Apparently I make “one-sided conversations”?

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A lady who set up my vocational rehab wrote in a report that I make one-sided conversations, which was news to me. But I’m not exactly sure what that means. Can anyone enlighten me?

Could it mean that you quickly tend to direct the focus of any conversation to your own experience or interests? I know that's an issue with me.

See what I mean?

She probably means that you talk AT folks instead of with folks. You monologue instead of respond to what they are saying. That's my guess.

Well the thing is, I’m quite good at not rambling about special interests. I’m pretty quiet and reserved around people I don’t know, so the fact that she said that really surprised me. I certainly had that issue when I was younger, and maybe she just said that after she looked at the paper from my initial diagnosis.

This is one of my big issues. I can talk about myself, or talk about the other person, but I can't seem to find a balance. It's very important to find the balance in order to have a good conversation (as opposed to information exchange), but I'm just not able to do it. So my conversations tend to be one-sided and are not very entertaining.

Even if you no longer ramble about your special interests (a common trait among autistic people), you still may fail to have a good conversational give and take. You may not be aware of the time structure of conversation, with both people talking some and listening some, and following some simple rules for switching whose turn it is to talk.

You could look at this by sampling some actual conversations. See if your phone has a voice recorder (most do), and record a conversation, maybe 5 minutes. Then, go back and listen, taking notes. You can mark at what point you start and stop talking, at what point the other person stops and starts, and what, exactly, happens at the transition point.

Some things to look for are both people talking at once, whether you or your conversation partner gives signals of attention without a demand for the floor, queries for clarification of a statement, and noises (might not even be words) of agreement with what the speaker is saying. Most likely you will see a change in how you converse, because the main point of the exercise is awareness.

This all sounds like a lot of work, but it will probably improve your social skills. It could also be something you can work on together with a therapist or an employment counselor, if you lack the focus to complete the task on your own.

^ That business of talking over people in phone conversations is something I've never been able to eliminate, even though I'm aware of it when it happens.

Yes, this.

You talk/teach but don't ask & then listen or have much back and forth.

Are you of Austrian descent?

I am not. Do you know who that is?

Oh yeah....the guy who was scorned for his discoveries in his lifetime---but gained fame after his death.

Indeed, and now you know why he's my scientific hero. I won't die before what I've learned and done is validated completely - the process has already begun with studies that are already complete & more underway. But I can certainly relate to this deceased man who was labelled as insane for knowing something about medicine before others came to accept it.

I had a hard time seeing his name; I had to really LOOK.

This is my husband's worse problem. He monologs about ANYTHING. When you ask a question or jump in, he gets annoyed. The listener is actually irrelevant, because he has this burning need to get all the thoughts out of his head at once.

Also has the horrible habit of tangential thinking. The conversation starts out about Israel to technology to lithium ion batteries to electric cars to Davos to Bitcoin to Trump to Flat Earthers to Ryanair. The issue is that HE is making all these connections and leap frogging, and gets really angry when you don't keep up. And actually, maybe I wanted a discussion about Israel and not the all the other stuff.

His conversational skills are about the level of a 5 year old. I want to talk and share about what I want to talk and share about. He doesn't do this deliberately.

I wonder if the scorn was due to problems within himself that caused people to see him as annoying and arrogant or just plain kooky.

I get told that a lot too. I guess it means that you dominate the conversation. Which autistic people tend to do without noticing. I definitely do it a lot. I kind of forget to talk about the other person sometimes, or I start infodumping about my many special interests. I can't really strike I good balance between the other person and me very well. Either I don't talk to them at all, or I ramble.