do any neurodivergence havers also have the issue of trying to balk for like a good few turns from a conversation where you tried to bring up a point or suggest an alternative to something but you misread the room and it turns into what I can only perceive as the other person taking what you thought was an off-hand idea that you have no real attachment to and turning it into their own personal mission to, I honestly can’t tell why so I'll just say how it looks to me, submit to their way of thinking? Maybe they want to change my perspective? Maybe they want to win in the marketplace of ideas?
Anyways, then you’re like stuck in a dialogue loop where you keep saying “I literally have zero real attachment to this idea and I brought it up for the sake of conversation” and they scold me for deigning to bring the other idea up and we will not stop talking about this until I physically exit the room or grovel at their feet in tears begging for forgiveness for my dastardly nonsequitur? Or something else that I genuinely don’t understand? Am I missing something? It feels like a dominance routine from my perspective and it’s happened to me enough times that I think I’m just misunderstanding something?
I thought it was a neurosis I picked up from my conflict-avoidant behaviors but my sister is more confrontational than me and she also has this issue sometimes so I’m wondering if it’s an ADHD thing. Had a convo yesterday with a friend of mine that was like this and I genuinely felt like shit afterwards, it's one of the instances where I genuinely don't know how to amicably resolve it, I'm trying to be pliant and flexible here, please let me exit this conversation naturally I don't want to make this an issue I am trying to communicate that please let me leave please please please
This has happened to me dozens of times and every time it feels like the realization of a nightmare. I’m so genuinely actually sorry for attempting to help you by wantonly-suggesting alternative perspectives to cover what I perceive to be unnoticed angles in what you are saying hoping that maybe it could be rolled into a consensus point that might be helpful, I didn’t think this was a venting/rhetorical discussion, If it was I missed those cues, it will not happen again to you now that I know you do not gel with it, I’m sorry, I’m Harrier DuBois the sorry cop, this is my sorry song, please dismiss me from this conversation so I don’t have to literally walk away, I don’t want to leave lingering resentment for something I genuinely thought was innocuous 
keep saying “I literally have zero real attachment to this idea and I brought it up for the sake of conversation” and they scold me for deigning to bring the other idea up and we will not stop talking about this
The other person is failing to pick up on an obvious social cue here.
When social situations suck or are awkward, sometimes it's your fault, sometimes it's their fault, sometimes it's the combination of the two of you, sometimes it's the situation, and sometimes it's the inevitable awkwardness of human interaction. If you always pin it on yourself then that's an unhealthy level of self-blaming.
Love how relatable this is to so many people here. I just say ‘sure’ and try to move on because I don’t care but sometimes people really can’t let it go for some reason.
"Wow you make a lot of interesting points, I'll have to think about that" is my go-to escape hatch.
Repeatedly demurring to respond, because anything else they say is just too confusing, is another approach.
My mom loves to swerve the conversation in a completely different direction, to try and deflect the conversation to another subject. I just remember her opening on "Why aren't you voting for Biden?", getting a response she didn't like, probing a bit further, balking, and then producing a book of baby pictures I swear to God from thin air to talk about how cute I was when I was younger. I think the transition was "The 1980s? I remember when you were just a little boy back then!" and then insisting we talk about a road trip from when I was 4.
I’m so genuinely actually sorry for attempting to help you by wantonly-suggesting alternative perspectives to cover what I perceive to be unnoticed angles in what you are saying hoping that maybe it could be rolled into a consensus point that might be helpful, I didn’t think this was a venting/rhetorical discussion, If it was I missed those cues,
Uhg this is so many conversations I've had with people its maddening. It's a trap I fall for all the time. Except I almost always walk a way with a "Well fuck me for trying to help." Feeling.
It's infuriating. I casually mentioned in a conversation that Windows 7 was the best Windows had ever been, and I kicked myself immediately because I was talking to a coder and they cannot resist turning every mention of Windows into a long-winded rant on the virtues of linux, and how dare I like the easy thing that just worked for normies.
It's the same rant they give you if you don't stan Vim. I hate it so much.
Anyway, last time someone did this to me, I flew off the handle and got personal with my insults
how dare I like the easy thing that just worked for normies.
In fairness, Win8 was just about the last version that did do easy things and work for normies. Even that was bloat and spyware ridden. But it's become exhausting to fumble for the hidden setting that turns off the wall of ads in my start menu every time my company pushes a patch that resets my startup settings. Nevermind Microsoft's decade long crusade to fully obscure the file directory.
