Blunt or really blunt?

[Suzanne]

Somone made me some chocolate chip muffins ( absolutely delish) and I washed the container afterwards and when I saw her again, said that I had her container in our vehicle and she said: oh, you can keep it, if you want? I said in reply: Are you sure? Because I will just bin it and I sensed I had said the wrong thing from her weird expression. So, added: I have a draw full of containers and that is why I would bin it; so, happy to give it back.

Well, my husband returned it to her yesterday and said he had apologised to her on my behalf, but for the life of me, I cannot see a reason for the need to apologise?

My husband said that I should turn it around and see how I would feel, but if someone had said the same thing, I would conclude that since I said you can have it, it is that persons right to do what they pleased with it.

Am I in error?

 

[Loren]

I do not think it was an error on your part. I don't understand why an apology would be in order, either. But, I have learned from experience that being direct, which is how I am, in general, can often cause confusion or defensiveness, on the part of the recipient of my words/ responses.

If you spoke to me the way you spoke to your friend, it would have come across as appropriate and sensible.

 

[Fino]

Just to be perfectly clear, "bin it," means to throw it away, right? Maybe she thought of it as a gift and heard you as saying, "I'm just going to throw away your gift if you don't take it back." I don't think you're wrong or that an apology is sensical but in the world of people, anything goes.

 

[garnetflower13]

But, I have learned from experience that being direct, which is the only way I know how to be, can often cause confusion or defensiveness, on the part of the recipient of my words/ responses.

I think you're right about this. I once was at a gathering where food was being served at a long table and there were many guests seated there. The hostess was wearing her nicest things and I noticed that when she went to reach for a serving dish, her sleeve was about to drag through a gravy dish. I warned her and she got huffy as if i had deliberately set out to embarrass her. Go figure!

 

[Homulilly]

Most people consider it rude if they offer something to you and you say you are going to throw it away. It's like what Fino said, but also applies to things that aren't exactly gifts. Seems like the point here is that someone offered something, and saying that you would bin it sounds like a very blunt rejection. Telling her that you have a drawer full of them so you don't need any more is considered appropriate. Tbh I think people just perceive a lot of negative connotation on throwing things away.

 

[VictorR]

I think sometimes the challenge is not necessarily bluntness, but saying too much.

 

[SimonSays]

The error, if one can call it that, was to inform her of what you would do with her container.

When she says she doesn't need it back, just say thank you, and then bin it later. Everyone wins, and you get more muffins next time!

 

[cornman]

"Blunt or really blunt?"

I prefer joints.

(hehe, terrible joke, please forgive me for making you vomit and cringe until your face turned into a ball of twisted muscle)

I agree with Fino and Homulilly.

Perhaps she considered the container valuable and then made the false assumption that you understood her valuing of the item. So when she was like "you can have it if you like " its almost like she was saying "please take this valuable thing as a gift". So i guess, in her mind, you were saying you would just throw away her "gift" to you.(like Fino explained)

She made an error in judgement. I would say that you didn't do anything wrong and this was a honest response on your part. However, like Homulilly said some people don't like getting their offers (or "gifts") rejected. But whats interesting is that this isn't always the case which makes these situations confusing and annoying and ultimately seems to require "reading into" wether a person considers an thing valuable then making the "proper" decision. That being to either lie (take the item then throw it away later) or just refuse accepting the thing.

I hate the first option as its dishonest and "slimy" in my opinion, but what can we do. Its the way of most people on this world i guess.

 

[Loren]

Thanks, Fino, for the clarification of 'bin'/ 'bin it', as I had thought it meant put in a box, storage container, or similar (which is what bin refers to, here) with the rest of the containers you've acquired. Not the trash, respectively. Still, I don't think you made an error, necessarily. But, perhaps, as Victor mentioned; saying less could essentially be more effective in this type of situation.

 

[Primrose]

I don't think it was too blunt at all. It's not as if you said you were going to bin the chocolate chip muffins!! Now that might have been something to apologise for.

 

[Atrapa Almas]

I see it a bit diferently:

The offer is the gift itself. Many times we are made offers so we see and thank the other person how generous are they being. Our expected duty in those cases is to thank and acknowledge how generous and great the other person is and politely refuse the offer or even do another offer to them in the hopes they will thank us and also politely refuse our offer too.

Its a game that I dont like to play but I see my wife playing it all the time. Its like offers have attached to them "trust" points so relations can be made more solid as those trusting points increase. Some examples:

• Hello new neighbor, welcome here. You can come to ask me what you need.

