Ways People Misinterpret You...

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I've had the misunderstandings, too. The biggest ones are where people think I am angry or unhappy when I'm not. It's so aggravating. I've also had both males and females think that I am flirting with them when I am trying to appear friendly and attentive to what they are saying. So I sometimes feel as if I am stuck in feeling just as awkward as I did in my teens. Even my fiance misunderstands me; often thinking I am angry at him when I am not. To be fair, I have to check with him when I think his expression is angry and he is merely tired or bored.

I've had times when other people have asked why something is a certain way, and I've taken them to really be asking, so I've tried to explain, even though I was explaining a viewpoint I might have disagreed with vehemently. When they kept saying, "But I just don't understand it," I kept trying to explain. I've since figured out that what they were really doing was expressing their vehement disagreement with the viewpoint we were discussing.

It seems to me, once again, that their misunderstanding of me and mine of them mirror each other.



As a butch lesbian, I don't relate to men flirtatiously all, so it took me a long time to realize men were flirting with me unless they were really obnoxious about it. Now that I see it, I'm also old enough that the simple flirting doesn't feel threatening to me, so I'm able to take it as a compliment and then forget it. If more straight people could be that way about same-sex flirting, I think ours would be a less homophobic, less violent society.

I found out, at a certain point, that women have flirted with me without my being aware of it. But I'm a little better at that one now. What I understand best, though, is the harmless, pretend flirting that a straight friend and I sometimes do while she's dancing to my drumming. She's the friend that clues me in all the time when she realizes I'm not getting what's going on. She's really good at both detecting my cluelessness and getting things across in a way that I can understand and that doesn't freak me out.

I was out at a burlesque party on Saturday. I was starting to come down with a cold, but I had one of the best nights out I've ever had. The place was full of misfits, geeks, nerds, all dressed up in the wackiest outfits, from vintage to Moulin Rouge, men in kilts and tuxedos and even a stormtrooper and a toy soldier. Despite it being a relatively young crowd, there was no trouble and no people out of their heads on alcohol. Although, there were a lot of people, it wasn't too crowded. I took off my shoes, as my feet were sore from all the dancing, without fear of someone standing on my toes. What a pleasant change from a usual Saturday night in Glasgow (which I would never do normally). I just completely let go and danced all night, as did my husband (who never dances). I was thinking, 'I love this, these are my kind of people, I need to come to the next party night, need to get tickets quick'.

My friend said, 'Come on, enjoy yourself'.

Sometimes people think I'm being sarcastic when I'm not, I'm being honest. When I'm sarcastic they don't get it often,too.
That's one example that bothered me a lot for some time.

I had a problem like that because during my childhood and my teens I wouldn't eat in front of other people. The schools always hated that I wouldn't eat lunch. At one point my mother tried to get me permission to eat in the classroom of a former teacher that I liked but they insisted that I sit in the lunchroom during lunch even though I wouldn't eat there.

In second grade I wasn't allowed snacks unless it was my turn to bring them in because lots of kids brought fig newtons and I refused to eat those.

Yeah I get that too. Sometimes I know I have a sarcastic tone in my voice when I don't really mean to. I don't know why it sounds that way it just does.

A lot of my posts on forum get taken as sarcastic when I don't mean them that way, I'm being totally sincere but I guess my opinion is just so divergent from others that they can't take it as sincere.



I never ate lunch in school because I just didn't like the food. I don't especially like to eat in front of other people either. Sometimes I hid in the bathroom during lunch.

One time on a school trip, we stopped at a fast food place for breakfast. I never eat first thing in the morning, so I didn't eat anything. Some adult who thought they were really health conscious took me aside and lectured me, told that I wouldn't make it through the day without eating breakfast. I did of course make it through the day just fine, just like I did every other day I didn't eat breakfast. Looking back it was ridiculous they expected us to eat fast food every time we took a bus trip - how ironic they promoted a fast food breakfast as healthy!

Sometimes people might think I'm being conceited or that I won't accept that others can have opinions different from my own when I'm just saying what I think. It might be because I can get excited about whatever I'm saying, but there's something else, too. I've been accused of thinking I'm better or smarter than other people, but that isn't true.

I often make people laugh and they may think I am joking or being sarcastic. I don't know if they are laughing because I had said something wrong or because I was funny.

Oh, I know that feeling!

People misinterpret me all the time.

