• Replies 25 replies
  • Subscribers 87 subscribers
  • Views 423 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Intentional misunderstanding?

JAX43

Today i was called out for asking a waitress questions, according to her i do it alot and she asked me if i could not try and speak to her as she is too busy with other customers or the coffee machine is too loud etc etc. I wanted to check if it was my food on the table as there were a few different people around the same table. When i tried to explain she accused me of shouting at her. This put me off my food and i left it, she came over and took my plate before i had chance to process what had just happened. I don't have the option to avoid her in future because the cafe is within the place i volunteer at. Any suggestions how i can resolve this issue?

Parents

  • I would ask if you would consider a different way of looking at the situation. 

    You have engaged in a social interaction and it has gone badly. Would you consider looking at it to learn what went wrong, how you could do it better and grow through the experience?

    Expecting others to adapt to our preferred ways of communicating is unlikely to work in the real world so it is more effective where we can be the ones making the change to understand and learn how to interact. It isn't an ideal world and I really think this is about as good as we can get from it.

    It sounds like the staff are getting tired of you asking so many questions. They are expecting you to work out the things for yourself much more and keep the questions to a minimum so start making a note of what you are about to ask, work out how you could answer it yourself and if this is possible, do it.

    There will always be some questions such as "which plate is for table 4" then you work out who at the table it is for when you get there by asking them "who ordered the mushroom risotto?".

    When you were accused of shouting at her did you actually have your voice raised because of the loud coffee machine? It is probably worth speaking in your normal volume to start with as many NTs are able to understand even with other loud sources of noise nearby.

    Avoiding her is never going to resolve the situation or help you stop it from happening somewhere else. Finding the cause of the issue and resolving it will. If this is your communication style then you now know what you need to do to work there with less friction so can decide if it is worth the effort.

    All this is just my opinion of course so feel free to discard it if you want.

  • in reply to Iain

    Thankyou, that does help alot. Just to clarify - i volunteer at a gallery ( who have my back) but at break times i sit in the cafe where we get a free drink and discount on food and that is where it happened. I think i will just take my own food and drink in now so that i don't have to go through the whole rigmoral of trying to get clarity from a woman who can't multi task or try to understand someones communication differences.

  • in reply to JAX43
    JAX43 said:
    I think i will just take my own food and drink in now so that i don't have to go through the whole rigmoral of trying to get clarity from a woman who can't multi task or try to understand someones communication differences.

    I've been there myself but this is just hiding from the issue.

    For me the solution was to stop seeing it as confrontation to run from (since the other person is never likely to change) but to learn how to deal with them so I can co-exist, do my job and not get wound up by their style.

    More recently in life I also was trained by my therapist on how to stop caring about what other people think when it is beneficial - this ability to "let go" of the nastiness of some peoples interactions is a great thing to be able to do so if you use a therapist I would recommend talking about how it works.

    Not needing to run and hide brings self confidence and empowerment - very positive benefits.

  • in reply to JAX43
    JAX43 said:
    I wondered why councelling didn't work before. They should know that i need help as an autistic person

    Many counsellors and some therapists have not got this knowledge - the field of autism therapy is a relatively new one with little training available for those giving the therapy so many still simply have not realised there is a need for this adaptation for you, especially as autists who get ineffective treatment are often too shy to complain.

    You may suggest they read up on the subject - one link that does explain it is:

    https://neurolaunch.com/cbt-doesnt-work-for-autism/

    I'm not a fan of the site in general as it looks AI generated but it does have all the info in one place.

Reply
  • in reply to JAX43
    JAX43 said:
    I wondered why councelling didn't work before. They should know that i need help as an autistic person

    Many counsellors and some therapists have not got this knowledge - the field of autism therapy is a relatively new one with little training available for those giving the therapy so many still simply have not realised there is a need for this adaptation for you, especially as autists who get ineffective treatment are often too shy to complain.

    You may suggest they read up on the subject - one link that does explain it is:

    https://neurolaunch.com/cbt-doesnt-work-for-autism/

    I'm not a fan of the site in general as it looks AI generated but it does have all the info in one place.

Children
No Data