Due to my Asperger I often reach a situation where other people misunderstand my intentions and I get blamed for something that I didn't mean to do. I then explain to them that actually when they thought I was saying/doing X, in actuality I was saying/doing Y, and miscommunication happened because of Z. Now, when I talk about Z, they oftentimes accuse me of "dwelling in details" which causes them to retreat from interaction with me because they are "tired". But on my end Z is very far from a detail: it is what makes a difference between X and Y; and since they are hurt by X rather than Y, then I would say that the difference between the latter two is rather crucial, far from detail.
But, I guess, they don't agree with me. Because during the RARE occasion when I reach the point of saying its Y rather than X (usually the conversation doesn't even get there, because people are leaving right when I talk about "detail" Z, but lets talk about few cases when it does) they accusing me of treating their feelings as "less valid" than mine, hence disrespecting them. But on my end its not like that at all. Rather, "if the subject of conversation is ME, then MY feelings are more valid; if the subject of conversation is THEM, then THEIR feelings are more valid". Now, X vs Y is ABOUT ME (after all *I* was the one who supposedly done one of the two), hence, MY feelings would be more valid IN THIS PARTICULAR CASE. But that doesn't change the fact that THEIR feelings might be more valid IN OTHER CASES.
Here is a recent example where I treated THEIR feelings as more valid. So I am in a long distance relationship with a girl, and we are chatting every day either through Skype or throuogh yahoo. A few days ago my girlfriend cancelled a chat. Now, in the context of some other conversations we were having, I was under impression that her reason for cancelling the chat was that she was mad at me for something. Thus, I got mad at her and, against her wish, came to chat anyway in order to "clarify" things. When she got my text, she came to chat, and then she quickly explained it to me that actually the only reason she didn't want to come to chat was her neck pain and it had nothing to do with me. The moment she said it, my mood immediately changed for the better, I was completely fine. Then she asked me whether I am still hurt. I said no I am not hurt, after all I know that her neck pain is the reason!
So you see, I treated HER perspective as more valid: after all I didn't say "I don't believe it is neck pain, I think you are mad at me". NO. What I said is "Thanks so much, finally I know its your neck pain and that you are NOT mad at me, I feel so much better now". So this shows that I treated HER perspective as "more valid" than mine: after all, the subject of conversation is HER (namely, her not coming for chat), so HER perspective is more valid.
Now, all I am asking others to do is return this same favor back to me. WHEN the subject of conversation is ME, then MY perspective should be more valid, shouldn't it? So why am I being told I am being selfish for doing that? After all, I am more than willing to give them similar favor, am I not?
Now, here is an example where people don't treat my perspective as more valid. So they spread rumors that I don't talk to anyone because I am antisocial. In reality I don't talk to people because I don't remember any names or faces. And if they wave at me, how do I know they are waving at me and not at someone else -- especially since most of the times it is, in fact, someone else they are waving at? I don't want to risk of replying when they wave at someone else -- but if they were to call me by name then I would most definitely reply. Now, when I try to tell them the above, they don't take it seriously and act as if I am just making an excuse in order to be antisocial. After all, if they took it seriously they would start calling me by my name and/or proposed some other solution (such as invite me somewhere). But they don't do any of that. They say "they understand" out of politeness and then continue to avoid me.
Now I guess you might say in their defense that if my actions (not replying to waving) can be justified by my words (saying I don't recognize them) then their actions of not talking to me can also be somehow alleviated through words (saying that "they understand" when they don't mean it). Well here is a difference though. In my case, its my PAST actions that I am justifying by words; in their case, its their FUTURE actions that are going to stay the same as they used to be in the past. I can't do anything about past actions can I? They have a power to fix something in terms of their future actions.
So, if they were to start suggesting things for me to do IN THE FUTURE to make me more social and I started shooting them all down with excuses, then I agree, my excuses would be pretty meaningless (I mean if I really want to socialize then I would grab whatever they suggested would I not). But if my excuses are only about THE PAST, then I can't do anything to change THE PAST, so explanation is all I can do. Now in many people's minds, if I am explaining my behavior it means that I don't want to change it (after all, my explanation would imply that whatever I am doing is what I should be doing). On my end its not like that at all. When I explain what I mean is "in the past I did A because B was in the way, now if you remove B then in future I will easily change A into C". So, as you see, my explanation does NOT say I will do A in the future, quite the opposite in fact!
Anyway, back to the title of the post: some people told me to look up "deflection" and said that is what I am doing when I explain myself too much. I looked it up in the following link http://mindfulconstruct.com/2009/01/06/ ... eflection/ Now, one thing I see in that link is that when the people "deflect" they bring up something that is tangentially related but not directly. Like one of the deflection examples they gave on that link is when a person says that the other person projects their life onto them. Well, for one thing, you can't exactly prove it, can you? Now, in my case I always take what I am told at face value: if I am told its about me, I take it as about me, I would never speculate that it is anything else. Now, what I am doing is talking about something that LOGICALLY relates to the substance of objection. I say "I didn't wave back BECAUSE I DIDN"T RECOGNIZE YOU"; I would NEVER say anything else, such as "I didn't wave back because I was tired of all the homework". Now the "homework" excuse would have been a deflection, I agree. But I never used that excuse, did I? On the other hand, I don't see how "Not recognizing your face" can be construed as deflection. I mean, if I am "tired" I can still force myself to wave back. But if I don't recognize the face, I can't force myself to recognize it, can I?
Now, one likely way in which they might claim I am deflecting is that I am saying that their feelings are "less valid" than my problem with face recognition. But from my perspective that's not the case. I mean what are their feelings? Their feelings is that "it really hurts if they wave and are DELIBERATELY ignored". Now what am I trying to claim? I am claiming "My ignoring was NOT deliberate, it was caused by problem with face recognition". So I didn't invalidate their feelings did I? As a matter of fact I agree with them: being DELIBERATELY ignored IS bad. All I am saying is that said concept won't apply here since I never deliberately ignored them. If they STILL say that I invalidated their feelings, they are implicitly saying htat "whether your behavior was deliberate or not is up to perspective, in your perspective it wasn't deliberate, in ours it was, and our perspective is just as valid as yours". But don't you see how illogical it is? Whether the behavior was deliberate doesn't have multiple perspectives! Its a simple yes or no question that can be answered by the person in question.
Once again, in case of my girlfriend, I was fine with everything the moment she explained about neck ache. Is it because I thought "Her neck ache is more important than mine hurt feelings"? NO. Rather, the SUBJECT of my hurt feelings was "her not chatting with me BECAUSE OF ANGER". Now, from her responce, I have learned that it was NOT "because of anger". So the subject of hurt feelings was out of the way, so my feelings aren't hurt any more. Simple, right? Now why can't others give me similar understanding as well?