Does anyone find themselves… frozen?

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I was in the pub today having a couple of pints. I had a meal. It was OK, but the chicken came cold. I should have said something at the time but didn't think of it.

When it came to paying up the landlady (with about six people at the bar) very publicly asked me if it was OK.

I froze. I just couldn't get the words out. I mean, I didn't want to be offensive by saying 'no' in front of all those people but saying it was entirely fine when it wasn't was untrue. She has a tendency to do that rather than let me give my thoughts in a quiet manner.

It's like she's setting herself up for a fall when she asks me like that.

So, I just couldn't say anything.

Eventually, she assumes that it wasn't OK and it was horrible. I tell her that's not the case but the chicken was cold. (I was eating it outside - fine, fair enough, food does tend to cool off quicker when outside but this was cold. The potatoes, which were cooked right the way through, were absolutely fine. I was on a chicken caesar salad.)

So I didn't know where to go. Anyway, she disappeared and I assumed stormed off somewhere to cry/be reassured. I suspect she has self-esteem issues - it's common in the overweight as I know all too well.

So what can I do about it in future? I was paralysed between saying 'yes' and 'no'. I felt like anything less than an unequivocal 'yes' would have been an embarassment to her. I'm in there relatively often, though not as often as I once was.

Damn, being Aspie has its difficult moments.

yes it is-happens to me all the time-a waitress forgot about me and my dessert order of ice cream and she came back and asked if everything was ok and I couldnt speak up and I am afraid to ask my boss stupid questions because I think he is going to yell or say that I am stupid or something.

Yes, I've been frozen many times in many different kinds of circumstances.

I remember once I was at a restaurant for a good three hours and couldn't order at all. I knew what I wanted, I just couldn't say it.

I'm guessing the landlady asked you a perfunctory question that wasn't really meant to be answered, the commercial equivalent of , "How are you?" That's why she was willing to take the risk of asking you in front of several other customers.

Nonetheless, you have a right to answer honestly, as long as you temper the response. Something like, "Now that you ask, the chicken could have been warmer, " should get the point across without embarrassing either party. In fact, I would expect the landlady of a pub to have a fairly tough hide, whatever her weight. On your next visit you are free to act as if nothing has happened.

There is a remote possibility that the chicken was cold on purpose and she was toying with you in front of her favorite customers, but from your description I don't think this was likely. Should this happen, and it has certainly happened to me, it's best to deny that anything was remotely wrong, get out quickly and stay away forever.

I can understand this. It takes so much effort to suppress the truth when you know you might offend someone. I find it hard to say something polite because I know the first words out of my mouth will be the truth, and that's what my brain is stuck on, like a frozen computer. Sometimes I think there is a Mac-style spinning wheel above my head.

I hate being touched, especially by strangers and informal acquaintances, so the first thing I want to do is recoil and say "please don't do that." I know this is the wrong thing to do, so I politely accept the hugs or whatever it happens to be, and then I go mute. I just know if I open my mouth I will say something rude.

I get that feeling sometimes when I feel no-one is teaching me at my band...

They say to me "Do you know this?" which is usually a no, I get taught some of it but then the next week they ignore me and don't carry on through with it...then there are times when I DO know it and they teach me anyway! It's like "I don't want to offend you but I did say yes, I DO know it..." or "I know most of it and I shown you the pasrts I do know but you are showing it me again anyway? Why?...." and this is a band where we rarely learn new songs because how lax the group all are about it and make it like a social club of what they were doing all week rather then using this time to actually PRACTISE!

These guys talk to each other on Fb, see each other out of band, have phone numbers...and they decide to faff around for an hour at practise whilst I pretty much twiddle my thumbs?

Yeah, it's annoying as they KNOW I want to learn and not ask them "How was their week" as they pretty much do the same thing day in, day out.

I sometimes freeze when dealing with an angry customer at work (I work as a cashier supervisor at a grocery store). For me, there are so many possible responses running through my head that it takes me time to sift through them all; stock responses just don't work with angry customers. Unfortunately, when I take so long to respond, the angry customer tends to assume I'm either lying or just not paying them proper attention.

It also happens in other situations when scripted responses don't work.

Yes, I freeze up sometimes. Once in awhile, I'll get caught between what is the "socially correct" response versus the more honest response. It can be painful to say that you are doing well when you are not. On the flip side, some people get overly upset when you do tell them the truth.

When I freeze up, silence is often the response... and unfortunately, missing a beat and/or silence is usually interpreted negatively.

I freeze when somebody gives me directions that I don't understand. I'm even more likely to freez when I'm told a bunch of gibberish, afterwards.

I sometimes freeze up in conversations, but also when nothing is being said. If the day has been very eventful, or has included a lot of things that aren't a part of my usual routine like dental work I may be more prone to being overloaded. I may go semi-catatonic for maybe less than 30 seconds and appear to stare blankly at the screen at a supermarket self checkout for example and someone might ask me if everything is OK. I have to be careful not to get stuck sometimes.

Yes, it has happened to me quite a lot, and as other said, the silence has tended to be interpreted as negative. As this resulted in some lost opportunities, I got myself in the habit of saying yes to everything immediately, instead of waiting until my mind processed it, which is apparently too long for many people. So now I'm trying to get myself out of that habit, because now I'm saying yes to things I don't want to say yes to.

Happens to me far too often. I hate it.

I can't tell you how happy it makes me to hear that others go through this.....so many of your responses I can identify with. I freeze when anything triggers emotion in me, or Im unsure or insecure about the question and response, Im not sure what they are looking for in the answer vs what my real answer is vs what would be appropriate vs why the heck do i do this to myself. Then I just shut down and usually they interpet my lack of response or the horrified look on my face as a negative. It starts this cycle of insecurity that i will then keep going in my head and go over and over the same situation to see where it all went wrong and what I should have done. The worst is when that is all running through my head, the need to be honest and true to myself is so strong that I then freeze on myself and have no idea what the heck I really want.