Do we misread hostility?

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I know it's often been said that Aspies lack the nonverbal fluency to tell if someone is being subtly hostile with them (like, micro-aggressions, veiled insults, petty put-downs or faint praise, etc.) which can get us into some unpleasant or embarrassing situations...but what about the reverse?? Has your experience been one of detecting some sort of hostility or contempt which wasn't really there?? Sort of like a false positive, rather than a false negative?

In hindsight, I think I've had this a few times... or it's remained ambiguous, i.e. I confronted a fake friend about indirect put-downs or less obvious mean-spirited behaviours... and he denied it, saying I was just being paranoid or that I'd misinterpreted things. On more than one occasion though, this former fake friend / housemate had narcissistic personality traits so it was clear that I was being gaslighted and that my feelings didn't matter.

But I can also recall a couple of times when I'd thought someone was being subtly hostile to me, and their response was something to the effect of "well...sigh...maybe I might come off as somewhat harsh at times, but...you're really not the easiest person to get along with." (and of course, intentions don't matter).

And there were at least a couple of others times where the perception of hostility was misplaced. I didn't abruptly confront them, I brought it up carefully - and then in hindsight realized it wasn't there.

You have to be REALLY careful in confronting someone with such accusations, especially for that "volatile" age group of young males around 17-24, because it could escalate into yelling and violence. Think of that stereotypical meme of the "Chad" who confronts anyone over perceived micro-insults, offending him or his woman, etc..

But I suppose that stems from a lifetime of hypervigilance, and dealing with fairly regular abuse - it's almost like we're waiting for "the other shoe to drop".

I can almost always tell if someone is being hostile. If it's there, I detect it. But, I often think people are being mean when they aren't, and I seem like a jerk sometimes, because if someone makes a weird face at me, I assume they're trying to offend me. I tend to assume that the world is against me. When I was little, countless teachers would tell me that "the world doesn't revolve around me" or I'm "stuck up" because I didn't appreciate being treated like a baby. It would make me cry even more, even though I already did it so much. People would yell at me in the middle of a meltdown "STOP BEING A CRYBABY" or "stop pitying yourself". It hurt because I knew it was true.
I love being involved. I love being the victim, or coming to someone's defense. I'm trying to stop doing it as much by channeling these desires through fanfic and characters.

Sometimes I feel like every person I interact with could, at any moment, without warning, become furious at me for no apparent reason. This is mostly left over from my experiences as a teenager and a 20-something, when many people assumed I was giving them "attitude" and responded with hostility.

I know that I've done it from time to time and when I finally get around to expressing my misgivings to the person I thought was being hostile, they were surprised and stated that they didn't intend to come off that way (these people often have already been informed about my issues with social cues. as for me even being willing to talk to them in this manner is the result of having a more personal relationship with them than with most people).

I've found that I'm pretty good at reading others. Maybe even above average. My combination of autistic traits seems to favor that development in a pretty lopsided way, actually. I guess that's where the 'S' of ASD comes in.

I have a very hard time distinguishing stupidity from malevolence, but there have been instances where I took a reaction too personally, when the other party was just too preoccupied to deal with me due to some other crisis.

yes, I used to read hostile intent in any interactions because I was hypervigilant due to physical and emotional abuse for all of my childhood and young adulthood. I got counseling and learned the way I grew up was sick and not normal dynamics and learned healthier ways to respond to others, how to spot when I was being used and manipulated, or abused, and how to make better choices, how to communicate in healthy ways. Loads of emotional homework and then practice of new communication skills brought better understanding. It has been a long time since that counseling and therapy and lots of practice of my new skills, but that changed my life so much for the better. I learned much more recently of my autism and finally the past made sense. That last piece of the mystery of why all the struggles and knowing I really am wired differently than others allowed forgiveness of myself and others in the past. Nobody knew. I strongly suggest sorting out emotions and how we experience them, how we see them in others with the help of a therapist. It saved my life and my sanity and gave me better understanding of myself and others. My autistic rigid thinking needed input from outsiders to help me see I had choices and I could choose healthier ways to respond to others, and to understand better what responses I could use instead of my old sick fixed patterns that I learned in my unhealthy family long ago. I could not have done this by myself, I really needed input from outside to help me sort it out. Best thing I ever did. Things can get better. When I was able to sort things out using my new skills my life got so much better. Emotionally scary as heck to look back at all the painful past but freeing to learn new ways to live with so much less emotional (and physical!) pain. Best wishes. If I could do it, anybody could.

