Sometimes Hesitation can be Mistaken for Rudeness

Tuesday 6 July 2010

Sometimes Hesitation can be Mistaken for Rudeness

Today as I walked into my block of flats coming home from work, two of the other residents (I think) were chatting. I hardly know my neighbours, in my block we don't get to bump into each other much at all.

Now I have moments when my mind pauses for some reason, and this time I couldn't quite think of the word to excuse myself wakling through, or think to say "thank you." One of the people muttered after I'd gone through "doesn't say thankyou etc. "As I was going up the stairs after I heard that I asked, "sorry what did you" say, and she said it was that I didn't say thank you.

I apologied and explained to her that my mind was pausing, I couldn't quite think of the word, and asked her that she doesn't mistake my mind pausing and not quite thinking of the word for rudeness. She said OK.

Sometime Asperger's people may appear rude when they don't mean to be. It's just that their mind genuinely pauses and they having to take longer to think to say "excuse me" or "thank you" on a given occasion.

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Hello

I am a man in his late 20's, living in Southern England, working as a clerical assistant in an office, and learning to get through life with Asperger's Syndrome. To those who are unfamiliar, Asperger's Syndrome is a social communication disorder, a mild form of autism. As for me, it is not something that is noticable to most people, and I hope it is in effect a disability which is tantamount to being half deaf in one ear. If your friend is has only 50% hearing in one ear (as one friend of mine has) most of the time you would forget it and you certainly wouldn't regard that person as disabled. There would be occasions though, when you would have to remember they're partially deaf, and allow for the fact they might not always hear you so well. The same is true with having Asperger's. In a straightforward situation when everything is going smoothly, you might as well forget I have Asperger's. However when things get more difficult, particularly in a social setting, the effects of Asperger's Syndrome will become more noticeable. The purpose of this blog is to discuss the issue of social interaction from the perspective of one with Asperger's Syndrome. I by no means am intending to speak for all Asperger's people, but I do hope to enlighten my readers, through my thoughts, observations and experiences, as to some of the struggles and difficulties Asperger's people have in social settings. This is my personal blog so I may occassionally deviate away from the topic to Asperger's Syndrome. Whilst much of what I have written here is very blunt and direct, much of it is also very much related to my thoughts at the time of writing, and in view of a particular situation I find myself in. You cannot guarentee that what Isay in a partcular post reflects how I think of feel about something at all times. I have decided to keep my indentity anonymous, and names of individuals have been changed to protect their identities too. That said, I would delighted to see people get in touch with me. I really would love to make this an interactive blog with two way communication between myself and my readers, and if anyone wants to get to know me better, especially people from Southern England, I will be especially pleased to hear from you. I am happy to reveal my identity to some people, just not everyone who browses this site on the world wide web.