Alice

I considered this, but the fact that it's been two different friends plus my sister made me think I was the one being a dick.

Maybe we're all dicks

I don't think that's quite right. I'm a basketcase and they know it. They're always pretty rightfully annoyed with me for catastrophizing. I also used to try too hard to reassure them— eg, someone would say he feels like a bad person and I'd remind him of the good things he's done— and they had to explain to me that that's a dick move.

Its certainly harder to explain over text since we can't hear your tone. Do you put in a lot of effort when you speak ? Does talking come naturally, or do you spend a lot of energy trying to be polite ?

It definitely takes a lot of energy. Using the right tone, making the correct amount of eye contact, listening to what the other person is saying, and not talking so long to come up with a reply that they get mad at me, feels like multitasking. I really try, though.

Also a two day argument is a long argument. Who kept it going? Who would bring it up first?

I guess we both kept it going. I should have dropped it but I hated leaving the conversation with him thinking I was lying. That's another problem I know I need to work on.

Edit: I see in one comment that you are autistic. Have you talked to your friends and family about what this means in a conversation ? At some point its on them, honestly.

I've talked about autism before, but two of my friends are autistic and the other has a TBI, so they told me it wasn't really fair for me to expect them to hold my hand and explain everything I was doing wrong, which I think is fair. As for my family, there's no talking about psych stuff with them.

Either way I'd rather learn social skills than ask everyone I meet to let me be rude since I'm autistic. No one's going to want to put up with that.

Eh, I've gotten that feedback from two different friends, plus my sister. And I know I'm autistic. So at some point I have to accept that I'm sending messages I really don't mean to.

One possibility is that it's how you phrase things? Everything seems fine here but people tend to write and speak differently, so just throwing out a possibility here.

Maybe? I feel like I try too hard to be polite sometimes. My last therapist told me I was allowed to ask my friends for better ways to phrase things, but they got mad and said I was putting them on the spot.

Last time I explicitly said, "sorry, that was my fault," and explained what I did wrong, and my friend still took it as me calling him stupid.

I'm beginning to think it's just too complex for anyone to explain to me how to be nice

Also some subjects are sore as you experienced with your unemployed friend, so having this habit of taking a step back might have helped with realizing that in advance. It's not always doable of course, you can't know everything.

What do you do when you accidentally bring up a sore subject? Last time, I apologized and said I should have realized (I should have), and my friend and I got into a two-day argument about whether it was a sincere apology or not. I finally asked what I did to deserve being accused of lying and he just said "well if I had said that I'd mean it manipulatively, so I assumed you did". So apologizing in that scenario is taken as manipulative, right?

When I was a kid I absolutely loved The Chronicles of Narnia and I hated The Last Battle. I thought King Tirian was an unpleasant asshole and I thought killing the Pevensies sucked because they all go to Narnia Heaven forever while Susan has to bury them.

It probably wasn't a bad book but it felt like it ended my childhood.

I went into more detail in this comment. Can't pull exact quotes as I left the group chat because I was tired of constantly causing arguments, so this is the best of my recollection.

Also once friend A was feeling guilty because he was enjoying the weather even though it was the side effect of a natural disaster. I didn't know this at the time, I was talking with friend B who was encouraging me to vent about my family.

I wasn't being treated for my OCD and was a paranoid pain in the ass and kept asking why it was OK, when last time I was told that venting about my family was insulting to friend A. Friend A saw this conversation and immediately posted "I know the real reason you're mad at me—" (I wasn't mad) "—it's because I'm a colonizer!"

I don't pick up on these things and spent the next several weeks trying to figure out why my question insinuated he's a colonizer, and how to ask things without calling people colonizers.

Like some examples I could give just sound really weird if you weren't there. And that's just one where I eventually picked up on what actually went wrong. Mostly I just look back on old arguments and I'm really confused and I wouldn't be surprised if they sound like word salad when I try to describe them.

This is a good suggestion, thanks!

I've tried but I work 8-5 and through the weekend, I can't find anything compatible with my hours 😭 I'd love to join one of the local hiking groups someday

No, it's mostly my friends and family telling me I'm being an asshole or insinuating things I didn't mean to. Oddly enough, people seem to like me at work.

I wasn't directly called a dick, but I get told I "clearly" mean something I didn't mean a lot. Like once I was complaining that my siblings (all late 20s to early 30s) didn't work and expected my mom to pay for everything, and a friend came in with "I know you're just mad at me for being unemployed" when I wasn't talking to or about him. Another time, I was venting (with permission) and said I was scared I was a bad person, and this friend took it to mean he was a bad judge of character, and even after I apologized he kept talking about what a bad judge of character he is.

I thought it was just this friend projecting his insecurities, but recently I was arguing with another friend and I apologized and said it was my fault for not explaining myself clearly, and he took it to mean I thought he was too stupid to have serious conversations with. He said I look down on him for being disabled and stopped talking to me.

My sister has also gotten mad at me without warning during casual conversations and I have to pry an explanation out of her and it's always "your tone of voice made it sound like you were picking a fight".

Also multiple instances where I was repeatedly told my apologies weren't genuine and I was lying.

So no one's straight up called me a dick, but I think a person who says or thinks the things I'm communicating would be a dick. Whether I mean to be or not, the person I'm presenting to the world is a dick. I make people feel awful about themselves, and I want to not do that.

Anyway, thanks for the tips. I try to do all those, but now that I think about it, I'm probably bad at the last one. I've definitely been yelled at for not shutting up before.

Kinda rough. I used to have a tight knit friend group but I stopped doing things with them as one guy kept accusing me of being passive aggressive, insulting him, lying about what I "actually" meant when as far as I know I was being genuine. It was making me a nervous wreck and my attempts to avoid conflict made everything worse so I ghosted everyone. Kept hanging out with one guy who I thought I was pretty close to, though.

But now I'm starting to think I was wrong. My friend told me that I always make him feel stupid, and that I look down on him. I apologized, told him I had no idea and that I always meant it when I said I admired him, and asked if there was anything I could do to fix this, but he left me on read days ago.

So honestly I've pretty much spent every second I'm not at work or the gym sulking. I blew up my social life for no reason because I actually was the dick. Making art isn't fun when I have no one to show it to and watching my stupid shows isn't fun when I have no one to enjoy them with.

Also this is the most minor hurricane-related complaint ever but I can't get my psych meds refilled so I'm probably about to become even more of an unlikeable POS.