Social frustration

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Sometimes someone brings up a topic that sounds really interesting and then when I engage they cut me off because they don't want to talk about it. I have a bit of a ic you don't want to talk about it then don't bring it up attitude. I find this very irritating, it is like a face to face version of click bait. I often tend to act jaded when this happens.
Sometimes my mom starts talking about something but is tired from work and tells me she needs quiet time after bringing it up. I basically ask her in an irritated tone why she started talking then. Sometimes I play hard to get with my mom when she does this by conveniently being too busy for her so that she has to work for my attention to prove it is not just another click bait.
I have also had this problem in groups, sometimes they are having a personal conversation in a very public place and get irritated with me for not knowing it was personal. I have learned to sarcastically ask them why they are having it in public in response to their irritation.
Another one was my mom and stepdad talked off and on during a movie and told me to stop interrupting the movie everytime I talk. I got really mad at them and felt picked on. I don't generally watch movies with them anymore, I have a much more pleasant experience watching movies alone and talking to myself as wanted.
My mom has also told me that she was not in the mood to talk after work then had a rather in depth discussion with my stepfather shortly after. It felt like she cared about him more than me. I often help less with housework when this happens because I feel taken for granted then. I reinvest the time and energy that I was going to put aside for her to treat myself to something nice.
Does anyone else have experiences like these? I have a hard time not taking things personally because I have been treated differently throughout my life due to autism, so situations such as these often give me the sense of being picked on. I have become a more solitary individual over the years and feel happier that way.

Most likely they were in the mood to talk about it briefly but not in depth. Many NTs (and, even more so, many people with ADHD) enjoy conversations in which lots of different topics are briefly touched on, but none covered in-depth. I gather that you, like me, and like quite a few autistic people, would prefer conversations that delve more deeply into one interesting (to us) topic for a while, instead of jumping from topic to topic?


Yep. I can remember various frustrating conversations like this with relatives and others when I was younger.

The way I dealt with this was to seek out, as friends, people with strong interests in the same topics I was interested in.


I would guess that she started talking because she was in the mood for a little light meandering chit chat, but not for any serious in-depth conversation. For most people -- though not for you and me -- meandering chit chat is relaxing, whereas focused conversation on some particular topic requires effort.


Have you ever had a discussion with your mother (sometime when she was not too tired for it) about the differences between your and her conversational needs? Is she aware that lots of autistic people struggle with casual, meandering chit chat?

So that you can have a productive discussion with her about this, rather than just getting irritated at each other, you might find it helpful to look at some online tutorials on How to be assertive without being aggressive.


Perhaps the conversation might have been "personal" in the sense of "we don't want anyone else butting in," without necessarily being "personal" in the sense of "personal and confidential." They might have felt that it was obvious that they didn't want anyone butting in -- but we, as autistic people, may have difficulty recognizing these "obvious" signals.


That does sound very annoying, and hypocritical.


Or perhaps she just finds him easier to talk to? If they're both NT, then they probably do find each other easier to talk to.


Yep, it can be hard not to take stuff like this personally.

However, I strongly recommend training oneself in the art of responding in a more constructive way, which can drastically improve our relationships with family and friends. In particular, I recommend looking up tutorials on the following skill sets:

- Assertiveness (without being aggressive)
- Active listening
- Giving and receiving constructive criticism

Note: These days, many (not all) online tutorials on these topics emphasize things like eye contact and body language. If you have trouble with eye contact and body language, ignore them in favor of the purely verbal aspects of assertiveness, active listening, and constructive criticism. In my experience, if I'm dealing with people who already know I have trouble with eye contact and body language, I can get a lot of mileage out of just the purely verbal aspects of assertiveness, etc.

Thanks everyone for your helpful advice and insight. I am thinking that with the talking during the movies was we had a difference of which parts we found interesting, so they talked during the parts that I found interesting and I ended up talking during the parts that I didn't find interesting but they did. I prefer to watch movies alone now. I am working on being assertive without being aggressive but am often so anxious that I have trouble with contact and body language and even voice tone as well as knowing how to respond if I hear something that I wasn't expecting to hear. I often feel like I need to be aggressive for others to get me, I try to start off less aggressive but have a hard time maintaining it if others don't seem to care.
Also the wanting deep conversations is also part of being an introvert in addition to autism. I can small talk for a very short time but it gets boring and meaningless for me a lot more quickly than the general population. Small talk is basically a bunch of stuff I already know that I keep hearing everywhere I go. I tend to either go too deep and bore them or I lose interest and come up with a polite excuse such as needing to get somewhere.

That sounds like a good idea.


Like I said, don't worry about the eye contact and body language, etc, beyond just trying to speak as calmly as possible. Just focus on the verbal content of what it means to be assertive without being aggressive. One of the best online tutorials I've found is this one.


I see your point. Problem is, being aggressive can easily backfire and put people on the defensive, so they dig in their heels against whatever one is trying to tell them.


Hopefully you can find some friends who share your interests and enjoy talking about them. Have you tried Meetup.com?

Hi I do relate to what you are saying and personally I found it helpful to take a step back and brainstorm when someone does thing that I don't understand. When I can't think of a specific reason for an action I then also remind myself that as an aspie, I often misunderstand things and so try to ask the person why something happened.

I think the person above gave good possibilities for what was happening in the situations you described. I still don't understand when things are a secret or not and the fact I can't properly assess noise levels and that do not mix well so your mentioning of being told off for not knowing something was personal hit home. Perhaps stress to people they may need to explicitly tell you things and not just rely on you getting it?

I would also recommend learning more about body language from either books or articles and trying to learn as many psychological facts as possible. This might help give you more insight on what people are feeling when what they say conflicts with with their actions. Studying people and having discussions with others when I am confused has definitely helped with my social skills but things aren't perfect. Apparently I seem aggressive most of the time, even when I am not even remotely angry.

I notice that people talk for various reasons. The contents can be irritating. But perceiving the energy behind the words helps to set boundaries.