r/autism • u/therearentdoors AuDHD • 1d ago
Discussion anyone misinterpreted a social situation only to realize how you misunderstood it months or years later?
I quit my last job (software developer) due to stress and anxiety and have been working as a postal worker for close to a year now. There were many factors contributing to my quitting my last job, but one involved extreme confusion over a company Christmas meal where I felt I was being called out for a mistake I made - underestimating when a project would be finished, leading to the company having to pull a more senior developer onto the project to get it over the line. The tech director made a comment about how bad that was but sarcastically commenting “oh, but it’s best endeavors, so that’s fine”.
It was slightly unprofessional of him to say this, but I only realized recently after talking over it with someone + with an LLM, over two years later, that I basically misinterpreted the situation completely. I thought “best endeavors” meant something about specifically my conduct, whereas I realize now that it is something the company applies to itself in a difficult situation to explain what it’s doing to bring a project to completion. This resulted in almost a total 180 for me, I realize I massively misunderstood the situation and I needn’t have ruminated over it so much. Almost to the point where I want to contact the company again to ask for my old job back lol. (Though there were other factors leading me to leave)
Is this relatable? I realize it’s not something that would happen exclusively to autistics, but having difficult with language/literal meaning/social implications is something I often struggle with so it was a factor in this misunderstanding.
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u/Nabakov_6 1d ago
There was a guy in my high school that would talk to me in idk how to describe it but a “nice” voice and I always thought it was a mocking tone and he was infantilizing me so I ignored him a lot until after graduation he was the only one from high school who ever checked up on me or cared about what I was up to, it turns out he wasn’t mocking me he was genuinely being nice and maybe even liked me as a person, made me kinda feel bad
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u/Sallymandoor 1d ago
I did that SO much in school, I still have to check myself on that. Nothing puts my walls up like someone just smiling and being aggressively friendly. I owe some people from middle and high school some apologies 🥲 meanwhile I had "friends" that were actually the bullies
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u/Nabakov_6 1d ago
Exactly I ended up thinking he was bullying me because there was a girl who talked to me with the same mannerisms but with malicious intentions
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u/Competitive_Ad_2421 1d ago
That's totally understandable that you would think that then... seriously!
To be honest people that smile all the time kind of freak me out
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u/R0B0T0-san Suspecting ASD 1d ago
So at the end of high school I used to be bullied quite a bit. But during last year, my dad let me use his car all the time which was very sweet. Not a fancy car or anything but I was quite happy to use it. And somehow this girl, a sister of an acquaintance started talking to me and being nice and asked me for lifts since she lived in my neighborhood. At some point she just would wait for me at my cars and never ever even considered the possibility that she could just be interested in me or wanted to be a friend, I actually started wondering if she was abusing my kindness and eventually asked her to stop asking me for lifts.
Years laters, last year actually when I realized autism was a possibility. I was looking back at life moments and one thing I clearly missed was how to interact with girls and figure out if they're flirting or being interested about me. And so I realized she probably just wanted to hang out with me and or eventually sort of date me maybe?
Or that other girl who always invited me to go with her at improvisation dinners for some reason or always found ways to try to invite me and dumb me was like : I don't know, I usually eat at home, why would I want to go to a coffee shop?
Or even now with my wife when it took me almost 2 years of hanging out almost exclusively with her to take a chance and ask her out officially. Lol
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u/Odd-Mastodon-2345 1d ago
I have a brother with ASD, "Classic Aspergers" yes- theres a number or something I suppose. I also have 4 sisters and another brother. The oldest one with the ASD. Im an occupational therapist, have 2 sons with ASD; and generally dont consider myself a bitch. No MATTER what my brother said, although a genius and epidemiologist, his opinion was dismissed by one sister RN and another sister nurse practioner. The retired nurse the worst! Behind his back - " he is just an idiot savant- he knowns nothing!" GRRRR.. on my part. My bit_h sister sends him a text- FULL of sarcasm- he didnt get the sarcasm as is VERY literal. Once someone explained it- he was understandably very hurt by it- as he had NO idea that his valid input wasnt wanted by her... makes my blood boil. My oldest 27, high functioning and though he uses many abstract analogies- absolutely cannot get the rather obvious analogies that I use- its not concrete enough. Husband (2nd) with high functioning ASD- although probably not as high as my son; ALSO with terrible understanding of sarcasm and analogies. We struggle with communication too at times, when that happens and I get frustrated; I have to remember unlike 99% of general population- he is NOT manipulative- bears really no true malice- and absolutely cannot lie! So as frustrating as communication is at times, his other qualities are infinitely better than the rest of the human race. Sorry this happened, but now that you understand better- may help you in the future! Best of luck!
