How do you know...

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How do you know you are not picking up social cues? I had someone tell me once I only seem to listen to the words and not the metaphor behind them, was this person trying to tell me I don't? I think I understand gestures okay.

Just wondering

i think i do fine... until someone corrects me :S

I just assume I'm doing okay until someone gets angry or corrects me.

I have just learned to pay attention more.

Depends on situation I guess, but generally I don't seem to pick up social cues at all, or at least very badly. I only understand when people literally tell me things. I never gave it a real thought, cos I don't mind that much, it's who I am. People just should be more clear, say what they mean to say. All that reading between the lines stuff, trying to be polite s**t, the hints, body language, not my piece of cake. I know friends like me for my honesty and directness.
If people disagree with what I am saying, then they should tell me and come with arguements. If people think I am rude or too direct then they should tell me too. I really don't mind not picking up social cues and being told off, I mean fair enough and I will explain my handicap if I think it's worth it, otherwise I think 'whatever'.
I know it might be handy to learn social cues, to learn body language properly, but I think I will do that when I feel I am ready for it and care enough and be bothered enough to learn it too. And I will go for it a full 100% too.

Negative social feedback.

Can i just ask, i don't really know what social cues are, what are they?

Tone of voice can indicate impatience, interest, sarcasm, etc.

Body position and eyes can indicate genuine interest, desire to get it over with, listening just to be polite, frustration at not being understood, needing to discontinue the conversation to get somewhere else, and much more.

What I've observed with my son and his AS friend is that unless someone turns and walks away from them, they don't notice if the person really isn't interested. And even if that person turns away, my son or his AS friend may actually follow him.

Of course, turning physically away can indicate either desire to stop listening, or a simple need to be somewhere else and hoping the speaker will stick with you. The problem is, my son can't see the difference in the body language and facial expressions that would tell him which it is.

Um, did you really want to know, or were you being sarcastic?

Ok, just to let you know i am not a sarcastic person atall, and i honestly did want to know that.

Sorry, just sometimes I miss these things on the internet. I hope my explanation was adequate. I tried.

Yeah it was good thanks.

Sometimes I know there's a message behind the words, but I don't know what it is. Or else it could be that there's no message and I'm mistakenly thinking that there is. I overanalyze sometimes.

My husband does that a lot. I guess once you assume that you are not always seeing the non-verbal cues that exist, it's difficult to separate that sometimes there really aren't any.

Hmm... I think I pick up on that stuff sometimes, sarcasm is obvious to me for example, but I have had many times where someone actually meant something else than what they literally said and I didn't catch that when they thought I should have, especially jokes...

Meh... this is the sort of reason I'm so unsure if I'm on the spectrum... just now to a nurse I descirbed my stims/obcessions, she said "stims" were anxiety and obcessions part of bipolar. Meh.

When I respond to someone talking, and they get frustrated or angry at me seemingly way out of proportion to what I said. Either because I missed a joke or sarcasm, or didn't read between the lines, as they say.

Interestingly enough, I'm actually pretty decent at making sarcastic jokes, as long as they don't go over the line into hurtfulness (this has happened a few times), and picking up on other people's obvious sarcasm. Subtle sarcasm I have trouble picking up, though. I'm also very sensitive to tone of voice and can easily tell when someone is angry at me, although there are times when someone uses a very neutral tone of voice and I'll mistakenly think they're angry at me, due to that sensitivity.