This person is not actually wanting you to knock their door to ask for salt. They want to check what kind of neighbour you will be baseed on how you react and stablish a good first impression. The correct way to answer is something like:

• Oh thank you so much, we just moved from México. I am engineer and will work at Motors SA and my wife will enter St Peterson school as a spanish teacher. We was worried about not knowing people here and I am so glad to meet you. Of course you can also ask us anything anytime.

So if the thing is done rigth, their basic info need have been satisfied, their ego properly massaged now in exchange they will provide usefull info about themselves and probably about other neighbours (included the weird ones) and so the sniffing asses phase continue in the NT misterious way.

My wife does all this because it burns my energy so fast.

And yes, if you dont thank, dont massage their ego, dont politely reffuse the offer, dont offer a single thing to them but to bin their thing.... Yeah, you are not sniffing their arses properly.

When you have questions about NT behavour, the best source of info are friendly NT like your husband. So dont take my words for granted, ask him to give you a detailed explanation like you was an Alien and of course offer him something he likes in exchange for a supper detailed class of NT sniffing arses science.

(The sniffing arses is a visual referente of how dogs know and salute each other, having that in mind helps me properly smile with joy in those situations).

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Communication and perspective. Awkward moments like this are almost always a result of some "disconnect" in perspective. Two people SEEM to be talking about the same thing, but are "talking past each other",...leaving both a bit confused,...like, "What just happened there?".

What I could surmise from your post @Suzanne was neither one of you really had a need for, or wanted the container,...and both of you, in your polite way, were trying to give the container to the other.

 

[tree]

Where I grew up, the procedure with a plate or container
of food was, when you return the plate/container, you
return it, not empty, but with a reciprocal offering.

Like, if you rec'd it with a dozen muffins, you return it
with some other food. Fudge. Grapes. Cookies. Cake.
Whatever.

The happiest situation was neighbors who continued the
process so long, neither remembered whose plate/container
it was originally.

 

[Judge]

Well, my husband returned it to her yesterday and said he had apologised to her on my behalf, but for the life of me, I cannot see a reason for the need to apologise?

My husband said that I should turn it around and see how I would feel, but if someone had said the same thing, I would conclude that since I said you can have it, it is that persons right to do what they pleased with it.

Am I in error?

This strikes me as just another unfortunate social interaction that occurs in real-time for those of us on the spectrum. Where you don't have sufficient time to consider an alternative response more geared to what a neurotypical mindset may expect. Something that on occasion happens to me as well.

Don't beat yourself up for being honest and logical in the spur of the moment. It simply reflects who and what we are.

From my own perspective, it is your husband who committed a greater offense. Not in apologizing to the person in question, but rather telling you that he had done so, and needlessly chastising you for a social dynamic that may not be within your neurological ability to control. Something that your longtime spouse still does not understand. Which to me, reflects a far greater problem than an unfortunate, but relatively benign social interaction that went wrong.

That he still has no clue of what autism is really all about. That many of us on the spectrum, cannot make instant decisions involving a calculated neurotypical response in a real time conversation. That our thought processes just don't work in such a way as the neurotypical world may expect or demand. No matter how many times your husband chastises you for it.

I've stated it many times in this forum how the element of real-time can work against us even in the most benign conversations with others. Though I don't see any practical methods of overcoming it either. That it's just something many of us must live with.

 

[Autisticool]

You are not in error. It was just a plastic container! Though, I never heard of the phrase "bin it." Did you mean toss it in the rubbish or use it as a container for stuff?

 

[Stuttermabolur]

I had a similar thing happen to me. My ex (then girlfriend) gave me Dante's Divine Comedy as a birthday present, but I had bought the book myself only a year beforehand. I asked her for the receipt and was then going to go to the bookstore and exchange the book for a different one since I didn't see any point in having two copies of the same novel. However, she seemed quite hurt and a mutual friend who was with us told me not to do so and I ended up keeping the book (though I will likely never read that copy).

It seems to me that for those who are not on the spectrum, they put a lot of meaning into signals. To her, she didn't really care that much about how much I enjoyed the book, or what use I would get out of the gift, but the book was rather a sign of her love towards me. My mind works in a different way, where I hardly ever notice or care about signals but like giving gifts as I hope they will be of use to others in some way, but wouldn't mind at all if they sold them or used as a door stopper (or even regifted). My "signal" to her that I loved her was telling her "I love you" at least 10 times a day.

There is also a cultural aspect at play as we come from different countries, and where I'm from it's perfectly normal or even expected to exchange books (the week after Christmas is the busiest one for bookstores as everyone exchanges their books) while it is uncommon in her country.

In conclusion, I agree with others that you weren't doing anything wrong. You probably don't have the same "signal vocabulary" others do, and at the end of the day, there isn't much to do about that except to try and keep it in mind for next time .