Stop Looking For Insults

Post Reply New Topic

I'm tired of people telling me to stop looking for insults. Or that I am looking for insults or looking to find a way of people mistreating me. But I'm not. And it right ticks me off that they always think the people, whom I find offensive are in the right.

A current example of this is this:

I pitched a funny humoress article to a funny website

The person who writes a reply states that it seems offensive

I said we could always change the title around and make it less offensive if it makes other comfortable

They then go off to say that it reads as satire and that my goal is to be satire and that the website guidelines say

------

I talk to a friend about this and they go off and tell me to stop looking for insults when they aren't none. After I pointed out a current article running on the first page of the site appears very much like satire and how it ran. I am only clearly stating facts. They are running a piece that can be interpreted as satire on the front page. It isn't that I am looking for an insults. Its straight objective fact. I am making an observation.

There is not a single thing about an insult or being insulted. I simply was stating the facts that I saw.

----

Do you guys experience this as well?

I think you might be experiencing some Theory Of Mind contrasts/conflicts, and maybe there is where other people think you are perceiving insults that are actually not insults among people who think differently. Personally, I find some things to be insulting to all of mankind, but then other people think there is just no problem at all.

Makes sense, I think?

Sorry its like 5:47am.

I get that occasionally. It's pretty annoying. Once some shick at Kroger's cut in front of me in line; she had a cartful of items, and I had a magazine and some Tic Tacs. Even after asking politely, she refused to let me by. Later, I was talking to my brother about it, and he said that I was just looking for an excuse to be mad at someone and that what she did was okay. My mom accuses this of me often too, but I think she's just trying more to get me to see both sides of an issue.

I know the feeling!

You had mentioned this:

Very considerate, wise and sensible.


There is where I also become baffled, and yet I do know other people "just do not understand" in turn whenever I do essentially the same to them. So, I am guessing TOM is the real issue ... kind of like just not being able to "get inside somebody else's head" and make sense of things ...

... and then, of course, making mention of that just results in people thinking we are being hyper-critical and/or wrongly judgmental.

This I can understand better. I can't believe I needed that spelled out to me.

Is it a theory of mind problem or is it the attention to detail?

You pulled all the facts out of the conversation. It does seem odd that they would run a satire piece but then deny you the same. And, I'm sure, you pick up this sort of thing all the time - subtle things that, when looked at objectively do actually contain a dig of some sort. I do this all the time. I get called out for passing judgements and 'How can you think that about her?' when I analyze just the words and actions of people. I'm not bad with emotion and expression but when I just look at words and actions - it speaks much louder than anything else about a person.

Other people do not do this. In fact, I have found those that claim it is impossible and akin to mind reading. I can pull intent out of peoples actions and words pretty effectively. When I'm certain I've got it right I'll usually speak up - and I have yet to be wrong.

It's the curse and the gift of being unhindered by the emotional subtext.

I often face the same kinds of dilemmas, so you might have to feed that right back to me tomorrow!

, my life in a WP thread...

I also get this all the time, alienated looks and the question ' Why would you think that?'.
When I answer ' I gathered this from what you just said, please correct me if I am wrong. ' people often become very irritated and often feel 'vivisected' and then it is my turn to give them an alienated look, .
It is true that we often unwittingly 'sense' the true underlying issue and pick up on the techniques that are used to smokescreen them quite quickly, but this is also what completely throws me - why can't we pick it up, when it affects ourselves ( in forms of bullying or teasing ) and nip it in the bud.
How come Pandora_Box could not pick up on the fact that the contribution would not appreciated in its original form, above all in an nonverbal-cue-free zone (i.e. www)?
It gets to me, because it happens to me, too.
Yet if I see a social incident build up with OTHER people I am often quite good at pointing out where it will lead to whilst the involved people cannot.

I've been accused of being judgmental when I would ask questions, same as making assumptions when I was asking questions. I do not understand this.

It's like you are not allowed to try and understand and try and make sure you understand and not making judgments or assumptions because apparently you're making them anyway when you ask.

I would rather have people ask me questions before they even assume or judge anything.

I never thought this could be a TOM thing but how is it a TOM thing?

Same as how is it a TOM thing for the OP or for draelynn?

