What social faux pas did you do today?

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I haven't made any faux pas today because I am being a hermit for three days, until 20.15 tomorrow evening. Maybe being a hermit for three days is a faux pas.

i went to my employee's (the driver for my run) house to pick up the proceeds for the week, and it is the first time i have ever been there.
i never met his wife before or his children. i complimented his house and the area he lived in (as i had rehearsed in my mind before i got there), and i accepted a coffee (which i have been advised numerous times to do by people giving me advice on how i seemed rude to people *) , and i sat down at his dining room table while he plied me with the weekly accounts and receipts etc. his wife walked in and was very pleasant, and she sat down and asked me about my new house, and i answered in a non eyebrow raising way. every thing was going well until his 2 children entered the room.

he has a boy of about 11 and a girl of about ? (maybe 5 i thought).
he introduced me to them and i said "hello" etc, and after they left the room i remarked "thank goodness those are only her milk teeth".

the little girl had a tooth arrangement on both top and bottom gums that resembled the bony sails on a stegasaurs back, and they were outrageously out of alignment.

i was then informed that the little girl was 9 years old, and that they were her permanent adult teeth.
i realized i was then in a dilemma, and i am not sure if i escaped it unharmed.

the drivers name is "mel" and his wife's name is "the drivers wife" (as far as i am concerned).
my driver speaks almost no english and he is italian.


driver: mark...! mark...! why you say my daughters teeth bad?
me: i did not realize they were her final teeth.
driver: but why you have to say anything?
me: well i did not know they were her final teeth.
driver: mark...! mark...! why you care what her teeth look like huh?
me: well they look odd to me and i thought they would also look odd to you, but i never would have said anything if i had known that they were her final teeth.
driver: it no matters mark. is no good that you said that.
me: but i did not say it in front of her.
driver: ok ok. i know that you are.... are....lemethink... errr....
me: actually i am in a hurry so i must toddle off sorry.

i do not know the state of affairs in his mind at the moment but i should not have mentioned his daughters teeth.

lesson number #197,614


* it is apparently rude to refuse a persons offerings. i am told that people who offer things want others to accept those things. i do not understand why.

i once told a person who was rather poor that i did not want to accept his offer of a cup of coffee, and the person i was with ("nt") told me later that i was extremely rude.

i reasoned that the person that offered me coffee was quite destitute and was scarcely able to provide me with the luxury of a coffee, and so i decided to save him the money of providing me with a coffee with my declination of his offer.

i did offer to pay for the coffee, but when the offer was declined, i decided i was not going to have a coffee.

i thought i was being altruistic, but instead i was being snobbish (according to external narratives).

In Latin class I laughed uncontrollably and ended up snorting at a nerdy joke by the TA which I thought was hilarious. I got some strange looks and probably turned red, but this happens to me all the time as apparently I have a weird and overactive sense of humour-- so I'm used to it.

My social faux pas today? I didn't answer my phone calls, I refused when a friend wanted to hang out. Too much anxiety, don't want to go out.
Kids next door said "hi" and I didn't respond back, too surprised. Damn, kids are more socially mature than i am.

I guess this was a social faux pas...

I was in Walmart this morning and I really, really needed to pee. But this particular one was not a store I'd ever been in before and I couldn't find the bathroom. I also couldn't find anyone who worked there.

So after wandering around for like 10 minutes, I swallowed my anxiety and asked a woman who was shopping if she knew where the bathroom was.

She glared at me, said "I don't work here" and walked away.

I KNEW she didn't work there, but I just thought she might know where the bathroom was... was that wrong? I know where the bathroom is in every store where I shop regularly and if somebody asked me, I'd just tell them.

Apparently I did it wrong. I dunno, maybe I came off weirder than I thought, but I really desperately just wanted to pee. Turns out, this store's potty was way in the back corner and not marked. I had passed it twice but didn't know.

That's the stuff I don't get. How do NT's instinctively seem to know where to go to use the facitilites, how to find a store clerk, or how to approach a stranger for information without wigging them out? WWND? (What would an NT do?)

And how do you tell the difference between them being freaked out by my approach ... or if the NT was just rude?

I think they were just being rude. I would have said "I don't know" or "sorry, I don't know", or if I knew I'd tell them where it was.

Amusing one from a couple days ago: A friend (who I shared my possible aspie-ness with--I'm undiagnosed) shared some good news with me. A few moments go by and it occurs to me: "Oh, I guess I was supposed to congratulate you there."

I did some on holiday (vacation) last week:-

I get upset when my mum and my aunt sneeze, because they're always really loud and they do about 20 in a row, usually, and it gets unbearable for me. And on one of our excursions, we stopped at a shop and in the shop my aunt sneezed loads of times, and none of the others from the coach were in the shop with us at the time. Then when we got back on the coach and were on our way to somewhere else, a woman behind us sneezed, and I didn't mind her sneezing and so I turned around and went to say ''bless you'', but then my social phobia kicked in and so I snapped my mouth shut again. Not sure if she saw me turn around or not. Then about 15 minutes later, my mum sneezed, and I said to my aunt, ''aw, she's starting now!'' Then immediately afterwards I started worrying that the woman behind might of heard me say that and might of thought I don't like anyone sneezing at all, which might have made her feel uncomfortable sitting near me after that. OOPS!! !

Also on holiday the man behind me accidentally hit me with his walking stick when we were all standing up before getting off the coach. At first I thought it was somebody tapping me, so I turned round and saw that the man and his wife were busy collecting their bags and so I could tell he didn't even know he hit me with his walking stick by accident, so I pretended it didn't happen and just went to get off the coach. But when we were getting off the coach, the man suddenly asked me, ''did I hit you with my walking stick?'' and I smiled and said, ''yeah, you did, but it's OK.'' He said sorry and I said, ''don't worry about it, it's fine.'' I assumed someone else saw and told him that his walking stick hit me or something, but then I started worrying about what I should have said. Should I of said yes or should I of just said no? Because I know about the lying thing NTs do, and I'm not normally ''too honest'' myself for an Aspie, but in this situation I was unsure of whether I should have lied or not. But then if I had of lied and said no, then would I have looked more stupid if somebody had clearly seen the man's walking stick hit me? And anyway, I did take it well, I did smile and said, ''it's OK'' in a friendly way, so if I had been grumpy about it and yelled, ''yes you did, please don't do it again, OK?!'' then I might of been inappropriate then.

I kept falling my the hi jinks of a coworker at work yesterday. He would come in and say something (apparently) absurd in the middle of some random conversation, and since he didn't laugh or make a face when he said it it was indistinguishable from the rest of what he said and I believed him. He would wait a few seconds and then laugh because I "fell for it".

The walmart here where I live...the front wall (entrance wall) is where the bathroom actually is.