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u/mabhatter 1d ago
Yes. On a bad night my brain can dig up stuff from 30+ years ago. Of course now that I know about autism, I can see how I missed a cue or misunderstood something and got my feelings hurt for nothing. Like 50%+ of the times I felt picked on were just me not coping correctly with normal social interactions. The others were actually being picked on... but made worse because I still can't tell sarcasm from actual picking on from missed social cues to this day.
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u/Adariano 1d ago
Yeah some degenerate tried to rob me, but I didn’t notice what he was doing so I just walked away lmao
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u/CBJ_Brain 21h ago
Been there — and done that, multiple times.
By chance, I actually wrote about one of those moments this morning on my personal blog.
At age 5, I gave the “wrong” answer in a social situation — and got punished for it. Someone asked me if I liked her new clothes. I answered honestly with ( you guessed it ) "No".
Only after my autism diagnosis at 37 did I finally understand what I did wrong… and why.
That incident was probably the start of my internal social scripting process.
But consciously? I didn’t start debugging that code until 32 years later.
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u/stopgenocide1 1d ago
How do you know it's sarcastic?
I'm confused now too. I wonder if you were communicating with the company ASAP if you feel it may not be finished on time?
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u/therearentdoors AuDHD 1d ago
I knew it was sarcastic based on how everyone else in the room visibly reacted to what he was saying. But I guess also tone, and experience of how and what he generally said.
I had given an estimate a few days prior basically promising the project would be finished within 48 hours. I knew there was a major technical hurdle I had yet to solve, but was kidding myself that I could solve it in the time remaining - which in the end I couldn't, so I had to go back at the end of the day and tell them "this isn't going to be finished by Xmas".
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u/CBJ_Brain 21h ago
That is the million dollar question I guess. I'm still having a hard time figuring that out. Usually get angry first and then realizing it was sarcasm.... Story of my life.
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u/sapphire_unicorns 1d ago
Yes. It makes me think my perception is distorted and that I can’t follow my judgment on important things without running it by someone. Bad experiences like the one you described have me constantly wondering if I’m the a-hole in a situation.
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u/ReserveMedium7214 AuDHD 1d ago
Wait, you left a job because of stress to become a postal worker? OMG my head is spinning. I must ask how that’s working out. Is this something you plan to continue doing? I have a sincere reason tor asking.
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u/therearentdoors AuDHD 1d ago
I love my current job as I don’t have to take work home, I clock in, do my work, and go home. It is not an easy job though and I’m doubtful I could do it long term lol. It is stressful but in a different way to software development wheee - especially if you want to progress - there’s a lot of responsibility.
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u/ReserveMedium7214 AuDHD 1d ago
I only realized I’m autistic last year, two years after my 22-year postal career inevitably crashed and burned due to my deteriorating mental health. A deterioration that was no doubt fueled by 22 years of struggling to survive the most toxic work environment known to mankind. I worked in six different post offices and two plants in three states, looking for someplace I’d be happy long-term. Not to be, I grew to hate every place I landed. My sense of justice and fairness, which I now know stems from my neurodivergence, was 1000% incompatible with an environment that favors entitlement, seniority, and relies on good workers picking up the slack of the shitbums. In retrospect, i don’t know how I lasted that long. It’s probably only because I didn’t know I was autistic.
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u/therearentdoors AuDHD 22h ago
I’ve only been in postal work for about a year in a different country but I can relate to this. I simply have high tolerance for now as there were so many worse things about previous jobs I’ve had lol.
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