Attaching meaning that is not there...

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Does anyone else find that it is difficult to communicate with people because they tend to attach meaning to the things you say or do when that meaning is just not there?

Ie you say "I do not find that interesting" they interpret that as you are saying "they are boring" when in actual fact that is not what you said at all...

If you mention your academic grade, people think you are being arrogant or bragging or that you believe you are better than them, when in reality you are merely stating fact and you have attached none of the aforementioned meanings or intentions to it at all!

In regards to life circumstances, if someone does not work they will think of that person as valueless or useless or worthless when in reality all not working means is that at that moment in time, in that particular way you are not presently of actual use to an employer as you are not employed by one. It does not tell them your potential usefulness (in and of itself) to an employer, how useful or worthwhile you are in other ways at other moments in time in other contexts or what your overall worth as a human being is, so therefore does not mean that you are worthless or useless at all. It just means you are presently unemployed!

The same goes for failure or mistakes. People base their sense of self worth on them as well as the worth of others. In reality failure is one outcome of a particular set of events and it can be a learning curve (you figure out where you went wrong and try to correct it. If that is not possible then it can, at the end of the day, teach you something about the situation and/or yourself such as where your strengths lie and where they do not. It is ok to not be strong at everything..the trick is to try and improve your weakness where possible and to play on your strengths to minimise any weaknesses you can't change). Yet people attach all this other meaning to them and measure your worth by them. This does not make sense to me.

I often miscommunicate with people because of these attached meanings they put on everything. It means I have to watch everything I say, even when talking about what I find interesting and what I do or do not like, because if I say I don't like something people take it as a personal insult towards them. It really does make life very difficult.

Anyone else have the same problem?

Probably one-third of my posts here and perhaps half of the threads I've started (wild guess) have to do with this problem, both online and offline. What is frustrating beyond people reading things into what I do is when they refuse to explain what they're reading.

I know exactly what you mean and my family does it to me the most. Its very frustrating. I noticed people are always assuming and never asking. Even small things. I will post lyrics because of the asthetics in the content or maybe I relate but people will freak out and take it too literally or something. Or think it was me saying it. I notice too that even silence has attached meaning. My mom will ask me to do something so I will look at her assuming she knows I obviously heard her and MY assumption is wrong because the correct response is yes or okay but I hate saying yes or okay and she doesn't get it. It just pisses me off like she will sit there and repeat herself and get herself upset and by that time I find it amusing. Then she thinks I'm disrespectful or don't want to do it and I'm like.. xD serious? I heard you the first time and I'll do it. I hate having to verbally respond to all requests.

I have the same issue too. My husband is always attaching huge amounts of meaning to the things I say and making assumptions about how I feel or how I meant something. It drives me crazy. I keep asking him to ask me rather than make assumptions but that doesn't seem to be working.

This thread is extremely insightful. My assumptions of things my old bf used to say was always the catalyst to our separations. When I would finally speak to him again. He would tell me he never felt that way at all. But yet, when I would walk away, he would never ask me why I was going. I have now chalked it up to experience. I dated someone about a month ago who had the same problem and I just left after the third date when he finally showed it. For someone who gets the nuances of meaning in words, it can be very hurtful. But I do understand that no harm is meant.

However, when I say something meaningful it frustrates them because they have no idea what I mean either. How can you have a relationship if you can't communicate? I just wish I hadn't fallen in love with him. It was him I loved, just who he was, not what he did for me or said to me. It makes it much harder to let go.

I find people are always attaching a negative meaning to my silences. When someone asks me something, and I don't answer immediately, because I'm thinking about what I want to say, I'm often accused of prevaricating.

This is one of the primary methods I use in distinguishing NTs from ASers.

Me: "I like the color orange."

NT: "Why do you hate purple so much? I mean, don't you like purple. I'm wearing purple, so do you hate me?"

Me: "All I #$%@ said was that I like ORANGE!! !!"

I find this as a way of learning NT language. I can't believe it has taken me until marriage to figure this out. Something I say, if t gets interpreted differently into something else, I had implied that because it means that in NT language.

Like I had learned that if you say it's not your favorite, it means you don't like it. My husband would have me try his drink and then he would ask me what I thought of it and I would say its not my favorite. He would say "Oh you didn't like it." I would say back 'I didn't say that, I said it wasn't my favorite." After this happening several times, I figured out it means "I don't like it." Okay, how do I respond now without meaning to say I don't like it?

I have the same problem, but it works both ways. I sometimes attach meanings unintended by the speaker. I don't find the problem is unique to Autism either. It happens to everyone. The difference is in, I think, the way we handle it. I do think we have a tendency to expect others to take our works at face value even though we don't always do it ourselves. I think we often don't realize we're attaching meanings to things too.

I also think it is because we tend to get exasperated when others do it, but can tend to be insistent that we're not misinterpreting anything they say that many view us as "rigid," or even hypocritical. When you don't see it in yourself though, which is very typical for Aspies, it's hard to avoid.

OMG yes. It happens all the time. Very frustrating. I never know whether to correct their interpretation or just let it go. Either way usually just leads to more misinterpretation so it doesn't seem to make much difference.

Certain people do it more than others, like my dad does this all the time but my mom doesn't. I used to be friends with someone who misinterpreted things a lot and things got so bad I finally had to end the friendship because it put me under so much stress to communicate with her. I'd try to explain to her what I meant and it would just get worse and worse.



Yes I get that a lot, if I say I don't like something people seem to take it personally. Especially regarding food I don't like to eat. I don't know why it should bother anyone if I don't like the same thing they like. Well, okay I do know, it's usually because they feel like they need social approval for the things they like, but good grief, why? Why can't they just accept that people like different things?

People also read emotions into situations that I don't feel. Like if I tell matter-of-factly about something that happened to me, they will suddenly start acting like they know exactly how I feel about it. Or they tell me they think I have some emotion towards them that I don't have. On the other hand if I actually express an emotion, like if I start crying, no one will ask me WHY they just assume they know.

I get major anxiety when people read into things because these situations can turn out SO badly. A lot of times I just sort of freeze up for a minute because I'm waiting to see where they will go with it and how bad it will get. And that just makes it worse because it give them the opening to misinterpret even more.

Silence + a blank face = a blank canvas where they can project anything they want. They will just imagine any sort of response they anticipate getting.

If I explain right away it's interpreted as "defensive" and if I take a pause it's interpreted as "evasion" or "fabrication" and if I don't explain at all it's taken as a "verification".

I am beginning to think that you have to be really precise or people will not understand. So if you are saying that something is not your favourite, I guess you have to say something like "I do like it but it is not my favourite drink at the moment". But even then people might assume you are saying you like it just to be polite.

I don't know because sometimes I think the misunderstandings happen *because* I'm being precise in my language. Most people don't really seem to listen to the details, they are just looking for the simplest answer.

This. I can attach meanings to things that are not in the words alot.

Yeah, they might, but what's wrong with that? What would be wrong with it being true? So what if you did say it just to be polite?

I won't lie to be polite. That's not in me. I don't believe it's ever necessary to lie to be polite. If what you say is true, but just worded a little less bluntly than, "Oh, I hate that!" I find that perfectly acceptable.

Those things happen to me a lot!

One of my biggest frustrations in life is feeling completely misunderstood!

There is nothing wrong with being polite if you are being honest but people can still get offended. They seem to think if you are just saying it to be polite that you don't really mean that you like it and so you end up being accused of lying and then they throw a sulk and don't speak to you for days because it hurt their feelings. Sometimes you just can't seem to win, regardless of what you do or say!