Difficulties with online communication

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I am struggling, continually, to connect with people in online situations. I am feeling very isolated in a lot of ways, but don't seem to have the same kinds of problems offline as I do online. I have a group of parents and kids that I meet up with regularly, have relationships with them that I can count on even though I have only been in this area for about nine months.

I can't Facebook. I can't do forums because of the number of communication problems I seem to have. I am continually misunderstood, or made out to have bad intentions when I don't. This only happens online. Online are where all the other autistics are, and where I figured I could find others who are understanding for friendship either online or off.

I may be 'too sensitive' for these sort of places, but my personal situation is rather fragile right now so that might have a lot to do with it. I end up flouncing a lot due to my difficulties, and when I do that I end up disconnected from the people who I have met online (plenty of them) who are really awesome people and have been genuine friends.

Does anybody else have this problem? Where you seem to be miscommunicating and then end up in tears over the realisation, then flounce out of all online interaction? If you have ever had this problem, how did you fix it? I'm trying to learn to not be so sensitive, but I don't think that's going to fix my problems.

Generally speaking, my online communication is far superior to my offline in that I can actually properly articulate my feelings and thoughts. That said, the answer to this part of your original post is a definite yes maybe minus the tears part. I've gotten into many misunderstandings with people online (with those I've known for a great deal of time and otherwise) that have ended with me opting out of any online communication for a bit. Sometimes this "bit" is only a few days, but I've also cut out all of my online relationships for a good month and a half or so before.

As for how to go about fixing it, yeah I don't know. I've never tried to and tend to use it as a "too much socialization" guide, because it tends to only happen when I'm already frustrated with social things or otherwise stressed out with RL stuff.

Maybe I have an easier time in person because I'm sort of awkward and clutzy and it's obvious to people. Maybe it's easier to 'fix' faux pas in person because I can see what people are thinking or know how they are going to react if I say something. Maybe it's just because I don't have a lot of deep and meaningful conversations with people 'in the world' that we might disagree on, and I participate more in those conversations online.

I enjoy scholarship, and don't seem to have a problem communicating my ideas in a written format without people misinterpreting my intentions or getting angry with me, so I know I have the capacity to communicate with the written word, which is part of what is frustrating for me. I never last more than a few days in any online social arena without getting frustrated with myself and others and end up flouncing. I'm recognising this as a pervasive developmental problem and wondering how to fix it. I can't even identify what the actual problem is. :\ Maybe I go into a meltdown when I first see people aren't understanding me and then sort of freak out like I'm in quicksand and dig myself deeper in.

I'm not sure any of this is making sense, but thanks for responding, Logston.

You don't have any "ominous" difficulties. You have a piquant way about you. I'm glad you like scholarship. It's actually an advantage most Aspergians don't have: the ability to thrive offline. Count yourself fortunate in this aspect of things.

Thanks for the compliment. I may be overplaying my offline abilities. I have a few friends I've managed to make and some from long term that I've managed to keep. Generally, I don't people so well offline but within a small group of similar interests I seem to get on somewhat ok, as long as I don't wholly offend people online before they meet me, which has happened altogether too many times. I have been able to secure and keep jobs in various industries in my life and I seem to be able to study (again, online, but still struggle with online requirements to engage with other students, have learned how to do that now without messing up most of the time).

Maybe I'm a jackarse. A piquant buffoon. I don't know. It sucks when people come out of the gate at you snarling purported bad intentions when you sincerely don't have them. I know that much.

When people get angry with me online I will read and re-read what I have said trying to understand what was offensive and why they would attack me, and I am quite often left wholly deer-in-the-headlights and wtf just happened there. It happens so often now, did twice in a row today on WP in fact, that I my inner voice is all, 'and there it is again...' If I have learned to expect it now, do I just 'harden the f up' and not let it get to me or do I say hey there's an issue I'm having and I need to figure out how to fix it.

I may be stuck this way.

You are just fine as you are, you don't need to push yourself to 'harden up', yes learn what you can from an interaction, e.g. Kolb's experiential learning theory, but the approach of hardening up might not produce the desired outcome, there must be progressive methodologies more suited to your disposition? If your sensitive, its probably for a reason.
If someone else is angry with you online, figuring out why can be progress (not fixating on the negatives), is it possible that they are just as sensitive, but their outward expression is anger, whereas yours might be an internal sadness?

