Anyone got someone say ''I wasn't talking to you!''?

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I have, and it has really put me off joining in. I don't know if it's just me getting confused with ''joining in without butting in'', or if it's just people being critical, nasty, or if it's just double standards, being that I lack confidence and I'm not popular enough to have my quirks happily ignored.

Kids used to say it at school. Whenever there was a group of girls in my class talking and I was sort of in the group too, I still always got told, ''I wasn't talking to you!''

Admittedly I haven't had many people say this since I've grown up, but I had one incident with this about two years ago. I've developed better social skills since I was a child, and I don't interrupt nor change the subject, so I think this person who said ''I wasn't talking to you'' was just being catty (meaning ''delibrately hurting someone's feelings''). She knew I was shy and had social anxiety issues, so there was no need to knock me back even further by saying that, because I knew full well that I was only trying to join in, and the conversation they were having was just small talk, it was not a private conversation of any sort at all, and I've seen other people jump into conversations and even interrupt others and nobody bats an eyelid about them doing it.

I hate when people do that.

Then people wonder why I have social phobia. People with social phobia are typically afraid of failing miserably in a social situation, and being told ''I wasn't talking to you!'' by an adult in such an abrupt way when I was just trying to join in was not appropriate and it did make me feel worse. I know not everybody will be like that, but to someone who has social phobia, AS, and low self-esteem, it is very unsettling.

My guess talking from my experiences is double standards.

Yes all the time because of that alot of times I dont talk to others I dont know much when getting introduced in social situations. People wonder why I am not as talkative well reason being is because of that response.

Yup, I get that quite a bit. I get confused whether someone is talking to me or someone else nearby or on the phone, and when I answer them, they just tell me, "Oh... well, that's nice, but I'm talking to (insert name here)."

I have also had people say, "I'm talking to you!" to me when I think they're talking to someone else. They usually think I'm ignoring them or go, "Well then... don't answer me!"

Or when people wave at me in the hallways, I frantically look around to see if they're waving at someone else. Then the person will say, "I'm saying waving at you!" and I'll just awkwardly wave back, trying to remember who they are.

Yes!

I've experienced that from peers, teachers, family members.

Yeah Ive had this before. Dont know why it seems ok for some people to chip in with their 2 cents in a conversation, but when I do it they see it as rude and either ignore me completely or complain im being rude and were trying to have a conversation here etc. These are people I know too, its not as if im just walking up to strangers and trying to join in with their convos. I honestly dont get it.

Oh, yes. Which has scared me from participating in conversations before.

But when I don't participate, it can be even worse. You know how, if you're really quiet, people might say something like "geez, shut up already!" or something of that nature?

Ugh. I hate that so much. How the hell do you respond to something like that? I used to just stay quiet and it'd be all awkward for a while, but now I say "yeah, well, you guys just weren't talking enough!" and laugh it off, but it's pretty horrible to have attention drawn to it like that.

What upsets me about it is people interrupt conversations all the time. Once I was asking one of the other volunteers at my voluntary job about something, and then one of the other volunteers just abruptly came upto us and started taking over the conversation, and I thought that was very rude indeed, much worse than what I do. But nobody does anything, they don't get told ''I wasn't speaking to you!'' But I know darn well that if I had done the exact same thing, they would all give me the ''I wasn't talking to you'' look.

I thought that a part of making friends is to join in. If it was ''wrong'' to join in conversations, then everybody would just be standing about waiting for someone to talk to them, and then if everybody followed that rule then nobody would end up talking to nobody, or everyone would be just having one-to-one conversations.

I remember once at High School, just after we all came in from outdoor PE because it was raining, two of the girls in my class were talking, and one of them said, ''my arms are all wet'', and the other one said, ''yer, my feet feel all wet'', and I was literally standing right near them and I said, ''my knees are wet'', and one of them said, ''we wasn't talking to you''. I didn't know I had just done something wrong, because I thought it was generally acceptable when you've all got something in common to discuss to other people about who are already talking about it, and it wasn't a private conversation, it was just small talk, really. If another girl had said, ''my knees are wet'', they would have just accepted her into the conversation and carried it on. It was probably because I was me.

Then people wonder why I feel like I'm a victim all the time.


I don't mind if someone had asked someone else a personal question and I thought they were talking to me and I replied and then that person said, ''I wasn't talking to you'' (in a nice way), I would just smile and say, ''whoops, my bad'', because we can all make that mistake. Or if I intentionally decided to reply, just for the sake of voicing something, and they say, ''I wasn't talking to you'', I would just say, ''OK, I know I shouldn't of done that.'' But when you're just joining in small talk, I don't expect to be spoken to like that when I'm just trying to join in or be friendly.