Accidental Insensitivity

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In some circles I can come off as insensitive, and other times I'm a nice affectionate guy. Sometimes I'm the life of the party, and other times I end up upsettting alot of people. I'm outgoing, and I try to be a more sensitive good listener. But it's always been hit or miss.

What do you guys think? It is possible I'm just a mean, but I do my best to stay considerate. Has anyone shared these experiances? Just trying to be yourself and do good, yet you accidentaly put someone down?

I spoke at an AS conference with Tony Attwood and Kathy Hoopman (All Cats Have Aspergers,) and two other AS people yesterday.
When I was presented with flowers after my lecture - in front of 200 people, I did not say thank you. Rather, I told the guy who gave me the flowers and who kept touching my back politely to "stop touching me. I do not like being touched."

Another time when I spoke at a conference they presented me with chocolates as a token of gratitude. I said, "Oh. I do not like chocolates. I will give them to someone who does." I did not say thank you.

It is not that I mean to be rude. IT is because I get flustered and cannot process all the details of what is going on around me, and I just say what I think with rather typical AS bluntness.

Those that mind do not matter and those that matter do not mind.

when my brain is overtaxed [overstimulation, just too damned many things going on at once] i usually forget the social niceties. this is normal, more or less, for the human brain, AS or not.
in general, conversation in mixed company is a minefield- too many individual specifics to keep precise track-of, so occasional accidental offense is largely unavoidable, even for some NTs.
in different languages the minefield is different in quality and quantity- in chinese [mandarin] it is even worse because there is tonal inflection to deal-with, and it is all too easy [especially if soused or distracted] to use the wrong inflection and hence, express the wrong meaning.
this said, i usually expend 100% of my brainpower, to say only what is necessary for me to say, only to the necessary people- it is the random interloper which fouls this up for me. also there some folk who are extraordinarily sensitive to even the most subtle slights [aspies, anyone?] and there is no way to consistently avoid such folk.

Last edited by auntblabby on 21 Feb 2010, 10:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

I find that when it's late and thoughts are racing through my head, that's when I tend to be the most cold-blooded. I realize what's happened, the next morning, and than I apologize the the person that I might have hurt. I hate when that happens.

I could kill a man with my bare hands if need be... they'll get over whatever slight they may feel.

EVERYBODY says and does insensitive things, and often unintentionally.

I do not do it more than others, NTs offend NTs just as easily, I have seen and heard it.

It is just I am insensitive in the "wrong" way. Just as I am sensitive in a "weird" way.

I am often accused of being overly critical of other people and this makes no sense to me because that's one of the things I try so hard to avoid.

I can come off as being insensitive sometimes, but it really boils down to the lack of social skills. You're probably not insensitive either, just a little socially clueless. So if someone's sad and you start joking around, they may think/say you're insensitive when you had no clue they were sad or didn't realize you were behaving incorrectly. If you were insensitive, you wouldn't care that they were sad.

I'll often say something completely innocent and somebody will take it completely the wrong way, usually based on that person's own prejudices.

An example is that when I said that "Too many people my age don't know basic standards of polite behavior, like holding doors open for women and the elderly" to which someone accused me of being sexist, which is moronic because anyone who knows me knows how much I hate sexism and misogynistic power structures.

Or some PC nut will get POed because I insist on calling myself an "Autistic Person" instead of a "Person with Autism:"

Yeah, I give up chairs and hold doors for women... not because of some sexist crap, but because a woman birthed me into this wonderful experience I call life, and women carry that nature and ability to share awareness with others... that is to be respected accordingly.


I don't "have" autism in my pocket, I exhibit autistic behavior to diagnosable levels in numerous categories... I'm at least mildly autistic (given that I consider the developmental social hindrances I have as minor compared to those who are more significantly impaired than I am)... political correctness is offensive... which is somewhat ironic.

I once wrote a thank you card to my aunt and uncle and I thought I'd share my compliment with them by telling them they may be cheap but they weren't cheap enough to not get us a wedding present.

Another time I was on Yahoo Answers and this mother had looked at a dirty day care and she was unsure if she would report her and I told her it was a good thing she decided to check the palce out before dumping them off there.

I often say things that would offend people but lot of them know I'm innocent. My husband told me lot of things I say to him he would be offended if someone else said it. He has bad feet and he is often in pain and I used to laugh about it and I couldn't help it and finally I am not laughing anymore. I just keep doing my thing. I don't know what I can do about it because there is nothing I can do so I keep doing my thing. I ignored it before until he told me how they really feel and that's when the laughing started but it stopped.

I forget to say thank you too but I try and remember to say it.

Hahaha...this sounds like me. There was this one time when I was little and I decided I was going to write nice letters to everyone in our Girl Scout troop so they would like me. (None of them could read yet, much less write; writing was still a feat for me at the time. I guess I was in kindergarten.) I said nice things about each of them, and when I got to this one girl's letter, I told her she was really pretty and I wished she could be nicer. I meant it sincerely. I wasn't trying to be mean. My mother yelled at me because she didn't believe I was trying to be nice, and how could I think that was anything but mean. I had a meltdown and got sent to my room. Took me years to understand what I'd done wrong. Wish I'd known I was autistic then.

I noticed I get cranky if I'm overtired, not merely overstimulated.

What's the difference? Besides, as persons with autism don't we have the right to call ourselves whatever the hell we want?

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And why in the world do you care what someone thinks about you (are you sexist or not) if he doesn't even know you? And, on a top of it you seriously think that person is moron? Do you want that every moron adore you as perfect one ?!? Or you dread of being rejected by morons? Why are you degrading yourself to the level of one moron's acceptance? )

I don't see what was wrong there. Care to elaborate?


I remember sending friendship cards to kids in my class and I write to this one girl sometimes she is mean to me, sometimes she is not and mom told me to take it out. I didn't get it then but did it anyway. She explained it but it went over my head.