What do you find the hardest in communication?

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Autistic people often refer to challenges they face when socialising others. I wanted to see if it is the content or the form aspect of the interaction that people find difficult. Do you have difficulty finding something to say or talk about, or is it body language/gestures/intonation that complicate things?

Similarly, on the receiving end, do you have difficulty perceiving the message of others' words or all the paralinguistic elements mentioned?

That is highly masculine field. All of that is masculine energy.

yes I do not always pick up on body language at all and a big problem I have in communicating is the proper expression of emotions in intensity and being able to expressing them at all to people.

Finding things to talk about.
My thoughts are not in words so they are pretty useless as a starting point.

Hmm. Interesting. I was going to say "finding things to talk about", because when I am talking, I am not too bad at acting out the appropriate gestures, intonations etc. BUT I have a lot of difficulty breaking into conversation to say what I want to say, or giving the right body language that invites others to want to talk with me, so it depends on whether you are referring to the body language while taking or while not taking. If the latter, I'd go for "both are equally hard".

I do have difficulty finding something to say or talk about sometimes. It can feel like my mind is blank in many situations where I need to socialize. I've tried fighting it by forcing myself to say things that might sound good for conversation, and it does work, but sometimes the things I say can come out being awkward which leads me to believe I should probably have not said anything at all. Reading faces and body language can be a problem too.

Both are the two hardest parts that I initially have a hard time when communicating with others, such as not picking up sarcasm, not understanding that people have opinions that differ from mines, and babbling about whatever's on my mind instead of letting the conversation flow naturally.

I'm pretty bad at both, but I still manage to get by

I picked body languages/gestures and intonation even though I have difficulty with both, because...

When I feel relaxed in a social setting (which isn't often), I can usually think of at least a few things to talk about, however those things may not be very interesting to the people around me unless I'm sitting with a group of engineers or computer/electronics hobbyists. But I often find myself thinking things like: "Where should I put my arms?" or "Is my posture too stiff right now? How do I look relaxed?" Even if I feel relaxed, I worry that I don't look relaxed because I have people tell me I look stiff even when I feel perfectly fine. o.o

Being able to find subjects to talk about, using proper tone and expression are both hard. It's just too much to keep track of and know how to pull off. I also don't get when someone is joking.

I should add that, in my opinion, the REALLY hard part is doing both at once. It's easy for me to think of things to say to people . . . while I'm alone in my room a few hours later.

Overall, I'm bad at both. I just suck at starting conversations, since I rely upon questions to start one, whereas NT's just seem to start one like it's no thing and they talk for what it seems like FOREVER! And when I actually get a long conversation going, something interrupts it!

I hate my luck...

I'm not interested in body language...I just wish I could think of stuff to talk about. I'm pretty much silent most of the time I'm with my friends, because I have nothing interesting to talk about.

I don't think they'll be interested in the basketball game I watched on TV or the Star Wars novel I read, so I just keep quiet. It would be nice if I could think of things to talk about with them.

Whenever I try to start or participate in a conversation I get told I was overanalyzing. Yeah, sure, analyzing at all is automatically overanalyzing and of course I am the one who should adapt to others.

I don't get this whole thing and it's not even the topics about which to discuss but the way the discussion has to be lead. It just makes no sense... why would anybody discuss when they don't want to ask questions how the topic works and have these questions answered by a discussion partner who might know exactly that? It just makes no sense. Rather talk about the weather, at least then nobody tries to fill the conversation with actual content

My biggest problem with communication is by far that I have nothing to say. Unless I have something concrete to ask or say, I can't come up with anything to say. And after I have said/asked that, I have nothing more to say.
It has always been that way for me. In my 35 years there have only been 3 people I could talk to at length (and not always with any of them), they are/were my mother, my late grandfather and my ex boyfriend. With absolutely everyone else I am only able to answer questions they ask me. I have no idea what to say beyond that.

When I was little, about 5, my mother and I were at a cafeteria with a play area (no such thing now AFAIK, though I could be wrong), and a mother with a girl roughly my age came along. The girl entered the play area where I was, and we started playing and I said something to her. My mother informed me that the girl was deaf. We could just play!


That's not to say that body language and eye contact aren't problematic for me, they are indeed, I can't look anyone in the eye without triggering my fight or flight response, and I have a hard time reading people and being aware of what I emit. But not even being able to come up with anything to say is still a bigger problem.

Anyone seen that scene in Friends where Ross and Mike spend an evening together and have absolutely nothing to say to each other? That's my typical interaction. Not kidding.

I'm not what you'd call sociable but it'd be nice if I had been able to communicate with the few people I come across that I actually take a liking to.

Finding things to talk about. Then getting them out of my head and into sound. And then not sounding nervous while talking.

My mind does this awful blank-tape-loop thing when trying to come up with things to talk about to people I don't know and sometimes to people I do know, including extended family members that I see frequently. And if I think of something, I'm afraid to say it, especially if it's to someone in a group. I also can't make conversations "flow" from subject to subject especially with new people.

I guess I don't really pay much attention to my own body language. I don't always know what sort of expression is on my face, and people often ask me if something's wrong when I'm just thinking. I can sit very still for a very long amount of time. I think I talk with my hands on occasion.