memorable social blunders

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ive gotten much better in this department over the years. for some reason i remembered a social blunder i made in high school and laughed out loud. looking back, it's honestly quite hilarious!
i was in 9th grade, a freshman in high school. i was talking to an acquaintance of mine whom i used to smoke weed with in the bathroom from time to time.
here is what happened:
stoner girl: "i just bought this. smell it" she hands me the sack of MJ.
me: "what kind of weed is it?"
stoner girl: "it's chronic. i got it from so and so."
me: "oh, you got it from him? my friend said he puts oregano in it to increase the volume of content in the bags in order to rip people off. i think it's part oregano."
(it was already crushed up in the bag which made me believe it wasn't great weed)
stoner girl: "are you saying my weed is oregano?"
-i took the question literally. i didn't know that she was irritated-
me: "yes"
stoner girl: "i know this guy. i only get good s**t. maybe you should get your facts straight before you call my weed oregano"
me: "ok"
so, we're both quiet and i'm hanging around her like nothing's wrong. i didn't know she was mad.
5 minutes later, she says "i don't know why you're still here. get the f**k away from me!"

so i back away, confused as hell. that's growing up asperger for you.

does anyone else have a story about being ridiculously misconstrued, taking something literally, unknowingly starting an altercation, etc? feel free to share 'em.

i think it'd be hilarious just to hang around middle schools and jr. high schools trying to sell little plastic baggies of oregano wearing a shady trenchcoat

is it illegal to sell oregano and claim it's weed ?
could be making bank off ignorant young people everywhere if not.

i've thought about doing that too. i think it's still illegal, it's purporting "lookalike" drugs.

That situation still would have confused me. It sounded to me like you were being helpful by telling her what you'd heard, to alert her to the fact that she might be getting ripped off. I don't see what's wrong with that conversation, except her getting upset for some reason.

technically it's not purporting anything if you never actually tell them what it is

just say, "hey kids, i got some really good stuff right here! $10/oz., it smells so good, here take a whiff! warning though, it might make you hungry & so try it with pizza"

"whoaaa little billy, don't start gobbling it down right here, it's just gonna give you some bad cottonmouth to eat that stuff dry, go make some tea first!"

and so on etc.
never claiming it's weed, but never mentioning it's oregano.
and making ambiguous statements about it that could apply to either

She was upset by the insinuation that she'd been duped - it made her feel foolish - like she might have been so dumb that her dealer buddy could easily rip her off and she wouldn't notice.

That and/or the thought that she was so stupid, she'd been smoking oregano and only THOUGHT she was getting high.

When I came back from the first time I got laid off from the machine shop I ran into a co-worker we both said hi. I was standing there and he was still standing there I felt like he wanted to say something so I asked him how his wife and kids were? (I never ask questions like this) He walks away to the bathroom real quick and another co-worker ran up to tell me his wife had died on an operating table a week after I got laid off and no one told me about it. I no longer ask hows someones family is unless its a relative of mine.

I once fed shrimp and spicy sausage gumbo to a Jewish gamer friend who I later found out after he found the shrimp in the gumbo that Jews cannot shell fish. OOPs He laughed it off and picked out all the shrimp. It was good gumbo.

This kid I knew who was really racist and I had not seen for four months showed up with a shaved head so I said oh wow you finally became a skinhead, I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. Turns out he shaved his head to get ready for chemothreapy for lukemia.

I was so tired of co-workers calling me a ret*d I told them if they killed all the ret*ds in the world they would be the first to go. So one of them said are you saying all ret*ds should be killed and I said yes. Turns out a waitress was putting away dishes and overheard us. It turns out her son has downsyndrome. They set me up to be the bad guy they were standing next to her but where I was standing I could not see her but she could hear me loud and clear. I apolagized to her she understood what I was talking about and realized the punks were f*****g with both of us.

that's... awful. i didn't know that rule, i thought it was something co-workers always asked each other because that's how it looks in movies and such. "hey man, how's it goin'? how's the wife and kids?" "oh pretty good, i'm taking my son bob to the little league game tonight." then they exchange a couple of nice chummy back pats.


i think this is just plain bad luck. it sounds like any other normal jest to me. if he's racist he kind of had something like that coming. i mean what were the odds of that happening to him? weird.

