Trouble with others misreading your tone

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League_Girl
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29 May 2015, 9:31 am

kamiyu910 wrote:

It's about both, really, though it's much worse online.
I keep wondering if people are purposefully trying to twist my words, or if I really worded it wrong. It's so hard to tell, and of course whenever I ask for them to clarify, it just makes it worse, haha...

I sometimes think people really can't read. Or it could be because they skimmed what you wrote and they don't really care and some don't speak English as their primary language so that will do it too.

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29 May 2015, 9:37 am

kamiyu910 wrote:

I have the same problem both places...

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29 May 2015, 9:37 am

Please calm down, guys. The last posts on page 1 in this thread are seriously off-topic, contain personal attacks and insults.
Personal attacks and insults are not allowed on WP.
I know you got off to a rocky start, but you both need to calm down and move on.

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29 May 2015, 9:39 am

BirdInFlight wrote:

Aaaaand......it JUST happened again on another thread, just now.

Wow. I can't post ANYTHING without someone completely twisting my words and managing to find a message in them that I did not even intend in any way, shape or form.

Un-freaking-believable. Sometimes I feel if I just post "I'm having a good day" it could eventually turn into a sh!tstorm of arguments arising from somebody somewhere taking it as a threat or a diss.

Sometimes I seriously consider ending all my participation on message boards.

Remember, most of us here are impaired when engaging on the boards...

kamiyu910
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29 May 2015, 10:57 am

League_Girl wrote:

kamiyu910 wrote:

That makes sense, especially the skimming part. They just gloss over what I've written, pick out a couple key words and go on the defensive.
When I worked in the library, people would stare at the sign saying the printer was out of order, and ask me for their prints. It's a weird phenomenon I can't understand, but it was so predictable.

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Edna3362
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29 May 2015, 11:46 am

I'm rather glad that people online usually don't take my words seriously. XD

But in real life, it's different. As if they watch and hear every word I said...
Whether good or bad, they took it too seriously sometimes. Just one mistake, then everything goes crazy. And the other part of that, is ending up misinterpreting it due to the fact that I don't know how exactly loud my voice is...

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League_Girl
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29 May 2015, 11:50 am

kamiyu910 wrote:

League_Girl wrote:

kamiyu910 wrote:

I had a moment where I wrote something online and someone didn't read what I wrote so I got defensive and that backfired on me because that person left a PM in my inbox explaining to me she is visual so if she can't form a right picture in her head, she won't know what the f**k I am talking about. I felt like an ass. But most of the time I don't think this is the case when other people do it. Sure there will be times when it would be due to being visual so they couldn't form a right picture in their head from your words. But when a bunch of people do it in a thread, then can you really assume they must all be visual? It could mean two things, you either didn't word things correctly or all those people are being an ass. But if you're clear, then it's them not really reading what you wrote. But it's still annoying when it happens.

Also if someone had PTSD, that will do it too because something you wrote gave them flashbacks so they are projecting and from experience, arguing with these people and trying to clarify what you meant doesn't do because they will keep twisting what you wrote due to their trauma so I don't even bother. I am not a mental health professional so I don't know how to get through to these people. It's usually obvious when this is the case. They are not trolls nor are they messing with you or trying to bully you or manipulate, they are just people who are still troubled by their past and have not recovered so they are not able to leave their past behind and separate it. Some have it so bad they can't stop attacking people. I know of one person like that unfortunately which is why I don't corespond with. She is so unpredictable I never know when she will blow up and start cursing at you. It's like Bipolar. You just never know when they will go from fine to angry all of a sudden.

Having strong feelings about a topic will do it too.

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Caelum
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29 May 2015, 12:19 pm

This happens to me frequently. I hate being misunderstood, probably more than anything. This has directly fueled my dread of social interactions. I dislike when people assign nefarious motives to me while I'm trying to be pleasant and nice.
Good luck and stay safe,

kamiyu910
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29 May 2015, 12:29 pm

League_Girl wrote:

It makes me conflicted, because I really want to post what goes on in my head (and frankly, the majority of any social interaction I get is online, which I like because I can walk away when needed), but I don't want to have to be afraid of stepping on toes and getting a bad reaction because I'm curious or something is bothering me and I want to talk about it. I haven't figured out how to get to the middle ground yet.

Caelum wrote:

This.

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dianthus
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29 May 2015, 3:31 pm

It happens to me a lot online (except with people who actually know me in person), but not very often offline. I think that's partly because I have more selection about who I interact with offline.

When you post on a forum of this size, it's kind of like speaking to an auditorium full of hundreds or thousands of people and then taking comments from the audience afterward. It's wide open and you can't predict who is going to comment, or if they will understand or not. Some people will be hecklers, just because they can.

For me it's more frustrating to deal with people who basically mean well, but consistently misinterpret things, rather than obvious trolls or hecklers. I think as already said, a lot of people just don't READ.

