Has anyone else had a critical failure in judgement?

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This is my first post, so bear with me, as shots in the dark often result in inadvertent deaths.

A few months ago, a student at my school died while running at night; he was hit at a crosswalk by a supposedly intoxicated driver. I was unaware of this at the time of my mistake, when I noticed that a friend of mine seemed to be ill or disturbed. She was sitting motionlessly in her seat (the class that we were in together was arranged such that individuals were seared at tables of four), and staring expressionlessly into apparent nothingness. As I have found to be most proficient in conveying a point when a degree of comedy is involved (and by now I am fairly seasoned in this technique, as I have been doing it since about eight grade), I jokingly asked her "Are you okay, because you looked like you just smoked weed for the first time." She glanced at me and said that she was fine; she lied. Moments later the principal came over the intercom and made news of the incident, and my friend started crying. The girl sitting next to her cradled her softly, and as the principal continued, there was scarcely a dry eye in the classroom. I certainly felt like an ass, and from then on have been trying to be more comprehensive and careful when evaluating an individual's state of mind without verbal discourse.

At this time I was already aware that I have Asperger's Syndrome, and was trying to behave more socially by appealing to others' emotions. This was a massive FML on my part.

Don't dwell on it or beat yourself up. You didn't know what had occurred and I doubt your friend will remember your comment. If you start to second guess yourself about every interaction you have you will probably end up being completely paralyzed. If this is the worst social gaffe you've had, I'd say you are doing OK with your approach.

I've done a zillion insensitive things like that and sometime I didn't realize it until years later.

I agree dont dwell on it, and really in most situations where a person is sad its good to try and cheer them up or try and make them laugh. You still asked her if she was alright, and you added humor. Sometimes if someone askes me if im alright i usually just say im fine, but if someone maybe adds a joke to it i still will say im fine, but ill feel a little happier because i had something to laugh about.

Ask a medical person that question, errors can be fatal

That was not an error of judgement at all, since you did not have the necessary information to judge the situation. I'm sure it was embarrassing for you, a foot-in-mouth moment, but you didn't really do anything wrong, let alone critically wrong.

And NT's do this same thing all the time, too, it's not especially an Aspie thing. Just today, a male friend of mine online was making joking comments about 300 pound men wanting sex with me, never knowing that my husband weighs a hefty 450 pounds. When I laughingly told him, he was horribly embarrassed and made a point of apologizing. Luckily I told him I found his foot-in-mouth moment hilarious rather than being offended in any way, since I knew he wouldn't have said it if he had had the pertinent information that he had no way of knowing. It isn't that common, after all, for husbands to weigh 450 pounds -- or for friends to die in horrible freak accidents. It's not like these are predictable events.

I'm sure your friend forgives you for the well-meaning joke, as she knows you had no idea anything serious was wrong. Just take a deep breath and brush it off and go on with life, knowing nobody really minds what happened except for you.

I think I have done things like this. I agree with Molly, nothing to do with being aspie. How are you supposed to know? No one is psychic.

I can remember of one incident that happened in an autism group and I knew nothing about her past. It got brought up again like three times after the incident at another autism group. One time at the IHOP and again at the Halloween party and some other time. Other people brought it up, not me.

I don't think bad judgment is part of Asperger's; at least when it comes to common sense and safety in the world around us. Aspies and HF Autistics who drive, seem to be safer drivers than NT's, and based on what is posted, there are fewer common teenage broken bones, etc. among us. Further, I don't remember reading of any cases of things like gun accidents, house fires, or other things involving Aspies who failed to see the consequences of certain actions. Not that it doesn't happen, but I just don't recall seeing anything leading me to associate Asperger's or HFA with any of these things.

Definitely, there is severely impaired judgment in social situations, however. If we can't figure out what mood someone is in, we will grossly misjudge the situation and perhaps make it bad or worse. I supposed that this COULD lead to getting robbed in public, or perhaps getting run over if you misjudge the driver's facial expression, and think he/she is beckoning you to cross when in fact they're warning you with their eyes, that they can't stop in time. But I'm only guessing on that.

Charles

I think pretty much every human being on earth has had critical failures in judgment at different times in their lives. It's about being human, autistic or not.