Please Help Me To Understand This Conversation

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I look at everything from a psychological point of view. She acts like she has borderline personality disorder. look it up and you may see what I mean. You did nothing wrong, but she acts like she has a perceptional disorder.
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Sounds like she issues with her sense of humor. We all get things wrong from time to time (or all the time it seems, some days). I could see her snapping once if she's just in a bad mood, but she clearly just isn't getting the joke to have gone on this much about it. I have no idea what has caused her to be this defensive about her book record, or how she could think anyone was serious in making a comment like that. The humor was quite clear to me. So yeah, agreed, she was being sensitive, not the good kind... touchy.

It's frustrating, isn't it, when you make an innocent comment and someone else jumps at you as though you're accusing them of something... you want to just stop talking to people... I've had more than my share of that lonely, lost feeling that I must have done something wrong. You want people to tell you what it is, gently, instead of being mean and vengeful to you but they just snap at you instead and storm off. You can't help feeling they've just given you your pink slip, as it were, if they don't think enough of you to give you the chance to explain, if they haven't given you the benefit of the doubt... but then, I suppose this is your chance to do that, even if she hasn't. I guess that makes it a little less gloomy...

i don't think you've done anything wrong. "Friend" just doesn't get you. she's interpreted you as being competitive when you're just interested in the topic.

yeah, as someone said maybe extraneous emoticons might help next time.



^ like this one. i have no idea what a smiley with its tongue sticking out really means but i've noticed people tend to add it to things that might be taken seriously that really are just meant to be meaningless fluff. so i guess it's the "nevermind me - i'm an airhead" emoticon which could be a useful strategy for those of us that aren't airheads but can't tell when we're annoying people either.

in my case i'd rather annoy someone than be thought an airhead. but if you wouldn't, then employ the tongue smiley early and often.

p.s. if the link someone posted is the same list i've read about 30 of them and have easily as many sitting on my bookshelves as yet unread.

but i find it far more interesting how many recent books have made it to the list that over decades will probably prove to be forgotten. this always happens when people update "best of" lists. (Bridget Jones??)

Do you think that during your explanation she failed to relate and instead just snapped?
I find when I go into detail about things (usually referring to an ASD or ADHD) people just snap and think I'm making excuses.

I could be way off but.

oh, i think you have a good point.

we have a need to clarify and be informative and informational and i think you have something here. it may look like excuse making or something. aha.

I am currently living in Sweden and this is the one person I've met from my home country who I thought I go on with, so I really value the friendship. We both live in the middle of nowhere so only meet up every couple of months or so when we venture into civilisation. We meet up, have coffee and chat for a few hours and then go back to our own lives. The only contact in between being the occasional comments on Facebook.

I stayed up until 4am trying to compose a reply, rewriting it again and again to try and get it right. This is what I came up with:

It's not brilliant, but it was the best I could come up with. I thought that would be the end but it just gets worse. To the same article on my page, because of my short list, I had jokingly added the comment:



To someone's reply of "NO!" I have jokingly replied with:



She has responded to my confused apology comment on this article with:



I was completely knocked for six by this. Perhaps I should have left it there but I felt compelled to response. I felt like I was being attacked by someone I think of as a friend and I had to try to explain and defend myself. This is what followed:









I've cried so much over this last night and now again this morning. I'm drowning and don't where the lifeline is.

The whole point to this is never to have serious conversations on FB (or online, or by texting, or anything else like that).

The minute someone gets upset, phone them. Say "Hey, it was meant to be a joke but I'm sorry I've upset you." From then on, you must not say a single logical thing, most especially never say what your side of it is.

If they're still upset they will talk one-sidedly at you for a while explaining every detail of their upsettedness. You must resist the urge to defend yourself or to keep explaining your point of view. They want you to listen to them and appreciate the depth of their emotions. The only thing you can say is "Yes......Mmhmm.....I see your point......I know....".

You made the error of explaining yourself. The friend interpreted that as your DEFENDING yourself, which turned you and her into combatants on opposing sides. That is, the more you defend yourself the more she feels forced to press on her attack. She could not lose face in a public setting like FB especially, and was forced to escalate in order to WIN the exchange.

If you listen to her venting her anger sufficiently well in a private setting, she'll calm down sooner. Then you can say, "Still friends??" when she runs out of complaints.

Remember, to NT's the emotions are the real source of communication and not logic. You kept talking logically to her while she was talking emotionally to you. You came across as condescending because you did not sufficiently cater to her emotions, which is seen as being "cold" and "uncaring"......and voila, there you have the condescension accusation.

Remember: NT's conversations and thought patterns consist 80% of emotions and logic is looked down upon.

I can sort of see what you are saying but at the same time I don't get why different rules/expectations seem to apply to me in this situation. Why is it not ok for me to unitentially upset someone, but ok for them to delibrately make mean comments to me.

As for phoning, everyone who knows me knows I can't do that. I can't speak on the phone. I can write or talk face to face but there is something about actually talking to someone without seeing their face that freaks me out completely. But that's a whole different issue.

My God MotherKnowsBest, how many times do you have to apologise to that woman to make her happy??

You keep telling her you're sorry and she keeps going on and on about it

And I absolutely don't see where you sound patronising, saying you're upset is not patronising, you were just expressing your feelings.

Maybe she was having a really bad day I don't know, but I hope she will realise her mistake because you said her friendship is important to you.

Shadi

It IS OKAY for you to make mean comments and become upset at something someone else said in the NT world. In fact, it's a ghastly joke of nature that this would raise your status. Everyone defers to people who seem to be active volcanoes, who berate others loudly and passionately while claiming they were the wronged party.

But if you're incapable of phoning people to sort things out, then at the very least you must refrain from defending/explaining yourself on FB because doing so starts a flame war. A simple "I see my joke of my only being half-well read fell flat" is more than sufficient, after which you must wait a while and change the topic, hopefully to something much more complimentary to the person who got angry.

This is going to sound really weird but I'm beginning to wonder if there is some sort of strange Asperger's envy going here following my diagnosis last week. Similar comments in the past have always been taken in the way they were intented. This time she didn't want to get it, brought up my now confirmed Asperger's and then ends with an extreme 'I'm special too' comment.

I don't understand people at all.

I also thought it was strange that she would bring up Aspergers, and I was reading your comments again, and I still don't see where you sound patronising or arrogant.

MotherKnowsBest, obviously this person is having a bad day. It's clear that she isn't joking at this point, but it's also clear to me that she is not being reasonable, nor is she reacting appropriately to what you are saying. You have done more than your fair share of trying to correct the situation.

The fact that she mentions Aspergers in this context indicates to me that you've told her about it, but she clearly doesn't understand what Aspergers means. Sometimes verbal conversation that is normal for Aspergers comes across as arrogant to an NT who doesn't know about the communication style (e.g. not waiting your turn, interrupting, or talking for a long time about your special interest.) However, once explained, it is up to the NT person to accomodate the person with Aspergers and to ask questions or explain what is bothering them.

What would you think of trying something like "It's really difficult to sort this out online, but I do value our time together. Maybe we should table this discussion until the next time we meet."

I've gotta say, by this point I'd be pissed, and go off on her. "WTF? I've said, numerous times, that I didn't intend to offend, and that I was sorry I had inadvertently done so. What world do you live in that a sincere apology is 'condescending'? Go die in a fire, b***h!" Only, I'd probably be a lot less polite.

I didn't read the discussion but I thought these were funny. It's the kind of humor I like. Doesn't seem hard to understand to me.