What social cues do you tend to miss?

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I miss a lot of the subtle symbolic meanings of things. Sometimes I think I know what people are trying to imply, but I can't tell if my instincts are correct or if I'm being paranoid. I'm so confused by the subtler aspects of communication, I always end up being overly literal and oblivious or overly paranoid.

I can understand most of the non-verbal communication that goes on around me (but not as well as the average person). However, my own non-verbal communication is lacking. My posture, facial expression, tone of voice, etc do not reflect anything about my mental state or intentions. So I am always being "misread". It's amazing just how far-reaching the impact of this can be.

Anything really indirect and not specific confuses me. Like passive-aggresiveness and such.

Me too. I think this is still my major problem area. I've a little more awareness in the other areas mentioned nowadays, though I have to be very consciously alert in order to get those nonverbal messages, such as when to stop talking or when to talk. But all the indirect subtext, the hints, the passive-aggressive messages...those are hell for me. As release_the_bats said: "I can't tell if my instincts are correct or if I'm being paranoid. I'm so confused by the subtler aspects of communication, I always end up being overly literal and oblivious or overly paranoid.

One miscue, apparently, is laughing improperly. Quite often when I laugh at something someone has said, that person will tell me that it wasn't meant to be funny. Another miscue is that I have a tendency to join in a conversation only to find out that the subject matter had changed a minute or two ago. Same on the phone, but that's probably a different subject.

I think we'd all be surprised how much we DO miss. I remember having a class my first year at Uni, Personal Communication or somesuch. One exercise was to sit face to face with someone while they modeled 'emotions'. (We all had sheets of paper with the various emotions in random order, so we had to guess.) This was back in the dark Ages (1970's) and I had no idea why I couldn't 'read' the emotions. I think I got something like two out of twelve correct. NT's of course have no problem with this sort of thing.

I've compared it to being in a card game with several people who are professional 'sharks'. I'm busy playing cards, and they're busy passing arcane signals to each other. Before I know it (!) my money is all gone, and they're all laughing as I stumble away asking my self 'what just happened?'

Subtle ridicule (sometimes I will have a conversation that I think is perfectly normal, and afterwards a sympathetic person will come up and sigh, "I can't believe how mean people can be sometimes. They shouldn't mock autistic people like that!")

Flirting (I have, in not catching this, encouraged bad boy behavior. Long story)

Illness vs. boredom, excitement vs. amusement, bullying vs. accidentally triggering a bad sensory response.

'kidding or not' and 'when to not tell people things'

Indirect messages, I want people to tell me things directly and if they try to do so indirectly... well... I just don't get the message at all.

Oh gosh, I hear you on completely missing out on flirting. I'm always confused as where the line between friendly and flirty is, and I think I tend to give unintentional mixed signals. Nearly all my guy friends in high school asked me out, and I had no idea why.

Well, I don't attempt to be social [for I don't care], nor can I....

But, the better question to ask me would be, 'What social cues do you see?'

Not many.

A lot of times, it takes me a long time to think of a reply. That's why I seem much less socially awkward on the internet than in real life, because I have plenty of time to think of what to say next. Usually, by the time I finally think of an intelligent thing to say on the topic, the topic has already changed, and been long gone. Like someone else said, it takes my brain longer to process things.

I don't have horrible social deficts, but one thing that I know I have great difficulty with is knowing when it's my turn to speak during a conversation. I always start talking a split second after the other person starts talking, so I always end up interrupting the other person. When there's a slight pause in the conversation, I interpret that as being my turn to speak, but it usually isn't.
-OddDuckNash99-

I don't know what social cues I'm missing. That's the main reason why I keep missing them.

Humor and sarcasm. I often cannot tell when people are joking or being sarcastic-- I always assume they are serious and straightforward.

That was probably a better way of saying what I did in my response to this thread.

I find sarcasm (not the subtle type) interesting and funny but to most people sarcasm = rudeness. And everything else that's been mentioned in this thread, also giving too much information is usually a problem.