Good and bad communication

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Are you REALLY good at speaking? Like so good that 3/4 of the time people think you are a really intelligent kind of person? That's what I'm like, but here's what gets confusing. I can only speak like this to certain people.

I have lived residential for a while (2 different places) and in both, I was able to speak freely about pretty much anything, but only with the staff. If anyone tried to make me speak to the other students or anyone else, I wouldn't. I still won't unless the other person makes all the effort to get to know me. I, and many other people find this confusing.

There is only one conclusion I can come up with. I think it is that I might feel more safe speaking to staff because they are not allowed to judge me, tell other people my secrets or bully me. I know that if they are nasty to me, I can complain and it will get dealt with. On the other hand other people are just regular people and can basically do anything they want with the things I say.

Anyone else like this?

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I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

Yes, that's exactly what I do. If I'm relaxed then I can speak, and if I'm nervous with people I can't speak hardly at all.

When I can form sentences, I get many comments on how intelligent I seem.

When you think about it, the way most of us can communicate so well using the written word suggests that there's nothing much wrong with our command of words, apart from perhaps needing a little more time to find the right way to express things.

Of course that's one thing that "live" listeners might lose patience with - there's a tendency out there for people to jump into pauses or simply lose interest, and thus stop a slow speaker from getting a proper hearing. Personally I find myself being reluctant to speak much to anybody who doesn't demonstrate that they have the time to listen to me properly. Sadly most people these days, particularly at work, seem way too short of time to be able to do that. After all, time is supposed to be money.

It's also probably fairly common for Aspies to develop a distrust of people in general as well, and I know I'm nothing like so articulate when I try to communicate with somebody I don't trust. Of course if I've never met a person before then by definition I have no basis to trust them, so it can take me a few "sessions" to weigh them up, and the difference in my manner is apparently very noticeable if they pass whatever unconscious tests I've applied to them. It seems to work rather like Richard Adams' description of the Watership Down rabbits, who on meeting a separate group of rabbits would spend a long time just sitting about with each other without interacting at all.....if all went well, no fights would break out and once they were used to each other's presence, everything would calm down and they would then interact "properly." I often wish the human race had a similar custom.

Then there's a difference between chit-chat and talk with a definite, overt purpose. As long as the purpose is well-defined, I can usually bring myself to do the latter (though I don't always find it easy), but I'm usually quite lost once it gets purely social.

But quite strangely, there have been times when I've acted completely out of character, and just opened up to a complete stranger without any problem. Whether I sense that it's safe, or just feel lucky, I don't know.

I communicate better in writing than in speech. Sometimes when I'm making a point in class, I immediately forget any remotely intelligent-sounding words in my vocabulary, and end up stuttering like an idiot. I think it's because I get nervous talking in front of (most) people.