Saying thank you

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Does anyone else really struggle with this? I know it's the polite thing to do, but it's SO AWKWARD. If I have to say it, I usually just mutter it, and that's hard enough, so if I can't be heard, I end up saying it very loudly and pretty much melting down because of the stress. This mostly occurs with my parents, who have told me to say thank you countless times. "It's not that hard [to say thank you]," said my stepfather scornfully yesterday. Well of course it isn't in your wonderful, perfect NT world.

I used to have lots of problems with that as a kid and early teen, and sometimes I still do today when it seems inappropriate to say for some reason. Wonder why. Surely I can't be that bad a person...

That's so weird, I had that problem as a child big-time and still feel awkward with it even now. IT's much easier now that most of my interacting with people is online, I can type it better than speak it.

I have problems with thank you's now most often when it's a compliment I"m supposed to be responding to, not sure why.

I have no problems with quick cashier type transactions though.

Me too. It feels so strange...

I say thank you automatically, so I don't really mean it.

When I was a kid, I was taught that the way to be polite was to say please when you want something, and thank you after you've got it.

This was a big problem for me as a child; my family all thought I was rude or selfish because I was very shy about saying "thank you." (But then I was very backward, to use my grandfather's phrase, about anything social. Used to exasperate the old guy to no end.) Around the age of ten I caught on to what was expected and started using effusive "thank you's" to the point where they thought I was being sarcastic. Eventually I found the correct calibration and it's OK now (and I can laugh about it).

No, I say it too often, in fact. Always thanking people for this and that, all the time.

I seem to be not the only one who had big struggles with this as a child, but not so much now. I've learned all that by rote now as an adult, as of course as you go through life just the sheer pressure of increasing years means you get lots of practice at saying please, thank you and other niceties.

But when I was a child, I couldn't get these words out -- I truly wasn't trying to be rude, I just felt really weird, awkward and embarrassed when I tried to say them! And the funny thing was, I actually realized how odd I felt and I wondered why. I was very aware that my embarrassment wasn't normal and I couldn't figure out why I had this squirmy feeling -- I got it about saying people's names, too! I couldn't for the life of me figured out why I felt so bashful about just saying someone's name -- "Um, John?" or "Hello Jane."

And I felt bashful about saying thank you or please or sorry. It wasn't that I didn't feel sorry, or thankful, or that I didn't want to say please. I felt the things behind the words, but somehow the words or the expression of those sentiments themselves embarrassed me. The best I can come up with was that they felt too "connective" to the other person, for me. They seemed intimate, like I was forming too close a moment with that person by using those words or their name, while I was more in my own world and happy to stay there.

I was really older, like almost 30, when I'd forced myself so much that I got used to using these automatically like everyone else. Names too are not uncomfortable for me to say now either. It's something I felt weird about when young and gradually learned to lose that.

I also have the most problems with responding to compliments, but don't know why. I guess it might be because I often feel awkward about getting comliments and don't know what to response.
Those cashier interactions are more easy because it's the same all the time. It's just predictable. Even when I am not there yet I know what to expect. That's quite different to reacting spontaneously when suddenly someone tells me a compliment for example.


I was like this, too. I was so shy about it that and so people told me very often how rude that behaviour is.


I still have that problem with names. I avoid to call people by their names as much as possible. I don't know why, it just feels uncomfortable. Maybe it's also because I tend to forget people's names and am afraid to say a wrong name, but I even avoid it when I am totally sure about someone's name.


That's a good explanation. I think that's true for me, too.
Another problem for me as a child was that I felt thankful but didn't say it because I thought it's normal to feel thankful for it, so the person already knows that I am thankful and I wouldn't have to say it. It was like I expected them to know what I feel like. For example when I got a nice present I was happy. I thought the other person knows that people are happy about receiving presents because that was logical to me. But when the person already knows that, why should I say it? I know now that this isn't true and that people assume you are rude when you do that and try to say thank you when it is appropriate.

I tend to forget saying "thank you" rather when I am really thankful. It seems like I am so thankful and feel so good about it that it fills my head so much that I forget it although that would be the moment when I really should say it. Does anyone else have this?

Yes, like the others say, I had huge troubles saying thank you as a child. My mum recently told me that I couldn't thank my grandmother for dinner (in my language, we say "thank you for the food" after a meal to whoever cooked it, and it's expected that especially children say this), so I wrote her a thank you note instead. I also couldn't say things like "happy birthday" or "here you go" when handing over a birthday present. I believe I also had troubles saying "goodbye", though I don't recall more than one or two occasions of this, but to this day I actually have problems with that. In fact, when I graduated from university and were leaving the house I shared with my housemates, I managed to "sneak off" early in the morning without saying goodbye to them. It was just so stressful and I hate when things get emotional. I'm better at it now though.

This is the same for me too. It's almost like I've been conditioned to offer that response whenever the situation presents itself.

Whenever I go out to eat at a buffet or something I must say "Thank you" at least fifteen times to the waiter as they refill my drink and come by to collect empty plates, etc. It's almost become ritualistic or compulsive and I'll find myself even saying it when, in my mind, someone else has failed to do so.

I wonder at times if I come across as sarcastic or patronizing...

This. I really wonder.....is something a lot of children have trouble with, or just AS people? It's almost scary running into these posts that describes a childhood hangup that I've never even articulated. It's as if these experiences belong to an entirely different world.

I stopped writing thank you notes for Christmas/birthday presents in the fifth grade. I guess I kind of found them pointless. I've developed a philosophy about gifts since, that you should only give them without expecting anything in return.

I verbally say "thank you" a lot. It's a social script. Sometimes, after I say "thank you", I wonder if saying that actually made sense.

I always say thank you, it has become a habit for me even if sometimes it's not necessary.

Yes, I always say all my pleases and thankyous now, and have no problems with them; it's become habit for me now and I'm over the difficulty.

But when I was a child and for a very long time into my young adulthood, I had a weird habit of either forgetting or ust omitting or feeling outright strange about it, and I've never figured out why, because it wasn't that I wanted to be rude, it was just this unexplainable discomfort.





I know, it's a wild experience for me too, to find out that I'm not the only one who had this weird childhood hangup! I always felt like I must be the only person, and that was a very lonely, odd feeling. I used to mentally beat myself up about it when I was a kid going through this. It seemed like such an odd thing to feel weird about -- but then, so did my hangups about clothing labels!



I totally relate to that, yeah! As a child that what's I thought too; I kind of thought these things were a "given" and the other person should be or is probably taking it as a given the same way I did. I've learned differently now but it took half a lifetime!

I have the exact same experience. Nowhere else have I found a community where so many of my "quirks" are not only shared, but actually pretty common! Makes me even more sure that I'm on the spectrum.