How did you guys know you couldn't pick up on that stuff?

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I didn't know this was a thing until recently (I am still learning and because of that I really get a lot out of reading everyone's posts!). So I'm just piecing things together. I know that people can get really mad at me out of the blue and I have no idea why they're upset and sometimes others have thought I was upset with them and were hurt when I thought our interaction was completely benign. So, I've spent most of my life letting people just fade away because they can be so troublesome and I didn't want a bunch of drama. And my definition of drama, if I'm honest with myself, is just whenever someone wants my attention...so I'm thinking I have issues with this concept that's new to me of "social cues". Also, I have always watched other people who seem to be at such ease and I try to copy their mannerisms and include phrases that I hear them say so casually. I'm not good at these kinds of things - like small talk, so when I saw social cues, etc. it seemed to make a lot of sense because it was an idea I had but had not heard articulated.

As soon as I read about AS and social cues it was as if a light suddenly came on inside my head.I'd always felt 'out of the loop' since my schooldays and now I instinctively knew I'd found the reason why,as I recalled several situations where I could never figure out how relationships or situations had taken unexpected turns.

Pluto, you just reminded me, with unexpected turns...I've never been good at figuring out why someone would talk to me. In college, guys were always talking to me and I thought, ah, look how friendly. Then they'd just suddenly stop talking to me and not really want to interact at all. I was totally baffled and my husband/then bf informed me that those guys didn't want to be my "friend", duh. I just didn't get it. Then there was this one whose cues I just never picked up on and he ended up being really mean and vandalizing my car on 4 or 5 occasions. Well, it took me a long time to figure out that all those assaults hadn't been random acts on my poor little car - that it'd been him the whole time. And the last mean thing was when he tagged the side of my car (graffiti) - maybe he was frustrated that I wasn't getting it - but I couldn't read it or remember what his tag was (I've never been able to read graffiti). Seriously, it took me until 2007 to figure out that it had all been him and happened in 1994! He must have been furious! hahahahaha!!

So, I might need some help in the social interpretation department.

I am glad I wasn't the only one. I thought I was alone. I have seen other aspies looking at the criteria and they go "oh this first part is me" and I wonder how the heck do they know they have that issue? Same as when they first read about AS and they go, "oh this describes me" and I wonder how the heck do they know they can't read people and they are missing out on all this stuff. They say everything fits them and they have all the symptoms and I just wonder how do they know they have these weaknesses here? I didn't know until they got pointed out and I just thought my shrink was full of it.

League_Girl, I know what you mean in a way - how do you know something's weird when that's just the way you perceive things? I think it definitely takes someone else's perspective to get one consider possibilities. Just people talking about it in situations like this or reading about it helps me consider it from different angles. For instance, when the phone rings, I usually don't answer it because I just don't want the interaction. Someone will come to the door and I'll just hope they think no one's home, or if my husband answers it I'll stay out of sight. Now, having the social cues in mind, I'll bring it up to my therapist.

I saw some TV show on body language, non verbal communication, micro gestures etc. I was amazed that all this stuff was going on in front of my face, and I had no idea. I thought, I need to learn this stuff! I didn't know I was an aspie then. So I digested a few books and anything on TV about it (seems it was popular TV fodder for a short while in Britain), and I taught myself a lot by observing people without listening to them. I'd say that nowadays I'm probably more in touch with that stuff than your average NT. Problem is that I can't seem to process the non verbal and verbal communication all at once.

I don't do it all the time, but sometimes I consciously incorporate hand and facial gestures into my interactions with people in order to elicit a better response. I find I need to over exaggerate any gestures, facial expressions etc. because I tend to seriously under do it. I saw myself on video in a drama and I couldn't believe how robotic I seemed, when I was trying to be very emphatic and expressive and emotive.

I didn't know completely either. I knew there was something missing because I've never been able to connect with people or understand them the way people thought I should. It wasn't until I started learning more about ASD's, maybe a year & a half ago, that I realized why I couldn't relate to people & why I always felt so out of place. Since then, I realize more & more specific events that are caused by my inability to innately know what's going on in situations, like others seem to.

I always recognized my social difficulties, but never once thought of it as a real disorder; just thought that was just the way I was. I could never keep up with banter. I'd end up looking/sounding ridiculous. So, I justified it by thinking I'm just here in the world for intellectual and creative purposes, not social ones. I still feel that way, although I have to be social to gain a clientele.

A few years ago I was sitting at a restaurant with a couple friends, and two other people. They were talking about their sex lives, and it was really irritating me, so I left the table to sit at a different one. I still didn't know about AS yet. I didn't talk to the friend who was in the sex conversation for several months.

people have told me things like that. They didn't use those specific words, "You don't pick up on social cues." I would just get yelled at by people all the time for stuff I didn't understand. I've always felt like my mind functions a lot differently than everyone else.

First time I found out someone on Yahoo Answers was talking about how clueless they seemed socially and I really related to it, for like the first time in my life. Then someone linked to a site describing Asperger's syndrome. So I read up on it and it just fit me so well.

i didint i was just pushed to spycologist

I noticed the verbal ques that I missed myself after many years.
When people say or talk about themselves then that means your it's your turn next to talk about yourself. etc... (common sense thing)
I was pegged as 'standing aloof' as someone took me aside and kindly gave this advice/admonition( in my early 20's).
He said that I make people nervous and they feel uncomfortable around me.
I was a quite stunned by this as I felt I was doing things as everyone does them.
After 4 decades of life I can see where the problem was myself.

I always had to 'laser-focus' and watch peoples mouths and facial expressions very carefully to get the full import, or I end up missing everything ,as conversations are built on around/onto themselves......then when I do get it , it still takes a second or two to set in.
It's as if I'm living in a universe that is out of time/ sync with everything else... I think this where where intuition in average/normal people fills in these gaps here in these situations,and with A/S everything has to be decoded.

Social anxiety compounded this as it interferes all the more when/if things start going south here.

I have/ had unusual sensory experiences , such as 'aperceptual agnosia' (object bindness)
-Horrifying sleep paralysis too.
Input from my family/ wife about my behaviors
uncomfortable with eye contact.
Having no friends until I was 35 years old.

All these things were evidence to me that this matched symptoms of autism/aspergers syndrome according to my research/reading.

I first realized that I missed social cues and something was different about me the when I got high by myself and watched late night shows on tv.

Personally, it took me a long time to figure it out. I was consistently puzzled throughout my childhood, but it never dawned on me that there might be a reason for it. But then one of my biggest problems has always been lateral thinking. Still, after too long feeling like I was somehow outside of absolutely everything and after my sister was diagnosed as autistic my mum gave me some reading on ASD's and said that she thinks she totally missed it with me when I was growing up.

From there I went to a specialist and got diagnosed in that very first session with Aspergers. Apparently it was very obvious to him.

So yeah, I eventually grasped that there was something different about me, but not without having it pointed out.

every single one of my shortcomings had to be pointed-out to me in graphic detail. it was a bunch of different things which totalled-up to offensive. i remember reading years ago about how the unabomber [ted kaczynski] had the same problem, he was utterly unaware of his faults such as BO from never bathing, it had to be explained to him as one explains something to a small child, that BO is offensive to other people even if one does not notice it oneself. "theory of mind" is the issue here.