Published on 12, July, 2020
I recently became aware I may be on the spectrum, and since then have been noticing more signs in different situations. Where I used to find these frustrating, I actually find it quite funny now when I think back to occasions when I have been out of step. Am I alone in finding such things amusing?
For example, yesterday I had an interview and a receptionist was printing out some documents for me, but her computer was running very slowly due to being left on overnight. She was getting more and more frustrated and it reminded me of a research project into ‘computer rage’ I once read about.
My interest piqued, I started to explain the project in depth to the receptionist, before checking myself - it only belatedly occurred to me she probably didn’t want to hear about that at that precise moment!
Anyone else have any funny anecdotes?
Not my own experience, but interesting because it seems to involve both a slight ND miscommunication and a slight NT mishearing. (Apologies to those many of you who may have heard it before.) One guy spent some time explaining to another his being autistic. The listener perceived this as "artistic", and wondered why it should be such a big deal to be creative. Can't remember where that anecdote came from, but it was clearly a real misperception; with the speaker not realising for some time that his/her words had been misinterpreted.
That was an experience of mine which I only just remembered - when I was a child I attended church in Sundays with my mother. One day I saw a sign about charity fundraising for artistic children and said proudly "I'm artistic !" only to be told disparagingly that I'd misread the poster and it actually said AUTISTIC children! Little did I know that I would find out many years later that it did mean me!