Understanding people?

[lyricalliaisons]

Do you have problems understanding what people mean when they ask a question or say something? I do. It's a big part of my SA-- I never understand what people mean when they say something, so I never know how to respond. I'm also rarely certain whether people are being serious or joking & assume jokes are meant to be real & take offense. It's like that offline, as well as online. Online, it makes responding to people's comments/messages, etc. hard because I'm never sure of the question or the meaning of what was being said. A lot of people get mad when I tell them I don't understand what they're talking about or what what they've said is supposed to mean, so I normally just either don't say anything back or say something & hope my answer wasn't to the wrong question or taken the wrong way if I replied the wrong way, as the result of not understanding the question. Offline, I just stand/sit there scared & looking around not sure of what to say & sometimes have to ask the person to rephrase what they've said because I didn't understand it. It never goes over well & makes me feel stupid lol. It even affects me in school because I'm never certain of how to answer questions because I'm not sure of what the question really is.

 

[Porter]

Can you give some specific examples of the kinds of questions you are having trouble with? And the setting, the relationship the person who is asking has with you.

I use irony, and it's evil cousin sarcasm quite a lot. Because of that, I often think other people are being ironic when they are actually being serious. It really depends on the person you are talking to and the setting. In casual conversation around friends, it is almost certainly a joke. Try to read the body language to see which way it's going, but some people are just hard to read. They'll seem like they are joking when they are actually being serious.

P

 

[Nocer]

i stopped trying to understanding people when they stopped making sense and now my life is like this:

trying to hard to understanding people in general is a losing battle