Do you ever Unintentionally offend people?

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I used to come off waaaay too strong. I'd say something and it would just end up sounding much worse than it did in my head.

Or sometimes I think I mean a particular thing in the moment but then only really think about it after it's been said.

I got much better at this with time.

I have unintentionally offended people.

My son, who is the family member with the ASD diagnosis, has done it more often.

One difference is that I am more likely to recognize in the moment what I've done, and have a chance to rectify it.

It's really upsetting when I learn I've hurt someone and had missed the signs. Its one of the reasons I prefer to address sticky topics only on forums more than in real life. More chance to re-read and check myself, and make sure I am using the tone, kindness and understanding I hope to achieve.

My son really beats himself up over some of the incidents he learned of after the fact.

No one is perfect. Intention matters. When you make a mistake, own it and try to fix it. Then learn from it. That is all anyone can do.

Oh, probably. Just as often as people unintentionally offend me, really.

All the time:

- no eye contact
- resting b face
- stressy or impatient mannerisms
- face blindness
- mutism
- seeming to like animals more than them
- seeming to like books more than them
- sensory overwhelm
- meltdowns and shutdowns
- avoidance of social obligations and small talk
- not using the phone
- being blunt or overly honest
- not using social scripts
- inability to express emotions
- difficulty with flexibility or change
- fight or flight responses (PTSD)
- hyper-focus on details
- forgetting what I'm supposed to remember
- remembering what I'm supposed to forget
- questioning and challenging double standards
- not wavering from what I believe
- needing a 99:1 ratio of alone time

What's there not to love?

The question is "have you, the autistic reader, unintentionally offended other people more often than other people have unintentionally offended you?"

Other folks are as obtuse towards me at least as often as I am towards them, if not more so.

There are times, I believe, when people take offense too quickly----make assumptions that just aren't true.

I didn't mean to offend these people; but I find, at times, that the "punishment" did not fit the "crime."

Part of the problem is that I'm not psychic. I might not know, say, that I would say something that evoked some traumatic event 30 years ago. Yet the person so offended treats me like I "should" have known the event occurred, and that I'm eminently insensitive because I should have KNOWN that she experienced the trauma.

I feel bad that I accidentally evoked the event-----but I really didn't know it had occurred!

Speaking of which.....I wanted to wear a certain pair of socks today-----but, alas, I could not locate them!

There's a couple different ways that this can happen honestly and without even making a proper social faux pa.

One way is a break of wavelength - like being nice to cynical people who read everything backward as sarcasm or snark, or just saying or doing unexpected things or saying things that people haven't heard before. Maybe a tidier way to phrase that is breach of conformity without necessarily any breach of rote social etiquette.

Another situation is when someone is trying to shove dominance down on you and your logic-ing your way through it when you're really supposed to be licking their boots and asking how much their protection fee or jizyah is and how/when they want it paid.

If I get a vibe that the first is happening I just talk a lot less around those people until I've figured out what's going on. If it's the later I talk less for different reasons (figuring out my next move).

anything could offend anyone.

anyone could (correctly) label anything as "disrespectful".

for example, someone at the bus stop was screaming "i don't need you to give me a couple bucks!". he could have (correctly) claimed it was "disrespectful" to give him a couple bucks.

"disrespect" is a slippery slope. anyone claiming someone "disrespected" them has the moral high road.

Trump card

trump card

it seems to me that precious lil "people" that keep using the words like "respect" and "offended" are self righteous, self important, inarticulate, small vocabulary.

In social situations, if I'm emotional enough or inattentive enough or start caring too little or much, yes that would happen.

But more than often...
It's the other way around -- people tend to unintentionally offend me more often and I have to keep giving them passes.

Because in their mind, it's their acceptable version of polite, appropriate or even positive.
And I'm just one person over everyone else who agrees with that.

Thus...
I'm never "home".
Being with people who are usually so proud or thought to respect me for reasons I cannot intrinsically appreciate or worse.

Hmph.
It's always about autistics 'unintentionally offending others' -- how about others unintentionally offending autistics?



At work, it's just sheer executive dysfunction.
And I hate it.
I won't do more stupid mistakes and unintentional sh*t if I stop having executive dysfunction.
It made me unreliable to make decisions or do whatever marketing crap.

But nevermind that -- I'm not even working with my strengths and what I can actually do. My work does the opposite -- playing by my weaknesses.
Again -- I hate it. No suggestions about my work because that would be very complicated.

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