Like many of you guys, people misinterpret the blank expression on my face as me being in a bad mood, unhappy, depressed, sad, bored and such, when I'm really not. They don't get it that I can be happy, amused or in a good mood without smiling or other "happy faces". A lot of people also misinterpret my lack of facial expressions/body language as lack of emotions. They assume I'm emotionally cold or that I don't care. So I've heard a lot of "cheer up", "what's bothering you?" and "try to have some fun" and some people downright avoid me because they've assumed something negative based on my lack of facial expressions.

A lot of people assume that I must be a boring/uninteresting person because I speak with a monotone voice and don't use facial expressions much. The few people who have bothered actually getting to know me before making such judgements actually found me to be the opposite.

A lot of people misinterpret my limited social interactions as me being shy or not interested, when in fact I just have a lot of difficulty with social interactions due to lack of social skills.

When I do things very fast (for example at work when I need to get something done quickly for some reason), people often assume that I'm in a really bad mood, angry or stressed, when I'm actually fine and just work extra fast because I need to either get a lot of things done in a short time or don't want to keep someone waiting for something urgent if I can get it done quickly.

When I have a meltdown (= crying, turning mute and trying to be alone), people misinterpret the situation as me being immature, childish or really sensitive when in fact most of the time I'm overloaded and sometimes really angry as well.

A lot of people have trouble telling whether I'm joking or being serious. They tend to take things as a joke when I'm being serious and take me serious when I'm joking, or they get really awkward and unsure about it.

Me too! I sometimes wonder whether people are laughing with me or at me.

Here is another one I hate:

I ask questions about things people do and people think I am being judgmental. really? I have a hard time understanding why asking questions is being all judgmental? I always thought to judge is to assume what people do so wouldn't people prefer if people ask before assuming? I bet people jump to conclusions right after you ask. Strangely, this happens to NTs too. They also ask something and people assume they are being judgmental. Even if they say they aren't trying to judge or not judging, people still say they are.

Same here. And what they really don't get is that I might be feeling angry. And times when I've cried, people thought if they touched me or put their arms around me it might calm me down, instead it would just do the opposite. I hate crying in front of people I don't know, they treat me like I'm a big baby.

a lot of people think im morbid for some reason. no idea where that comes from. i also tend to use specific questions that would be better answered with vague questions like "are imperialist wars ever justified, regardless of intent, if the end result save a lot of lives?" came out as "WW2 good?" and it didnt get me the answer to the question i was supposed to ask. my fault but frustrating.
also when i use sarcasm or figuritive speech or hyperbole no one gets it . it is the strangest thing and it cracks me up. im the autistic one. it should be me that has this problem not you. but they do. all. the. time. the confused looks on their faces. this is what it's like on the other side people.

Yeah, I got into frustrating situations a lot when I was younger. People would think I meant all kinds of things when I was really just being facetious. They did the same thing, but I didn't get the reaction they got when they did it. I never knew why. It's not such a problem now, maybe because I'm older and maybe because people know me better now.

It's weird to get opposite reactions from what other people get, both with when we're taken seriously and when we're not.

BTW, I love this quote you have in your tagline:
"The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before"- Albert Einstein"
Did the original quote really say "woman"? Or is that your tweak to it? It's cool either way!

My GP (in the US they're called "family physicians" I think) said that I was lying to her because I wasn't looking her in the eye =/

During one of my psych ward stays, a nurse went to me and said that she was going to write in my notes that I am "not trying hard enough to get better" because I wasn't attending the groups, even though it was in my advance directive that due to my Asperger's, I find group work extremely difficult, and I often lose the ability to communicate during them.

A psychiatrist assessing me in A&E (ER for the US) said "look into my eyes" over and over again....grr

When people would see me alone all the time (not dating) they would assume the most bizarre things, and then act on them accordingly. For example, when I moved into the complex where I currently live, a woman angrily showed up at my house looking for her boyfriend. I guess she figured that as I was single, I must be desperate.

Later, a couple moved in next door. The girl always treated me with coldness and hostility, the guy was friendly. When I started hanging out with a woman that I met at a support group, the woman next door started being friendly. I couldn't understand it until my friend said that it was because they assumed that I was gay. (I'm not). Then, when I started dating my fiance, they looked utterly flabbergasted. This is because assumptions were flying all over the place like a crowd of bats on crack!