^^ That.

I'm on the order of empath, so get hyper (way above average) awareness scores on online expression quizzes (static and movies). I can see the expressions, but often miss -or simply disagree with- the motivation. In any case my "reading" of expressions magnifies what's there - slight smile - joy/happiness! flat affect - discontent, unhappiness! ---- when the person themselves may be having very minor or uncommitted feelings.

I was in a toxic workplace and for me that was to some degree life-threatening (increased migraines, nerve problems, anxiety attacks), while for the NTs it was bothersome at most. I couldn't figure out to what degree my director purposely and/or ignorantly belittled me. I would settle on him being willfully ignorant (power trip), since initially he may have been ignorant, but after I informed him, his continued ignorance would have been willful (or neglectful). My experience was hostility. Impact vs intent. Some NTs friends couldn't understand why I wouldn't tolerate the "bumps". I'm an early detector: canary in a coal mine, people.

I think my detection is mostly correct (albeit amplified "not helpful" = hostile), I wish I could be more influential in managing my observations (inwardly-emotional regulation and outwardly-that I would make a positive impact).

^^ Telling someone that there is a problem is no guarantee of getting the desired behaviour. Just look at how stupid people remain with their pets, or how many people can't stop shouting at the deaf, even though they have been told many times that it makes lip-reading harder.

Asking for clarification can help.

"When you called me an idiot, did you mean that in a friendly way?"

"You caught me off guard with that, did you mean ________ ?"

^^ Good tips. I am typically quiet until I can figure out the "correct" way to respond. I sought help and was coached to mirror, etc. like above. It was good to pick up those skills. (Sad one must.) I will take them with me.

I see this more often in people whom I think are NTs, especially when I am the one talking to them.

Maybe it's my flat affect, or maybe it is the fact-based replies or honest opinions, but people whom I think are NTs suddenly become furious with me, asking me "What do you mean by that?" or accusing me of "covert bullying".

This happens most especially when my opinions turn out to be correct.

I personally see hostility where none exists because I am overcorrecting to being burned when I failed to see hostility that actually existed until it was too late. This is not as bad since I got diagnosed since I now recognize the problem, but it is still a problem.

OK, well...my guess is that they may have construed your dialogue with them as subtly sarcastic or passive-aggressive, like if they asked you a question and you responded in a "literal" way, or you asked them a question and they responded in a way that you interpreted too literally...they may have jumped to the conclusion that you were doing this on purpose to make them feel stupid. Narcissistic personalities do this A LOT as an insidious form of gaslighting (and I'm speaking from experience, it wasn't fun! ) , to get you to think that you're "the crazy one" and they're "the rational one". So your asking to clarify or maybe saying "well that doesn't make sense because..." may have triggered that kind of false radar in them, that you were a covert narcissistic passive-aggressive bully.

Because let's face it - that's probably the more common basis for someone behaving this way - it wouldn't occur to them that any "normal" person would miss the underlying nuance and respond as if they're "emotionally dumb". So they're just using simple heuristics.

I'm not blaming you in any way for this (quite the opposite!) but it might help explain why they acted in this ostensibly unreasonable manner.

As another data point, I am very expressive (minimal flat affect) and it still happens, although in my case I am shunned or disregarded rather than confronted (and when I am right, someone else gets credit). My therapist suggests I must solve two problems when working with NTs: the problem on hand and the problem of their ego. ---Who has time to do three times the work?

That's all possible.

I thought it was because they saw me and thought, "This person is a teenage/20-something male. Therefore, this person must be giving me attitude. Respond accordingly." Without regard for how I was actually behaving.

It seemed to happen to me with much more frequency then. I also had a lot more people trying to proselytize to me when I was in that age range.

Or sometimes, I think it was just that they sensed I was an easy outlet for their hostility because I wasn't going to respond with as much hostility as other people would.

Or other times, I think that rage is just some people's first response to everything.

Here's a more recent example. I was on a train and I got up a couple times to get food, etc. On the way back, I got a bit confused about where my seat was and took a moment to figure it out. So this woman, sitting in her own seat, not affected by me in any way, yells "Sit down, already!" Because for some reason, my quietly looking for my seat bothered her.

Now, that's an isolated incident. But when I was younger, that kind of thing was constant.