something which irritates me quite a bit. I need a direct and clear message with somebody actually saying the precise words, "I'm being sarcastic" in order for me to understand that they are, in fact, being sarcastic. But by that time, NTs have already figured out that I lack the ability to perceive sarcasm and assume that I'm mentally handicapped. Which, of course, opens up an entirely new social dynamic which I can't deal with and become very anxious about.

I guess I'm so afraid that NTs will figure out my Aspie secret that I simply go along with the sarcastic joke as if I understand it, rather than let someone figure out my Aspie secret. I have felt the need for most of my life to create "a normal social shield" to protect me from accidental Aspie secret exposure.

I think what us Aspies are going to have to do is simply accept the Autism situation and broadcast it loud and clear and stop hiding. But this terrifies me, hence the quandary we all face. For me, hiding my Aspie secret and maintaining my "normal social shield" causes a great deal of stress and anxiety.

Maybe it was something in the way you said it, we weren't there so hard to say, also some people just don't like to deal with things in the morning when they're focussing on getting to work. I'd just wait until the evening when you next see them and say something like "Sorry if I sounded like I was nagging you, I was just worried we might be causing damage by using that shower, but now the other one is fixed we can use that instead."

I think you were perfectly within rights to tell them please do not use that shower because of the chance of water damage.

Because it's true -- water gets into everywhere and can cause extensive damage seeping throughout a wall. Showering splashes around more water against adjacent surfaces than people realize. Water damage within a wall can be extremely expensive to fix because it can filter on out to other areas. It doesn't make any sense to just go ahead and cause it anyway.

Frankly it sucks that your partner would use that shower even one more time if the other one is now fixed and ready to use. It was unreasonable of them, and perfectly reasonable of you to say something.

The fact that they got defensive is their problem, they're being childish and yes that was childish sarcasm, because any reasonable person could see that your concerns are legitimate, not just trying to be an a-hole.

To be honest I think THEY are an a-hole for even using the shower that has a damaged wall now that there IS a shower they can use instead, and also for getting so petulant at your REASONABLE request.

Can you rig a waterproof shower curtain over the damaged wall? If someone is going to keep using that shower, you need to cover up the damaged places so that water can't reach it, while it's not yet fixed.

It pisses me off when people don't respect simple logic in terms of practical things like this.