L'esprit de l'escalier

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This is French for "staircase wit." It refers to when someone says something witty to you, and you don't think of the perfect comeback until it is too late.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier

Anyway, I feel like I constantly experience this. Every time someone surprises me with an unexpected topic that I never prepared for, I get stuck either saying nothing or giving bland/literal responses while I'm processing what I just heard and how to respond to it. It happens frequently because I am terrible at unscripted interactions. I've built up enough of a "phrase bank" / mental database of responses that I can usually respond to whatever I hear, but I can't maintain that kind of thing very long.

It's easier in asynchronous communication (forum posts, e-mail) than it is in real time (chat, face to face). If I could get away with using a text-speech device instead of talking, and not giving in to my instinct to write novellas as a response, I could probably handle conversation much more fluently.

This is one of the reasons I end up interacting with people online by preference. If I have a choice, I would much prefer to not have to talk to people.

Haha so funny that I learn about a french expression on an english-speaking forum!! When I read the title I thought it was about a ghost or something haunting your staircase...But it makes total sense now : you close the door, start going down the stairs and bam, the witty comeback hits you...
It happens to me a lot. I don't know that there's any solution to it though, but i'm sure I could come up with some awesome responses in writing that are unavailable to my brain in spoken form....

Yeah, I have no solutions, and I know it happens to most people. I just feel like I sort of live in a haze of it.

Absolutely. I feel like I can only have meaningful conversations in front of a keyboard. I am not sure if it was my inability to carry out a conversation in real-time that caused me to fall back on the Internet, or if my overreliance on the Internet has caused my conversation skills to atrophy. Probably both. I always feel pressure to say things that are non-stupid/inane in actual conversations, which naturally only makes it worse.

What's it called when someone says something sh***y to you, and you don't think of a comeback until it is too late?

It happens to me a lot, too.

I am exceptionally talented at thinking of something clever that I should have said or done seconds/minutes/days/weeks/months later.

L'esprit de l'escalier.

So weird, Verdandi. I was just reading a Cracked article yesterday ... it was like "5 awesome words in other languages that english doesn't have a word for" and this was one of them...

Interesting! I don't remember where I came across the phrase, but I am sure it wasn't Cracked.

That is a really useful word.

When asked if it bothers my boyfriend that I prefer typing to communicate, I respond that he does as well. This response is the thing that has caused me to be asked most often if he's also on the spectrum. It seems to be a rather common preference.

Yeah, I've come across it frequently.

I know there are people here who have talked about finding written communication more difficult than spoken, too.

i can definitely say this is an NT thing also, it bridges the spectrum

Right. I mean an NT coined the phrase. It's a very common experience. It also happens to describe what talking to anyone at any time is for me. Not just witty replies, but often having any reply at all. When I get stuck it's sometimes easy for me to get stuck agreeing with things I wouldn't otherwise agree with because I have nothing prepared.

I wonder if the french have a term for "spirit of the escalator" ... when you realize a shoe is untied, and the dangling end has slipped into the OH CRAP!?!

in canada we sometimes call it "the wisdom of the stairs"