Making conversation and putting your foot in your mouth

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I hate it when that happens. I am sure everyone on this board is familiar with doing that.

A lot of times when I try to be social, I end up saying something offensive. I can't win!

I just did it. I was trying to make conversation with someone paving our driveway and made a comment about "middle class" people not being able to afford the more expensive driveways. In a normal voice, he replied, "What do you consider middle class, people making under $1,000,000? (not sure I understood his response). I think he was offended because he might be a lower class person. Luckily, I had enough sense to realize I might have said something offensive and said, "I don't know. I used the wrong term. I meant people who didn't have money to blow on a drive way."

Last edited by JWRed on 09 Sep 2008, 6:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Yep.

I have so many footprints on my tongue, an indian could track me through water.

It is a natural thing to which we all fall prey. Keep in mind that the term was invented by NTs. We are not alone in tongue trampling. We just feel it more strongly. I would suspect because so many of us were teased and bullied while growing up.

Laugh at yourself and the world laughs with you.
Laugh at someone else and get smacked up 'longside the head.

Pops

And it sure doesn't taste all that good either, does it? I know the feeling, believe me

I don't think I can have a conversation without offending somehow. It's very frustrating. Probably for the other person too. Yea, can't win.

This happens to me so much it's not even funny. I'm never really sure what is approriate to say or not. and by the time i've said it's too late.

Ill say things to people and then be confused by thier response only to figure out much later that I said something offensive. I have like a delayed reaction....or understanding in this case.

Some people are just SO Stupid. I don't know about YOU, but my home is only worth about $250,000. I live in a nice area that happens to be cheaper. So my driveway OBVIOUSLY costs less than $1,000,000! AND, SO WHAT IF IT DID!?!? My father bought a home for about $350,000, and it would now cost about $1000,000. Does that mean that he should be OK if it burned down, and he had to pay $1,000,000!?!?!? NO WAY!

BTW if you ask ME, the middle class, in the US, should be between $50,000 and $250,000, up to 4 kids, and perhaps $15,000 more for every kid over 4. That might SOUND like a lot, but the average person is lucky if he can afford a decent home on even $100,000 these days. AND, with an average of like $7,500 REAL income per child, you wouldn't even save enough for a bachelors degree!

And to THINK that my goal(after graduating highschool) was to live on $30K a year! Back then, I considered THAT middle class!

my mouth is so much quicker than my brain... I'm pretty good at realising my mistake tho so I usually don't get into that much trouble, what I really hate is when I say something weird or boring and loose the connection with whoever I'm conversing with. that's probably the reason why I do so badly at flirting and making new friends.

I do this all the time. I either say something that can be horribly misinterpreted, or don't understand that something is TMI.

Ditto.

It seems to be getting worse from day to day. It didn't use to be so extreme. Seems the more careful I am, the worse it is. I could learn to laugh about it if it weren't so painful because it costs me jobs, friendships and everything.

Well, here's an 'Aspie' answer - 'Middle Class' income is anywhere from $80K to $300K annually. $35K to $79K is 'Lower Middle Class' and anything below $34K these days is almost 'Poor.' I remember when $35K annually was really good money, but not anymore. My husband and I were making $70K a year and barely scraping by, what with our house & car payments and so on. $35K is almost nothing these days.

The 'NT reply' to your question (and I asked an NT --my husband-- just to be sure) is that the guy probably thought you were trying to lead him into a political discussion about what defines the Middle Class. He may not have been offended at all and any 'pause' he gave you before saying what he said might have been him trying to work out mentally if you were a Rpublican or a Democrat, since 'Middle Class' means different things depending upon your political leanings. Then again, the guy might be, as you said, in the lower middle class income bracket and might have been mildly offended by your observation. My husband thinks the guy was asking you to clarify your statement so that he could figure out whether he had a right to be offended or not. Concrete guys make pretty good money (some up to $100K a year or more, depending on their contractor's licenses [commercial or residential], so he might have been curious as to what you meant.

I do this all the time, too. I was talking to an acquaintance at work while on break once, and the subject of a live animal auction came up in the conversation. My husband and I always went there on Friday nights just to see what animals we'd buy, etc (livestock). In speaking about this, I mentioned that a lady who worked there must have had a hormone problem because she had a mustache bigger than my husband's. Now, had I said this to someone in myfamily, they might have snickered at the comment. The person I was talking to was a Lifestyles Reporter with his own column that usually focuses on the elderly. I had forgotten this when I made the comment. He didn't speak to me again after that. I honestly regret that one, but can't seem to stop myself from making off-hand comments about people like that. It just falls out of my mouth before I can stop it. I've lost quite a few potential friends this way. These days I try to wait a few seconds to mentally analyze what I say before I reply. Usually when I blurt things out before I consider the repercussions is when I find myself in trouble.

I always seem to be putting my foot in my mouth. The expression "open mouth, insert foot" fits me to a tee. I sure am glad that my wife doesn't hold grudges.

Im suprised i haven't choked myself to death with my foot yet.

The first thing I thought of when I heard you say that is that most couples can't even afford a house these days. My mind was being infiltrated with economic ideas and opinions and facts flying by and I didn't see anything personal about the comment.

Answer too quickly and you offend someone.
Don't answer quick enough and you're rude for not talking or socialising.