It's infuriating. I casually mentioned in a conversation that Windows 7 was the best Windows had ever been, and I kicked myself immediately because I was talking to a coder and they cannot resist turning every mention of Windows into a long-winded rant on the virtues of linux,
Me getting into a long-winded rant about the virtues of Windows 2000 and how every Windows NT version since then is terrible in comparison.
Linux nerds are incapable of putting themselves in the shoes of an average user and realise that some people have other things to do than spending all day trying to use the computer
And that's coming from someone who is desperately trying to switch away from Windows
My response to annoying linux nerds is to go on a long rant about how linux is exactly as terrible as windows, even though I don't entirely agree with that
In this case I think the problem is less you being able to read social cues and more the other persons issue. I usually am able to defuse it with a couple of "that's crazy" or "never thought of it like that" so they shut up about it if they get too into it. It is also how I get through most conversations with coworkers who are deep down a conspiracy hole.
Examples of topics this has become a "deal" for while not mattering at all: Sex club hygiene, web browsers, cars, ski brands, rub on tattoos, cellphones, weed, shrooms, acid, synth music, metal music and sewing.
One time I was at a social function and was asked what my favorite make and model of truck was, and I said that if it has four wheels and can affordably get me where I need to go that's all that mattered, and it didn't have to be a truck to do that.
I was treated like an alien that just stepped out of the UFO for the rest of that event.
I like the chevy silver-ado because the vortex engine is made with real tornadoes.
I get exposed to truck conversations a lot, I usually just bring up the disappearance of small trucks and try and get them thinking critically about why that is.
I like the Mudertruck F1000, personally. You can back out of your drive way and crush hordes of possums with that thing!
Can you name the truck with four wheel drive, smells like a steak and seats thirty-five..
Canyonero! Canyonero!
Well, it goes real slow with the hammer down, it's the country-fried truck endorsed by a clown!
Canyonero! (Yah!) Canyonero!
The Federal Highway commission has ruled the Canyonero unsafe for highway or city driving.
Canyonero!
12 yards long, 2 lanes wide, 65 tons of American Pride!
Canyonero! Canyonero!
Top of the line in utility sports, unexplained fires are a matter for the courts!
Canyonero! Canyonero! (Yah!)
She blinds everybody with her super high beams, she's a squirrel crushing, deer smacking, driving machine!
Canyonero!-oh woah, Canyonero! (Yah!)
oh jfc, relate to this so much
like, I thought you wanted to talk about "how the fuck could they possibly do that," not that I would ever possibly do that and am trying to justify it
isn't this the conversation you started mf'er, why are we here rn 😖
I don't know if I've experienced the same exact thing you're talking about, but I've definitely brought up something in a light-hearted way, like "isn't this funny" or "can you believe this thing" and had people respond with "no it's not funny, I take this very seriously." So maybe that's just me being bad at reading the room. For example, the other day I learned that in some states you don't need a teaching license or college degree to teach at a private school, and brought that up to my coworker. He got kinda defensive because apparently his wife used to teach at a private religious school, and didn't have a teaching license.
One thing I've noticed while talking with liberals especially is that they'll say "I just can't understand what [conservatives, Putin, Hamas, whoever they don't like] are thinking" and expect me to agree with them that that person is ontologically evil and can't be understood by normal good people. But then I start bringing nuance and history into the picture, like "well if you remember what happened with NATO in the '90s..." which is not what they wanted to hear, and they think I'm agreeing with the person they hate.
I also sometimes don't notice that the conversation has moved on, and tend to bring up something that everyone else had finished talking about 10 minutes ago, but it had been percolating in my brain since then.
Not neurodivergent but I've been in these conversations that go on seemingly forever about topics I really don't care about which end up going on way too long. Longest I had to endure was one that went on for a literal hour before I was like "ops, it's dinner time, got to go", and at the time me and a friend (who was present for this) had been planning to hang out, but I was done for the night and just called it.
wtf i thought this was just a me being bad at social thing, other people experience this?
I know this feel but also get away with it I've got kinda lovable jerk appeal in sort of a bender from Futurama sense so I usually have the social expectation of being someone who would just say “I literally have zero real attachment to this idea and I brought it up for the sake of conversation”. I guess advice wise I'd say just be consistent with statements like that and you'll hopefully just be seen as someone who I'd a real straight shooter. Sometimes it's just about how you carry a statement and being assertive and unapologetic about your own self expression can lead to acceptance. I'm at a point where I've been openly called 'really fucking charming and like...I'm curmudeonly as hell and mostly communicate via acerbic witticisms and very direct statements, make it the thing you do and people respect the hell out of it.
