Standard "disclaimers" or clearings that you can use?

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I think that like myself, many of you have learned adaptive mechanisms to fit in as "normal" without being perceived as "special" or "has some sort of problem" or whatever pejorative. Some of those mechanisms come in the form of "disclaimers" or "clearings" but the trouble we often have is to finely calibrate it between sounding like we lack self-confidence, or like we're being passive-aggressive, or insinuating that the other person is being perverse. Essentially, it's an exercise in bridging the gap, as it were, between lack of ToM and pragmatics and use of our analytical reasoning to compensate without appearing "odd" or "off".

Some of these I've used - and they clearly depend on the situation:

"So sorry, I may be asking a silly/dumb question, but..."

"OK, so just to make sure we're on the same page...[paraphrase]"

"OK, let me make sure I got that...[paraphrase]"

"Just so I'm not assuming anything / speculating on..."

"OK, help me understand...you said [such-and-such] a couple of minutes ago, and now you're saying [X which seems to contradict such-and-such], so how can we reconcile those two?"

Of course, these won't work if you're dealing with a pathological personality (like a narcissist, or psychopath) who will gaslight you and say "I never said that!! You're clearly not listening" - even when you KNOW they said that, and they're just trying to manipulate you into feeling that you're the crazy one and they're fully rational.

I think one of the more challenging social situations is when we may notice that the other person is somewhat hurried or anxious to move to somewhere or to something else, then hopefully we have enough emotional intuition to notice and add to the disclaimer "Look, I can tell you want to move on somewhere, but I really need to just clarify this aspect of..." - so you at least acknowledge their circumstance.

OR when they come back to your clearing/disclaimer and say in a somewhat patronizing tone to the effect of "Yyyeesss...wasn't that obvious / what did you THINK it was...?" In this case, you can calmly reply and disarm it with "well, it DID, but I just didn't want to assume or speculate; I just felt it was a wise precaution to clarify."

Just imagining these conversations made me tired. It just so happens that I came to this forum for info about miscommunication. I think giving up on a lot of communication might be the best avenue for me, maybe others.

People are just so sloppy in the way they communicate, then they shrug off or get irritated with attempts at clarification or act like they never really cared about what they were saying. It's so demotivating.

I have no idea what the OP is talking about. A few too many assumptions, I think.

I use some of those same types of phrases to soften my requests to clarify a point of conversation where my mental difference might otherwise lead me to misinterpret something as literal when it might be figurative. Or to request clarification because a detail might have fallen out of my short-term memory despite me paying close attention. I use those softened forms, which you name “disclaimers”, so that the other person won’t take the request as confrontational, belittling, rude, or indicative of me not paying attention. I can miss details or fail to interpret them even when I’m very focused on the conversation because I’m spending huge amounts of mental bandwidth on reading the person’s eye movements, body language, tone of voice, possible use of metaphor, and the like. I learned to use these forms of soft requests by hard experience when I was younger and someone got angry or aggressive when they took a more direct request as being disrespectful. I’ve found that if I need to make such a disclaimer, that adjunct non-verbal signals like smiling, opening my eyes a little wider, and chuckling a little at my own request can also go a long way toward smoothing the conversation and signaling good intent.

A couple of your examples are interesting to me, because I’ve learned they are dangerous – maybe the types of conversations we’ve had are somewhat different. I’ve learned to never question if someone wants to move on from the conversation or interpersonal interaction – unless they’re obviously distraught, in which case I’ll follow them to clear things up if I’ve offended or hurt them. Also the one, "OK, help me understand...you said [such-and-such] a couple of minutes ago, and now you're saying [X which seems to contradict such-and-such], so how can we reconcile those two?" seems like quite a bit of energy focused on the person’s inconsistency as opposed to me trying to understand if they meant A or B… It could be taken as fault-finding, but I suppose it depends on how well you know the other person and if you feel safe that they’ll interpret your request in a positive way. I might be a bit of a coward in this department – I’d be more likely to put on a puzzled expression and tone of voice and say “Oh, did you mean A or B, I was having a little trouble following…”. Analyzing these sorts of conversational tools is interesting to me because I learn about things I’m doing (placating, disarming, being self-deprecating, etc.). Friends have told me I come across as gentle and good-natured, although quiet, but inside it can be like solving differential equations one after another after another in a timed test...