butting in-conversations and social situations

Post Reply New Topic

i sometimes do it but feel ashamed sometimes for butting in though ah well cant be helped we are human regardless of who we are

I gotten lectures from a co-worker a couple times about interrupting and stuff(and she has little kids, so it comes off as if she's talking to me like a kid). Once it was basically "you need to not interrupt me when i'm talking to a customer. wait until i'm finished and then you can ask me your question"... and another time i was trying to put an item up behind where she was talking to someone and it was "you need to say "excuse me" if two people are talking and you need to get through. just walking between people when they are having a conversation is rude."

Yeah it drove me crazy too but better that than not giving me my time at all. He would let me speak when he was done. It's just that most of the time, I was able to finish his sentences for him in my mind that I forget he was still talking, and I was never wrong with the way I completed them for him. I do that all the time where I know where people are going with what they are saying and I'm ready for my rebuttal long before they are done talking. I wasn't always right, but the percentages of accuracy was higher than my assumptions being false. But I improved from that when I started telling myself that I'm not interrupting their speech as much as their thought. Their mind is moving as fast as their mouth, not faster. Me, you can interrupt me and if you act like you knew where I was going with it, i don't mind. But if you were wrong with your assumption, then I get annoyed by it.

My grandpa who is probably Aspie and I will have partial conversations where we've accurately figured out the ending of each sentence for each other. The looks we get from people listening in to us...funny stuff. My sister, on the other hand who is more narcissistic than Aspie, now she refuses to listen to what I say, even when she gives me a chance to say it. She assumes my words and feelings irregardless of sentence structure and logic, and her assumptions are based on what she feels like arguing at that moment more so than accuracy. So our conversations usually turn into arguments, and then worse, into days of not talking. Only in email can we accurately communicate because I have evidence in writing of what I said.

I was reading in this teach yourself body language book which talked about research saying people use their eyes to say when they're done talking versus when they don't want someone to cut in. People also have a change in the intonation of their voice when they're ready to hand it over. When people subconsciously pick up on these cues and jump into a conversation, the book said they raise the volume of their voice slightly higher than the others momentarily, but not too much more because it'll come across as rude. The teach yourself body language book also had some do it yourself exercises.

That makes sense. I've been consciously trying to NOT interrupt people, and some people i think are trying to tell me to "butt in" without actually saying it, and when I don't, they start running out of things to say yet they hate the silence, so they end up rambling ridiculously. I kind of like it because it seems to intimidate them, and the person I seem to accidentally do that to is someone I enjoy intimidating.

That might explain why my physical therapist rambles on to the point of annoyance. I like to be silent while I am receiving treatment, so she starts babbling and laughing, which drives me crazy. At least now I know why she does this. It probably ties into that NT concept of "the silent treatment."

I do this without knowing it. Of course, if I knew I were doing it, I wouldn't be doing it. Once I went to a conference full of people insecure in their profession and my office enemy brought back a report about me in an effort to cut me down. He got punished for this piece of "wisdom." Oddly, this doesn't happen when I go to conferences in other professions - maybe you have to have a little autism to do them. Or be a man.

This has been my experience as well.

I have a grand-nephew, however, who is twelve and can't seem to stop himself from interrupting other people's conversations. He's gotten to the point now, though, that he thinks it's cute to break into an on-going conversation with something completely off-topic and talk over people who are already speaking. I've asked him why he does it. He says it's funny. I tell him it's annoying and he just laughs.

All the freaking time! .. to almost everything in this thread. Even the contradictory stuff. I can never think of stuff to say, so then when I can, I get all excited, and butt in.. and then I get in trouble, so then for awhile after that, I stay quiet and miserable, biting my tongue no matter what because I don't want people to yell at me. And then someone gets offended that I don't talk, and then I feel even more self-conscious.
I wish I weren't always so nervous about saying things, but if I were less nervous about it, I'd get yelled at more, and then I'd GET nervous about it.
I also have trouble separating who I can talk to. Kris pretty much never gets upset about anything that I say, it takes something purposely offensive to get him upset at all. but if I got used to that, I'd end up talking more to other people who would get pissed at me even if I didn't mean offense, so maybe I don't work as hard as I should on saying more things to Kris, because if I did, I'd have more other people pissed at me. And even after 7 months living with Kris and him never getting angry at me, I still have trouble believing that he absolutely won't. He tells me over and over again that it'd take something completely malicious to upset him at all, but... it's hard to believe.. a lot of people will say that and it not be true. I don't think that that's true of Kris.. I'm just afraid my verbal blunders are so bad that even though it's true, I'd still manage to say something bad..

Ouch!! !

A couple, three years ago, I had a boss who just publicly came uncorked on me for this, loudly berateing me. When he finished, I appolagised and felt humilliated. It didn't even occur to me untill later how rude and inconciderate his behavior had been. I suppose normal rules of decorum don't apply to NTs when dealing with Aspies. I had not yet discovered AS at the time, but it has always seemed that others can justify any uncivil act towords us, presumably baised on our behaviour, with out the same rules applying to themselves.

I say, butt in! Reason being: if they didn't like you before, that ain't gonna change. Don't worry about being rejected from a conversation...kinda normal for us.

Yeah, I notice how I seem to bring out the best in people too (sarcastically speaking of course).

Well, your boss was certainly totally out of line. There is no need to humiliate people!



I feel the same. Once I mentioned to a formerly friendly neighbor that I had AS. After that, he started ignoring me and acting oddly towards me if I spoke to him. I guess he figured that I didn't qualify for respect anymore.