Does anyone cover for not understanding something?

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Well, you can say "that's interesting, I'll think about it", or something like that, but of course if you don't know the person is trying to make you accept something it makes it more complicated......
Sometimes I suddently realise someone has been hinting at something for maybe days, and had a whole agenda, when I kept answering to their sentences only, not seeing the plan they had in mind....but when someone has been stirring you in a certain direction for that long and is not seeing you react or disagree, they start hinting in a more obvious way until they suddently say something like "so, when do you plan on moving to a bigger city so you can find a job? shall we start looking at ads?" and you're like.....oh.......THAT's where you were leading me? and you stall. I know I do, I'm at my most autistically passively resistant once I understand your plan for me, but once you state it in a way that forces me to take action, I'll just become agressive/rude/ really confusing for the person who thinks they now have me a bit socially obligated to comply. I'm never obligated to comply, and when I realise I've been manipulated, I can't pass for NT any longer
That's really what I hate the most about this, not being able to understand that people have an agenda. But even if they've been somehow convinced that I was all tied up in their web, they're in for a rude awakening if they try to make me act on things I never agreed to. Notttttt gonna happennnnn.

Actually, this happened to me on this forum a few weeks ago. Apparently, I had been party to a mutual agreement to disagree that I was not actually aware of. I was informed of it less than a day later.

I also wonder if they can be misunderstandings. Like someone starts talking to you and they assume you know what they are doing, they assume you are picking up on their hints because of how you are responding to them. Then all of a sudden you realize what they had on their mind and I bet to their minds they are lost and confused with your hostility all of a sudden?

I'm sure you're right about that, they just assume people are following. So they assume you agree, since you don't explicitely disagree...I bet their very blunt last move to make you start on what you "agreed" to do is even a way of saying "well you agreed so.....hum, can you do it, now?" and then when you stall they probably think you were insincere yourself when you agreed. Major misunderstandings all around....

This.

I have been told explicitly (during the time I already had a job) not to say such things as "I don't know" or "I can't do ..." in my work. I didn't really know why, but I complied with the advice of my friend.

It seems to be a feature of committee-style meetings as well.......silence is often taken as agreement. Makes me mad. When you complain, you get told that you should have spoken up......but I often need a few days to process the info, and I usually assume that if I haven't yet spoken, no opinion can reasonably be assigned to me.

I often cover for not understanding things. I think most people do....all those nods and smiles.....put people on the spot and ask them what you've just been saying, and mostly they'll flounder. Don't know if that's any different to what I do. I believe the habit came from my school days when failure to understand was often punished as if it was the pupil's fault and not the teacher's. And I had too many conversations where I'd ask for clarification and then blank out while they answered. They always assumed that not paying attention was a sign of the wrong attitude, so I used to just nod and say thanks.

I still do that at work......I'll tell them anything just to get rid of them as quickly as possible, though I have to be mindful of the consequenses......take it too far and I'll end up with a task on my plate that I don't have a clue how to perform, while everybody else will quite justifiably think I have nothing to worry about.

In my social life, I'm rather better behaved, though the old habit keeps coming back. I hate it.....what better way is there of wrecking communication than to pretend a message is understood when it isn't? Yet somehow it's so difficult to risk saying "I don't know what you're talking about." I guess the best way through is to phrase it more inclusively - to stress that I want to understand rather than just shrugging the other person off. Or just asking a good block-clearing question, though it's common for me to have no other thoughts than "WTF??" when I'm told something that doesn't make immediate sense to me. It takes time for me to sift through the words and isolate the reason why they fail. It's not so bad with written messages where I can take a break and return later for a fresh look (it never seems so bad the second time round).

I think the cuprit is my childhood experiences of those impatient adults. It's as if I have a morbid fear of being given something weird and obscure, along with an expectation that I should understand it and deliver whatever it is they want. When somebody speaks or writes in a way that's obscure to me, even if it's just a simple problem like a bad phone line or too much background noise, I panic inside and I just want to run. In that state, I find it almost impossible to operate the simple procedures that would sort out the problem - even just saying "look, it's a bad line, can you talk louder?" feels as if it's going to alienate them permanently. I've often bitten the bullet and done that regardless, and it's worked when I have, but I never seem to learn, and always revert back to type, as if I'm working against a colossal force.

It does feel this way. Like pushing your way through a crowd.
At times I've stared blankly and said "mh....what?"
I've even said :" I have not understood a single word you just said", generally though I only do that with very close people, my mother, my sister.... and it makes them laugh. It irritates my husband so I don't go all honest with him.
After a long social exposure I get terrible at covering up. But I know that I definitely have to in front of strangers , and exhaustion+panic can really lead to freaking out, either a meltdown or if it's even worse than that, I go non verbal and somehow stop caring and trying.
I can cover up but I really have to be full of energy.

Generally, I have had to learn to tip toe through culture or misunderstandings will arise by asking questions, etc. This may be a ToM issue by my inattentiveness, because I subconsciously thought: "I'M curious and human," and everyone is of the same ilk therefore on this same page. How incredibly naive of me .

By observing the social contract of people, I see how this works and why the various reactions. Interestingly, you will find or stumble upon a 'smartie' out there, and they will 'see' where you are coming from and side step the prevalent blinding prejudice. This invalidates the invalidation -- and fresh air comes your way.

I say "I don't know what that means." An advantage of narcissism, if someone doesn't make sense when they're talking to me it's their problem. On the other hand if someone claims not to understand me it's their problem.

I just learned on here that asking a question may make someone think you are being snarky. Another reason why I don't like talking to people and another reason to be shy. I hate people. I really do. Anyone ever gotten accused of being snarky?

Yes, I have.

Wanted to agree with the earlier posters that wrote about can you be slow and smart:

Got this confirmed by two assessments last year by psychologists - the combination of having a working memory that glitches and having a normal to high IQ means I have problems communicating my ideas and understanding others.

They explained that although I can spell, I am dyslexic, but it wasn't picked up before, because I managed to struggle through academics, badly.

I have noticed I suffer from what I think is auditory processing disorder - I sometimes only catch parts of words - and that makes conversations a bit surreal at times - I often get completely the wrong idea and even have ended up arguing about nothing....

Its hard for me to keep up with group conversations. I used to have to use a lot of communication in my previous job - but that was usually with just one other person and that used to be ok as I would need to ask them to repeat what they had said, or I would repeat what they said to make sure I understood..... There was a lot of repeating going on but I think it was well covered up....I didn't even realise I was basically covering up my own inabilities to understand immediately what was being said!! !

This affects most of my socialising and not understanding what was going on meant I didn't develop normal social skills - which is why I used to dance a few times a week to socialise, as it cut out the conversation....and normalised me.

With music blaring away, I could ask people to repeat themselves and noone realised it was because I was not getting what was being said...!

Yeah that's seem to be what I have. A lot of the time people just sound like they are mumbling to me. I get bits and pieces or words and then I try to string those pieces together and figure out what they are saying.

exactly ........mumbling ! !

Yes but that works both ways, sometimes as I'm explaining something to someone, my hearing shifts, as if I stop talking and start listening to what I say as if I suddently am transported in their shoes, and I realize I'm not being heard or understood one bit, I'm background noise. It irritates me so much but I know I'm not wrong or suffering hallucinations when it happens, if I stop talking right then and there and ask the person to repeat what I've been saying, they'll make up something at random, basically I had faded out of their consciousness.
So the communication issues go both ways.

That happens to me too! It will feel like my voice suddenly sounds different. And I usually lose my train of thought when it happens. It's as if the words only come to my mind when the other person is ready to hear them.