Logical and emotional outcomes

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I've only recently realised that I am good at working out logically what the outcome of my actions will be. Cause and effect. If I do something there will be an effect. However, I have been very slow to pick up on the fact that what I do will also cause an emotional outcome in not only myself, but in those around me. I'm 28 and it only just hit me the other day that this is how things work. I was listening to a song my friend wrote and I have a sneaky suspicion that the words may have something to do with something I said to him and it struck me that I had no idea that this was the way he would react. But then it made me realise that maybe, in the future, I would do well to consider how my actions will affect the way that people feel.

Anyone else had a similar learning process?

This is so general that I almost interpret it as obvious like
if you drop glass then glass breaks, or if you are mean
then people won't like you and if you are nice then they
might smile.
It seems a lot more complicated to figure out if someone
will write a song about what you are doing or not. But I
could imagine if someone has a guitar and can't think of
a song and you do something that anyone, or that person
would sing about, then its simpler.
I once parodied Ghostbusters about a mean person who
used to break other people's stuff.

No, I didn't mean that I would be surprised if I did something and someone wrote a song about it. I mean that I was surprised by the emotion in it. I didn't know that he would be angry. Actually now that I think about it I remember my Mum saying to me a few years ago, "I wish that you and your sister would realise that what you say affects other people."

Maybe I understand. You can tell me. I went to the pain specialist last week. I actually see his assistant most of the time. She came across as not being compassionate or understanding about my right knee being swollen and twice the size of my left knee with tremendous pain and causing me mobility problems. She gave me an Rx for Flector Patches to place over the knee. Anyway I ended up telling her she would make a great drill/training instructor. She was surprised and asked me what I meant. So I told her. She seemed weird after that. I don't know why I do that but I have been doing things like that ever since I was a child. I will come out and say something before I even think about it and sometimes its not what the person wants to hear. I will go through periods where I will be careful and then I end up forgetting and do it again. BTW the Flector Patches don't help the pain I'm in.

I'm more of an emotional thinker, so I have a harder time, with logic. For me, it's the other way, around.

Even as a child I wasn't an emotional thinker. I remember I was about 4 years old, playing with my little cousin, she must have been 3 and I was throwing stuffed animals at her. I remember enjoying the game, I was having fun and she started crying and I was told off. I think I remember this so vividly because I couldn't understand why she was crying. I still remember how it felt to wonder why she was crying. I know now, obviously I had hurt her, but at the time it didn't make any sense to me. Another time I rolled her brother up in a carpet and jumped up and down on him. That made him cry too, but I couldn't understand why.

Thankfully I have learned that I'm not supposed to physically hurt other people. I was a monster child.

The last few years I've been getting this thing where I'll offend someone - I know I've offended them from their reaction - and I won't know why. Then a long while later I'll look back on it and realise why, either through conscious effort or a eureka moment, and the realisation is always the same. I'll realise how what I said sounded to the other person. For a moment I'll understand, but then I'll forget again and I can't get the insight back, except sometimes. I'm guessing that most people can do that trick quickly, easily and consistently and if I could, most of my social problems would disappear.

BTW, it's not at all a logical thinking process, it's more like seeing, or hearing the same words in a new voice.

I am a logical thinker. That actually is supposedly one of the things that people with Asperger's have. I think it is a great thing because I can make reasonable decisions without my "heart" getting in the way. People I know tend to make decisions with emotions and it ends in a mess because they do not think about consequences. At least being a logical thinker, I think in reality, and think really hard to see if it is right or wrong. At least, for the most part, because I used logic, I did not make any decisions that I would regret.

I am very bad at figuring out how my actions will affect other people emotionally. It's odd because I am very worried about offending people, but I seem not to know how to go about it correctly. This leads me to just not say anything most of the time, because I'm afraid I will say the wrong thing or say it the wrong way and someone will be hurt or offended. But then what happens is I get to the point where I can't take it anymore, because I've kept quiet about something that is bothering me or causing me stress, and then I just blurt out something totally inappropriate and it creates a big fracas, and then I feel terrible because I can't take it back. (You'd think that at my age I would have figured it out by now, but it's like it's hidden...)

On the other hand, I am more logical than the average person, so if there's a logical outcome that can predicted I'm usually better at figuring it out than most people.