Someone was playing music and I liked it, so I said 'this makes me want to listen to my own music' because it got me in the mood to listen to music. Someone said 'Hey, don't be rude!' and I was like 'What? How was that rude?'

I was touring a big art gallery with some people and in one room there was a screen that showed videos of explosions one after the other. I turned to the guy who was with me and blurted out "Hey this is better than Mythbusters." I was trying to make a joke and he didn't react, just kind of gave me a funny look. I knew we both liked Mythbusters so I couldn't figure out what I'd done wrong until I realized that the room was an exhibition of war and the explosions were huge devastating tragedies.

Thats funny about the oregano thing....when I was about 14 me and a friend tried smoking things like corn silks (we were told it would get you high) and we tried some herbs from his Moms spice rack. All we got was a headache.

I could probably write a book on all my social blunders....foot in mouth disorder . Ill give you one from my past and one from recent. When I was in middle school and I had a friend who lived on a pig farm so when they were putting manure on the fields I said "Hey (insert name) I can smell your house from here". She got very upset and started crying and, at the time, I had no idea why she was upset. I do "get it" now that I insulted and embarrassed her. I just thought it was funny I didnt mean to upset her and I felt so bad about it.

A few years ago I worked in an office and the people there were always asking me to go out with them or come to a BBQ or something. I would always decline so one of them said "Why wont you ever go out with us?" so I said "well, you guys are my coworkers" and she said "whats that supposed to mean?" and I said: "you guys arent friends"...... . I tired to recover by trying to explain but I just buried myself deeper. Then I had to endure the constant teasing "Well we would ask you to come but considering we are NOT your friends......" Yeah yeah...thats what I get for my brutal honesty.

One time I was complaining to my mom about my sister borrowing my clothes and never returning them. She told me I shouldn't let my sister borrow my clothes anymore. Sometime later, I was wearing a new shirt and my sister told me it was really pretty. I anticipated that she was going to ask to borrow it, so I said "yeah, too bad you're never gonna wear it." My parents were furious with me, and I couldn't understand why. I thought they'd be proud of me for making a witty remark. It's only in hindsight that I realize how rude I was to say something like that...

Not my worst, but arguably my most memorable:

Hanging out with friends. R comes in, all excited. "You have to hear this poem!" He starts reading with expression.

I was and still am left cold or in some cases annoyed by all but a very limited range of poetry. And I did not then nor do I now read with excitement and expression. AND I would not just start reading a poem I liked to people. If I fifd that, I would be making fun of the stupidity of the poem.

I assumed he was making biog joke and started to laugh. Then I looked at him and realized - he was deadly serious, this poem meant a lot to him.

I never did figure out the hat and why of the poem, but I shut up and moved out of sight fast,

Oh boy, someone said he could write a book, i could re-write encylopedia brittanica, either way this one is my most memorable:

when i was 10-12 i was living near boston, ma and my mother was in bangor maine, about a four hour drive. my parents decided that rather than drive 16 hours each weekend (eight hours round trip, twice) they would have me take the bus (i think thats where i picked up my special interest). (bus service was similar to greyhound, but cleaner, and free snacks and a movie)

i had just seen "The Shawshank Redemption", specifically the scene where Capt. Hadley beats the tar out of the fat guy, then gives is quote (...I swear by God and Sonny Jesus, you will all visit the infirmary...)

as we were waiting to depart boston's south station, the fire alarm went off (another old old spec, interest of mine) of course, hearing a fire alarm and not having an explanation for it (childish prank, system testing, etc) i paniced.

i shouted "i swear by God and Sonny Jesus that had better be a false alarm!"

im so grateful that the driver didnt kick me off right then and there, right before thanksgiving of 99 i had missed a trip up home, that messed up my entire year (ended up being suicidal for a time)

i have never told a soul about what i said on that bus, but after i moved back to maine, it was almost ten years before i used that particular bus service again, i was so afraid that the driver would remember me (not that he would mention it)
but i could write a book just on "social blunders aboard a Concord Trailways bus"

He was not a go out and beat someone of a different race racist he was more like an ill informed Archie Bunker. His accidental racial social blunders got laughed at not yelled at by minorities. He also had asian and latin girlfriends before.

Yeah, I don't understand that either. In situations like that it makes me think that we aspies are in the right. She's getting angry at you for you pointing out a problem, which made her feel easily-duped/inadequate, while you were being helpful.