Whats the difference between arguing and sharing an opinion?

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I also think people may call it an argument if they don't want to discuss it.

Crikey, this is a hard question to answer definitively.

If you share an opinion that is different from that of the other person(s), it might be welcome or it might not. If it isn't, they're likely to think or say that you're arguing (in the "antisocial" sense of the word), and they might ask / tell you to stop. They might first try to argue back themselves, and the whole discussion can easily degenerate into a fight. It can be helpful to couch your contrary opinion in respectful, reassuring terms rather than sharing it bluntly, and to remain objective, always preceding an assertion with "I think that......" rather than dogmatically laying beliefs onto them, and refraining from exaggeration.

I guess there are many reasons why a contrary opinion might be unwelcome. Some people just don't like being contradicted at all. Others don't like being contradicted about certain ideas they're emotionally attached to. Or it could simply be the wrong time to voice disagreement, e.g. sometimes when a decision has been made about a course of action to take and momentum has already taken hold, it might do more harm than good to throw the venture into doubt. There's also a "follow the herd" thing going on in the mainstream, where members of a group will pay lip service to the apparent collective opinion, or to the opinion of the leader if it's a hierarchy (which a cynic might call sucking up to the tyrant). The consequences of flying in the face of this depend on how much power you have in the group. Mercifully, it's often enough to just stay quiet rather than actually having to hold your nose and tell a sycophantic lie.

I think where ASDers often come unstuck with argument and opinion sharing is that we tend to feel strongly that the truth needs to be told, and we don't always notice the bearing that the context has on this. I still have a lot of trouble keeping my mouth under control when I feel convinced something's being said that looks incorrect.

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Last edited by ToughDiamond on 31 Jul 2015, 4:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

These days people are too sensitive. They think that stating your opinion and arguing are the same thing.

The mutual feeling.

That certainly is my experience. Of course, I'm still learning about autism. Only diagnosed 4 years ago.

"Sharing an opinion" is a social interaction. Need I say more?



Okay, I will.
People on the autism spectrum suck at social interactions.
"Sharing an opinion" is an artform, it's not very pre-programmable which is what we're trying to do here.


(no guarantees) My best advice is: this sucks, so talk about how you came up with an idea or some reasoning that leads to it (without trying to convince anyone it's accurate) before saying, "so I wonder if [insert opinion here] might be true?"
Also if your opinion is too much different than who ever just said one... well that will look contradictory right?
Contradiction = argumentative.

If people are going to change their opinions (or even listen to ours) we probably gotta give them some way to "save face." Pure logic isn't good enough for most people to feel like they've "saved face."

When people share an opinion, they don't attack and belittle you. When someone wants to argue, they attack and belittle you often in a patronizing way.

I'm a girl. Anyway heres an example from cooking club:

guy: "We have already caramelized onions."
me: "Those are not caramelized they are sautéed, to caramelize onions you have to cook them enough to release the natural sugars."

Then the guy began yelling at me that I was always so argumentative.

It took me years to get used to the idea that people get irritated by such pedantic corrections. I still have trouble keeping quiet about the myriads of details that they get wrong.

My favourite example is from a sci-fi TV series (possibly Doctor Who):

(a computer, with flawless logic, has just put a brilliant scientist right about an error he has made, much to his annoyance)
scientist: "Very well, I stand corrected."
computer: "Correction. You sit corrected."

At the time I saw it, I just thought the computer was right, and resolved to imitate it so that everybody would admire me for being so intelligent.

Should I have not said anything and had the dish ruined?

Probably not. I didn't realise the error he was making would have been fatal to the task. Sounds like he was in the wrong for blowing up about it, in that case. Hard to know why he was so stroppy about it. Could have been sexism ("girls are stupid"), or maybe he's just got an anger management problem. I'd been wondering why you'd mentioned the genders of the participants.

There is a difference between expressing a different point of view and seek to impose it by discrediting others viewpoints and discrediting people involved in the discussion.

Last edited by iridescence on 02 Aug 2015, 8:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I avoid arguments at all costs, mostly because 1) my opinions don't matter most people, since I'm already prejudged to be wrong, even if I can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I'm right. I usually told I'm a nattering nabob of negativism (to quote General Westmorland), and don't deserve to be heard. I've been told, in several instances, to STFU, since I don't know what I'm talking about, and I have no rights, since I'm nothing more than a house n*****.

How do I share my opinion without sounding like im arguing?