Trouble Being Misinterpreted

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For as long as I can remember, I have always struggled conversing with others. People always seem to take what I say personally and accuse me of attacking or trying to insult them. This is never my intention but it happens almost daily. When people ask me something or try and talk I always give my opinion or say something that I consider relevant to the topic. I also tend to say the wrong things, according to them, because i take what they say too literally or rationally. Its frustrating and very confusing to me on how to be able to have conversations when I always seem to take things too literally or say something that apparently insults them or that they don't want to hear.

Does anyone else have a similar problem, and if so do you have any tips or tricks that you have figured out that help in these kinds of situations?

If this happens daily then think about your interactions with others that you think caused offence and try to work out what it was about it that caused them offence. Think about the situations where you most commonly "blurt out" something offensive and think about how you can "pause" in those moments to evaluate what you are about to say.

Sometimes it might just be that you have to lie...examples I see commonly are someone saying something like "I look so ugly in this shirt", or "I always screw this up" or something like that. When people expose faults they aren't looking for you to agree and tell them they do indeed look like ****, they're looking for you to disagree and prop their ego up. There are many things like this where you need to learn what people are looking for from you when they talk.

Basically there is no global solution to this, it will involve a lot of self-analysis to work out where you are going wrong. If you are "openly autistic" to "others" then I'd suggest you just take someone you respect aside and flat out ask them; "I realise I often say things that offend...could you explain the kind of things I say that you think are likely to offend and what I should say instead".

People tend to get insulted with just about any/everything.

Here's just somethings iv'e kept to over the years... At least in the office place, outside of the office, I don't care as much.

- Smile always, even in serious conversation. (If keyword #death = no smiling)
- "Just kidding" works wonders
- Emulate Emulate Emulate
- Agree with almost everything, just "yes", "yep", "mhm", etc... If you notice that they didn't want you to simply agree, add your input, they won't care no matter how bad it is (of course this is assuming you're following the first suggestion of smiling)
- Say as little as possible. If you do say anything make sure it's something they would find interesting. Naturally, they would find anything out of their normal day interesting.

It sounds like you may want to lead the conversation sometimes, from some experience, that may only happen successfully with 1 or 2 people, everyone else just wants to lead and have a proper exchange of words.

Do you ever read movie or show scripts ? They can be a good aid on figuring out what the proper response always is.

Again, just some input on what I do (did).

I completely resonate with your experience! Particularly my mom always used to get frustrated with me when I took her words literally. She often asked me if I "wanted" to help her with the dishes or do chores. It took some time for me to realize when she asked me such questions, they weren't actually questions at all. She didn't care what I did or didn't want to do, rather, her questions were a way of telling me to help her out.

Making mental notes of what you do to offend people right in the moment when they happen is the best way to avoid it in the future! Even if the situation might be awkward, simply ask the person you offended what it was that offended them (i.e. "You seem upset, and that makes me sad, but I'm a little confused. Help me understand why...."). I've found that such conversations are often productive!

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll have to try some of the stuff that was mentioned here and see if it works. Thanks again, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who seems to deal with this.