Accidentally interrupting people...?

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I've noticed, especially lately, that I have a habit of not quite knowing when it's my turn to speak.

Example: I was on a ski lift multiple times today with different strangers, and of course small talk comes up. As we got beyond "so, where are you from..?", etc., I caught myself starting to say things right as the other people were trying to speak. Does anyone else have this problem?

My son and I both have this problem. I think it's pretty common with AS. I am generaly ok with one or two people, but if the group gets larger I have a terrible time entering the conversation smoothly.

Yes.

I've started to not care about it and just open my mouth anyways unless I'm sure someone else is going to say something. If someone gets upset I can apologize. I get cut off a lot too, and most of the time don't say anything and I've noticed recently that other people often don't say anything when interrupted. It's not like anyone's going to get that mad, and if they are and they don't say anything they only have themselves to blame.

I have a pretty big problem with this. I cannot seem to appropriately gauge when to speak and when to shut up. As a result, I often remain silent until someone asks me to speak. When I don't, I interrupt people all over the place and they become very angry. This kind of pisses me off, because when they interrupt or flat out talk over me...I never react. Not because I am OK with it, but because I am just not into confrontation....and I am a bit shocked that they would turn around and do something that they yell at me for doing. I usually have to walk away at that point. Hypocrisy really REALLY pisses me off. I start wondering how many teeth they would swallow if I were to hit them in the mouth...

My current task I have given myself is not to do this. I recently realised it was rude and that I do it all the time. Now when I do it I eeek guilty afterwards.

My son went through a phase where he'd say something and then add to it just after I'd opened my mouth to reply. I'd respond by either shutting up and feeling annoyed, or raising my voice and forcing the conversation my way, just for the one sentence. I don't recall doing anything to fix it, I guess it got better by itself.

I know a guy with lots of Aspie traits whose timing is strange like that. I get the same kind of annoyance when he cuts across what I'm about to say, but his conversational style is so odd that I deal with him rather differently, and tend to wait a bit longer before I risk opening my mouth. It's quite clear that he has difficulty so it's less of a shock.

Me, I only interrupt people if it's an urgent matter, and sometimes I think even then I might not.

I can never figure out how to insert myself in a conversation without interrupting. There's something about the timing that is just impossible for me. I can track timing when I'm not in the conversation, but the moment I involve myself, it just goes haywire. Probably because being involved in a conversation involves combining too many other skills, and I have a hard time doing more than one thing at a time.

This is made worse by the fact that I use a communication device, and when it first starts up after being dormant for a certain amount of time, it has this delay time of two seconds. So even if I get a perfect opening to say something, someone else can step in. And that it's only two seconds says a lot about how touchy conversational timing can be.

But yeah it's not something I can easily "work on", because it's a matter of not being able to combine skills past a certain point, and being monochanneled is not something you can just get over because you want to.

I've always had that problem too.

My biggest problem is having something to add to a conversation and, while waiting and looking for my opening (which I sometimes never see) the conversation changes and the only talking point I had to add is mute by the time I can see a jumping in point. I'll have people stop a conversaton and ask me if I had something to add because I suppose its obvious I've been waiting to do so but, by then, I'm too discouraged to bother.

Smile - 'no, it wasn't important.' And go back to spectating...

If I didn't interrupt people I'd never get any chance to say anything. I mean I'd never get a chance to say "hey I'm heading out" or "Oh but can you not put onions on mine?". A lot of people just getting in a word edgewise is impossible without interrupting them. I've tried to respect letting other people finish saying what they wanted to and only once they're done speak, it lead to a few years of being near mute because no one would give me the slightest opening to talk. Now I interrupt people just as much as they interrupt me, it's the normal thing to do.