Do you cut people off when you speak?

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I think this is one of the social skills that I struggle with the most, I never know when it is my turn to speak in a conversation. It becomes slightly easier when its 1on1, but in a group, forget it, I have no idea when I am supposed to speak, and usually end up interrupting them. On the phone, well, lets just say I avoid having conversations on the phone for this reason. Is this common with anyone else?

I know when it's my turn to speak but I interrupt people all the time. I find it really hard not to.

Yes, but I do have some awareness of when it's my turn to speak, thankfully.

I just tend to get overly excited, in a hyperactive sort of way and I interrupt. Or I just don't shut up. Part of the interrupting is also just impatience and impulsivity.

I suspect that I probably have ADHD, hyperactive subtype.

One big problem is that if I wait my turn, and am polite, no one listens to me or they talk over me and I never get a chance to speak. Been this way since elementary school, at least.

One time I answered my home phone, "Hello?" as I normally do.

A tense and anxious woman began to recite all the symptoms her child was experiencing, in great detail and with pressured speech, and finally asked if I thought she should bring the child in to see a doctor?

I said I really couldn't say, I'm afraid you have a wrong number.

Point being, had she let me get in a word edgewise, we could both have avoided a lengthy conversation. Sometimes people are rude to YOU - something we Aspies, worried about social graces, forget.

I have taken to using relative social rank to determine when I may speak over someone else, or let them do the same to me. When I call customer service, I figure I'm the patron and they're there to serve me, so if I need to interrupt, I do. If they begin to talk over me, I'll allow one or two instances and finally address the fact that I need to be allowed to speak. If offered a survey as to how my representative did, I will mention that they spoke over, or interrupted me.

On the other side of the coin, I work in customer service. I will tolerate quite a bit more interrupting from my customer, because I am there to set them at ease enough that I can solve their problem.

It annoys me when in a group, at a party or dinner, I am unable to get a chance to converse because someone (usually more histrionic or simply more self-assured) is doing the lion's share of the talking. I have politely listened but when I have something to say, no one allows me to. Who is the rude one in this scenario?

If you listen to almost any panel discussion on a political topic, you will find bad manners abounding. It's an empirical fact that men talk over women more than the reverse; but to receive the intellectual respect they are entitled to, women panelists must sometimes butt in with a comment. I find these scenes quite awkward and sometimes painful to listen to. But my point is, conversational politeness seems to be difficult for a wide range of people; Aspies tend to feel it's just them.

For a long time I have thought conversation has to be like in a classroom where only if there has been a pause of a few seconds a new topic can be started and nobody may interrupt.
...
Of course I didn't talk much. That's NOT how it works.
There's a point in time when someone has talked for a "while" and doesn't say much "interesting" anymore.
That's when to interrupt and start talking about something else.

ALL. THE. GOD. DAMN. TIME. It's really frustrating! What's also frustrating is when I pause to think about something or catch my breath, and people think I'm done talking so they start talking. The worst is when they immediately give me s**t for it afterwards! And talking to other aspies on Skype, don't get me started on how often we trip over each others' words... at least we all sort of understand why it happens. XD

Yup. Got a major chew out by a boss once over it too. Boy was he mad at me.

I completely agree. Aspies are most definitely not the only ones with trouble when it comes to these things. I think the reasons that aspies have these problems are probably different from the reasons most others do.

It's been known to happen ...

All the time! I'm starting to not care!

Last edited by ImAnAspie on 03 Jan 2016, 5:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

That's very interesting, and something I really can't understand. Why does it make you above another person if you are the customer and they the representative? They are there to answer your enquiry because that is their job. Not because they're "lower" than you. This must be some kind of powerplay based perspective? I just can't get my head around this sort of thing. I generally consider talking over or interrupting another person rude, and the idea of whether or not I'm entitled or not in any hierarchical way doesn't make sense to me.
However, there are exceptions, especially if I understand it is their fashion of speech. I know one particular person who has severe anxiety and any pauses in conversation trigger it. Thus he won't allow any pauses. If I don't talk he will just continue to and probably get anxious because I'm not responding. Talking over him or interrupting is actually polite when in conversation with this person, because it alleviates his source of anxiety and allows him to converse. I also have an elderly relative who constantly talks over others because they refuse to wear the prescribed hearing aids. I am attempting, in simply keeping talking when interrupted by this person, to illustrate that I won't accommodate their stubborn refusal to deal with their disability by allowing them to interrupt me. It has alienated everyone else they ever have contact with and they have to be made aware of the need to stop the behaviour.

Well, you notice I was happy to switch around when the roles were reversed. I don't think I'm above or lower, but based on the roles, one person is supposed to be serving the other. I treat a waiter differently than my dining companion, too - but then, I have been a waitress.


Wow now that last remark strikes me as pretty offensive. If someone said, "I am attempting, in simply ignoring and shunning my autistic relative, to illustrate that I won't accommodate their stubborn refusal to deal with their disability by allowing them to stim in my home," this place would be all over you. An elderly relative is someone I would not interrupt, because I feel they are due some deference simply by virtue of their age and secondarily because of their disability.

I've been taught it's absolutely unacceptable for more than one person to speak at the same time in a conversation. This means others don't have to tolerate either that I interrupt them while they're speaking or that I speak while they're interrupting me.

Not the 'real' Bea Arthur, to be sure! She's dead! I remember her!

Sometimes I do, but I try really hard not to. I have tremendous difficulty in sensing the flow of the conversation, like I wouldn't see the invisible ball people are throwing around with their eyes.

I have to say though that I've gotten better at it in recent years, since my current job offers plenty of opportunities for practice.

Apparently so, even though I try not to.

I think the worst offenders are actually not Aspies but a subset of extroverts, who have an opinion on everything under the sun, regardless of whether they have any relevant expertise in the matter at hand, and who use any sub-second gap in conversation to establish their 'level of competence' and social status.

My main problem is that I must articulate complete trains of thought without being interrupted, otherwise I have difficulty picking up the thread again. This sets me up on a collision course with the kind of people outlined above, because when I embark on a longer train of thought, it is usually because I have extensive expertise in the matter at hand.