First, I was very confused at first when I saw TOM, rofl. My brain is just slow it appears.

Second, is I completely agree with your statement I'm exactly the same. I can't ask questions without "question someone's authority" so they get defensive, I can't ask questions because its "complaining or making assumptions", and I can't state my own case because all I'm doing suposedly is "whining and complaining".

I rather people ask me a question so we can understand why something is the way it is. I rather when we have a lapse of miscommunication to ask a question to understand better.

And I want people to give me the courtsey and the respect of being able to make my own case. To many times on non autistic forums I struggle because I'm getting banned or warned for making a point.

Everything I do is misunderstood into this pile of NT thinks you're being a baby category.

Luckily I don't make lot of posts at other forums because I have nothing to contribute and at Babycenter, things have already been said by others so why repeat it?

Strange enough, this happens to NTs too. They ask questions about something they don't understand and they get accused of being judgmental too. I see this a lot at Babycenter. The women there act like the OP had an agenda or something when they ask a curious question. But here it's safer to ask because people don't get as defensive here or get as uptight. We tend to act more rational here even if a question does offend us or a post someone makes.

I swear society wants people to stay ignorant and some of them have said "Do research."

How are you supposed to do research if it doesn't answer your questions? How are you going to know what to look up? How do textbooks give you answers about personal experience. Like I keep reading how breastfeeding helps women lose weight faster but how am I going to find the answer to why some women don't lose weight from breast feeding? Everything says it helps you lose weight faster. So the only way to know is ask by starting a thread on it and ask but I bet women get all bent out of shape about that too and accuse me of being judgmental. Then people be like "do research instead of being rude."

Now all of a sudden it's rude to ask questions. LMAO. That is why I think people make up their own standards about what is rude and what isn't so I say asking questions isn't rude.

But of course it be rude to walk up to someone and ask "Why are you fat?" vs going online and ask "why are so many people fat?" I think that is different there and not rude.

I just try to understand the logic behind everything said or done and people think I'm crazy. I get it, but I don't get it until it makes logical sense in my mind.

My mum would always say that to me when I was a freshman in high school. She told me not to look for insults. If it had something to do with older kids saying that The Beatles suck, she told me that I was asking for it. Responses like that drove a wedge between us for a few years to come.

My mother had true paranoia. She really thought everything that people said was about her in a negative way. I had a discussion with someone about their workday right in front of her. She heard every word. She stormed out of the room. I said to my friend, "I bet she thinks we were talking about her." My friend was boggled. How?! But, sure enough, she stormed back into the room five minutes later to confront us on how rude it is to make fun of people when they're sitting right there in the room and she did not appreciate being treated that way at all! Now, that is looking for insults! Y'all are amateurs by comparison!

I have the opposite problem. It takes a while for me to catch on. Usually I realize someone is bizarre when they do something totally out of the blue - like troll a post or rudely barge in front of me knowing that I'm there. I've made a decision not to allow the internet stuff to bother me but missing things that are happening against you that aren't overt is unfortunate. When I was 19 or so, I was at a Renn Faire where there were women in character outside the place. We were buying tickets so I was concentrating on that. I hadn't realized that they had been asking me questions the entire time and then started hurling insults at me when they thought I was ignoring them. Oops! My friends filled me in as they walked to the office to report the women for verbally attacking a fair goer. (I guess it was important for me to know since I was the one they verbally attacked.)

Mind you, this obliviousness made me a target of ridicule for my mother and her other children. Instead of making fun of me for being too sensitive or looking for insults, I was made fun of for being dense, not having good timing, and not being smart enough to "get it". There are some things that annoy me about other people, but I wouldn't call it insults... it's just people being thoughtless or inconsiderate. Like, when someone starts putting their groceries onto the check-out belt before you're done putting your groceries on the belt. One time I didn't get upset because the lady who did it had a teenage daughter with her and the kid was absolutely mortified at her mother. It was just too funny. Sometimes people just don't know... like cutting in a line, and will queue properly if you politely correct them. But the uncaring, inconsiderate people are a justifiable annoyance and sometimes even worth getting angry about if the offense was great enough.

I know that my mum did the best with what she had, but that will be stuck in my memory forever.