Those are insightful ideas, thank you. I have been trying to remain cognisant that we all tend to express anger as a sort of shield for other feelings. I do it, I think everyone does sometimes? I will look up Kolb's experiential theory; I have never heard of that before. Thanks for the feedback.

From what I've seen here you seem to be fine online - but the internet is a strange and sometimes even frightening place where it is easy to misunderstand others and be misunderstood ourselves. WP is one of the best forums on the net, and people tend (generally, at least) to be extremely sensitive in their responses. Another advantage here is that the level of intelligence is far, far higher than on most sites.

If you'd like to chat by all means send me a pm.

Online communication can be a double edged sword, but you come across as very articulate. It's easier to write than verbalize, but we don't have the real life visual cues to accompany the words. I'm sure many (most?)cues fly over my head, but it's a complete vacuum online.

In short, it's not you so don't blame yourself.

I'm not really all that fussy about forums or Facebook myself. The only reason I was on Facebook was to contact people that I don't contact by phone or emailing. But yeah, forums just get me riled up. A lot of them kill my brain cells. There was a time when I really loved forums too. You'd never get me off them. Now, I don't know. I'm more interested in sex.

Yes. All of the time. It was a lot worst when I was in my teenage years but still continues in my 20's. Before I would get so pissed but now I try to shrug it off. Try to understand the other persons perspective on the interaction.

Thanks Hyperborean and MjrMajorMajor.

I tend to get sad because it highlights the majority of my struggles in life. I have discovered that angry and pissed off, for me, is a shield over an underlying emotion - usually sad. I don't like to appear sad, because sadness makes us additionally vulnerable. When we have AS, we seem to cop a lot of abuse. Those of us who are older were usually undiagnosed until well into adulthood (I was diagnosed when I was 45, now 46) and many of us (not all) have PTSD from our upbringings and experiences prior to today.

I am trying not to cover up my emotions with anger any longer, and working on allowing myself to be vulnerable to an extent. I am also learning that it's impossible to please everyone, and no matter what we say or post there is going to be someone who makes an issue out of it, so I am trying to learn to shrug it off as well.

One thing about online is there just seem to be people who want to make an issue out of things irrespective of how much I explain my position or am self-deprecating. I am a fairly well read and intelligent woman; I'm compassionate and try to be helpful towards others. I am not the type to self-deprecate continually in order to be liked, and I notice that humans (even AS humans) tend to 'gang up' on the perceived weaker human, or the human who people they like and look up to are bullying or ganging up on. I think that's an evolutionary problem. We all still seem to act like pack animals a lot of the time. I don't like setting myself up to be the lone dog whose ankles everyone nips at. Makes for one gimpy dog.

Misunderstandings are more common online for everyone because of no body language and you can't hear tone. I don't know how many times I have read things and would see how it would get interpreted by other people and how often I would see on Babycenter with someone asking a question and people taking it out of proportion so they get insulted and start to bully the OP and be harsh with her and all hostile with their responses. It's happened with me too.

You can apologize and then try to explain what you were trying to say and if they don't believe, it's their problem. It always sucks when misunderstandings turn into a bad thing where you piss people off and get hostile responses or lose friends or have someone think bad things about you because they got the wrong perception of you. Sometimes it's projection and you didn't do anything wrong and it's just something you wrote that set someone off and it brought bad terrible memories for them so they start to project by lumping you into a group of something and start accusing you because of their own background so they see something that isn't even there because of their own history. Think of if a person had been bullied and were told it was their fault and were asking for it and have been told to toughen up. Then they see a post online that is about teasing being mistaken for bullying or people teasing and making jokes and how it shouldn't be mistaken for bullying, how do you think that former bully victim will interpret that post? I can see there would be a lot of misunderstandings by former bully victims. When this happens to me, all I can do is ignore it and move on and let that person be upset and have it be their issue because it's not my fault they are putting their problems on me and how they are interpreting what I wrote because trying to fix it won't fix it and they will still be upset and keep on twisting what I write so don't argue and move on and let them dislike me and think whatever they want about me. They're just strangers online. I still get irritated by these people.