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29 May 2015, 4:23 pm

Yes. My mother does it all the time. I have to be so careful about what I say to her, and how I say it, because she gets defensive a lot. But I think it's mostly because she has narcissistic personality disorder, and she just wants to be the center of attention all the time, and have people walking around on eggshells around her all the time. (ie. her being the focus of everybody's attention all the time).

People sometimes think I'm being sarcastic when I'm not.

I was talking on facebook with a (now former) friend, and I said "it would be nice to get a job in the field I studied for, for once." (meaning, I've been to college twice before, and couldn't get a job in the field I studied for) and she flipped out and accused me of being nasty to her. I told her I wasn't being nasty to her, and she said "Yes you are. You're being nasty to me." I still have no idea how she came to that conclusion. Maybe she has NPD too. She was always posting pictures of herself on facebook, and always posting cryptic messages just to bait people into asking her what was wrong.

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AutumnSylver
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29 May 2015, 4:43 pm

kamiyu910 wrote:

When I worked in the library, people would stare at the sign saying the printer was out of order, and ask me for their prints. It's a weird phenomenon I can't understand, but it was so predictable.

That type of thing drove me nuts when I worked in customer service. The signs placed on the racks would clearly state what was on sale, but all the time, when I told people that their item wasn't on sale, they would say "but the sign said 40% off" (or whatever percentage it was), and I would say something like "yes, but that was for shirts (or pants, or whatever) this item isn't on sale" and then they would say "but the sign said 40% off" and it would go in circles like that. Sometimes, I got the feeling that they expected me to just say "ok then" and give them a discount even though the item wasn't on sale.

A similar thing used to happen with the lineup. The way they did it was kind of weird, (they had 3 registers at each desk, but only one place for people to line up) but they had a sign saying "line up here" and a cord going parallel to the desk where the register was, letting people know where to line up. People would line up at the sides of the desk instead of at the front, and when I would tell them the lineup is "over there", they would whine about it and say "there should be a sign". Um, there is a sign. They could have had half a dozen signs that were each 6 feet tall, saying "line up here", with a giant arrow outlined in flashing lights pointing to where to line up, and people would still say "there should be a sign". :roll:

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League_Girl
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29 May 2015, 4:45 pm

AutumnSylver wrote:

Either my ex was just an a**hole or he had narcissism traits, he also would take what I say the wrong way so it felt like I had to walk on eggshells and had to keep my feelings bottled up or it would upset him. It was also like I had to be careful how I say it.

Here are a couple examples here:

(cooking mac and cheese)
Him: Oh s**t
Me: What happened?
Him: I accidentally spilled some noodles in the sink
Me: At least that is less calories for you to have then
Him: You called me fat

Another example:

(calls me on my cell phone)
Me: (picks up) Hello?
Him: Beth I have bad news about your car
Me: What happened?
Him:(tells me some part broke in the fans he was fixing)
Me: Did you do it?
Him: I was fixing it and then I saw there were parts missing in the fan

(later in the day)
Him: You said I broke it and it hurt my feelings
Me: No I didn't, what are you talking about?
Him: You asked me if I broke it

He called these social issues he has. Very sensitive and anything hurt his feelings and it felt like anything I said meant something else and I never thought that way when I thought of a sentence to say. What I say is what I exactly say. If I say "that's is red" I am thinking that is red, nothing else. No 'that is a different color' nor 'that is a red flower can.' It was like he would add to what I say or what it implied so he didn't care what I said or what I was thinking, he only cared what he thought it meant. But he was never in the center on attention.

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Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.

League_Girl
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29 May 2015, 4:50 pm

AutumnSylver wrote:

kamiyu910 wrote:

When I worked in the library, people would stare at the sign saying the printer was out of order, and ask me for their prints. It's a weird phenomenon I can't understand, but it was so predictable.

I clean restrooms and I used to have the closed sign but customers would come in anyway. But I think it's due to them not wanting to walk to another floor and when i worked at the airport for job training, travelers would start coming in the restroom and ignore the closed sign. They just didn't want to hold it or walk all the way down to the other end to go so all of us workers in training had to wait until all the travelers claimed their luggage and leave and wait for it to be empty again. My husband told me it's worse during the day because people go in there all the time and ignore the sign. I don't think I would have last.

One time at work, some idiot put forks down the toilet and it caused everything to back up so only one restroom was open in the whole entire building where it wasn't affected and people couldn't even wait 15 minutes for me to clean the restroom so I had a meltdown and stormed out of there and refused to clean it because they ignored the restroom sign I had in front of the door. I didn't clean them until all the customers went home.

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Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.

Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.

nick007
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30 May 2015, 12:41 am

I have that problem offline sometimes & I used to have it online alot

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dianthus
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30 May 2015, 1:15 am

League_Girl wrote:

(cooking mac and cheese)
Him: Oh s**t
Me: What happened?
Him: I accidentally spilled some noodles in the sink
Me: At least that is less calories for you to have then
Him: You called me fat

I think it completely normal and logical for him to interpret it like that.

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