What is the most misunderstood thing about you, and is it a problem for you, or someome else?

I have the same problem. I noticed when I’m very nervous I try to crack a joke or I just start laughing. It’s a nervous habit just like when people bite their nails.

That beneath my smartass exterior lies a heart of mush.

People don’t understand that I have no flaws at all.

@CyanoticWasp One man’s ceiling is another man’s flaw.

Being solitary and independent, people seem to think I hate everyone. Sigh. It’s not because I don’t think you’re better than me that I lust for your death, jee-zuss.

Some people might think I’m a bad person. But in fact,I’m just a rational-opportunistic-pragmatic kind of person.

Had a teacher named Miss Underwood once.Couldn’t make herself clear at all.Inconvenient considering she taught English Literature.

@ucme she was just misunderwood.

@janbb if you don’t stop that, I’ll be ceiling you in a box one of these days.

@CyanoticWasp Well yeah, have you a speech impedement?

I’m not running away from you because I dislike you. I’m fleeing because I really like you and I don’t know how to handle it without you learning that I’m imperfect and fleeing yourself.

Hmmm, I’ve often been misunderstood on many levels. A lot of the misunderstandings are positive (women tend to think I’m mysterious and adventurous, which I’m not), but most are positive (people in general think I’m violent or crude, which could not be further from the truth). My social image is very different from the “real” me, which leads to strangers hating me, casual acquantances adoring me, and people who really know me thinking I’m a bit of a weirdo, with lots of faults, but ok overall.

If someone made a cartoon about me, it would be called “Clarkman”. Where the person people think as Superman is in fact Clark Kent, and secretly puts on his glasses and transforms into a nerd with a bleeding nose.

People sometimes don’t get my strange sense of humor. I’ve thrown a couple people on here with it. I’ve had to go back & say “uh…helloooo!” Sheesh. Anyone who gets to know me knows to not take me seriously on a lot of stuff.

I’m cross-eyed so I will often not know I’m not looking directly at a person and they think I’m starting at something in the difference and not paying attention to them (the brain corrects for my eye movements so I’m unaware one eye is staring upwards for example). It has been problematic in interviews.

One of my favorite quotes applies here:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson
—Self-Reliance

@CyanoticWasp Well written, don’t you wish you were the author? love it.

Aspergers Syndrome. I cannot understand most nonverbal cues (body language, subtle facial expressions, etc). I frequently cannot tell if someone is joking and my own sense of humor is usually misunderstood. My coping mechanism has been to avoid unstructured social situations, which causes people to think that I’m snobbish. I also usually respond to verbal attacks by going silent and walking away, which leads people to believe that I’m guilty of something when in reality I just don’t want conflict. I frequently don’t know what the proper action is in a social situation; ignoring or pulling away is the response I have found safest. A normal social life is not possible for me; the next best thing is comfortable solitude. The only person who could “translate” the social world to me is gone and that relationship was a once-in-a-lifetime fluke.

I have a huge problem with this. At various times I’ve been accused of being racist, gay, a communist and a misogynist. I’m none of those things. I consider it the price to pay for speaking my mind in an ultra politically correct society.

@jbfletcherfan I agree with you, however if your strange sense of humor is portrayed in writing, you might find yourself explaining more. However, even in person, some people just don’t get it. You know how the waitress always comes over and says, is everything okay here? I have been known to say well, no it’s horrible, while taking another bite. You would think with the smile on my face w/joking tone in my voice, they would get it. But, no they just look at you with a solemn face. Not enough people laughing, joking and just having a good time.

@Rangie oops, I see a can opener heading your way. But I do understand.

@syzygy2600 Wrong button. I need to go to bed. That can opener..well I don’t have it, but I thought it was heading your way. hehe apparently not, thank goodness.
Are you ever met with their all out anger for their misunderstandings? I have, before I can even finish stating my position. eeeGod, what next?

@Rangie
@CyanoticWasp
I get plagiarized more than anyone else on this site. I guess I should be flattered. And Emerson doesn’t belong to me alone I suppose. Actually citing Self Reliance is kind of ironic in itself. Ralph would be laughing.
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

@SeventhSense my father (the country man he was) said it in a very short and simple way, when I was a little girl. Perhaps that is why to this day, I will try to do anything, and with my stubbornness, if it doesn’t work, I will find a way. There are many more feats to come my way. I am ready.

@Rangie Yeah, it’s a little harder on here, but when people get to know me, they usually get it. I bet we’d have some good times together, it sounds like.

@jbfletcherfan We should talk Andrew into having a fun tab. just fun. Play on words, jokes, fun bantering, comparing usage of words. You know, light hearted things. Not so serious and debating type issues all the time.

@CyanoticWasp: Don’t you need to both brush and flaws?

@Rangie I think that’s what’s coming down the pike soon.

@Rangie Sounds like a winner. All sour-pusses keep out.

Talk Andrew into letting us be light-hearted? Ha! Who do you think is in charge here? Him? Them?

[Mod will say]
Let’s cut the chatter, folks, and get back to serious discourse.

I’m still trying to get used to you being lighthearted and humorous @Rangie
kind of a new revalation

I am feeling better today, thank you SeventhSense. Back to almost normal.

@all, who is in charge? do you really think they “the Mods” will say, cut the chatter. Hey guys, I am gullible, so try not to make me look too stupid. It wouldn’t be too hard. I don’t mind if it is laughable, not laugh at. So which one of you are going to try to get our new “fun tab”?

@janbb Since you think it might be coming down the pike, I nominate you to do our dirty work. lol

@SeventhSense I don’t know how to handle negativity very well, so I don’t handle it well, not by choice. It just strikes me that way. I would rather play. Not that I don’t want to ask and hear answers to interesting questions. Of course I do. But my debate skills belong in my back pocket.

@Rangie
The greatest gift of humor is to be able to laugh at oneself. (c)

@SeventhSense Well then I own the greatest gift. That is easy for me. Taking myself too seriously is not so easy.

Like @Symbeline I enjoy solitude more than most people. I’m a bit anti-social and always prefer staying home as opposed to partying or being super social. Social settings of more than five people make me nervous. Baha, pathetic, I know, but I just don’t enjoy it. Because of this, people often think I’m stuck up or they think that I think I’m too good to hang out with everyone else or as one person put it, “indulging in the outside world”. Definitely not the case. I work like a maniac and often don’t have time to hang out spontaneously.
I do enjoy spending time with my friends and often find myself yearning for human contact, but I’d just prefer to do so at home. I just don’t ‘light up’ when people ask if I want to go to a party or a club or a bar. I find myself accepting offers every once in a while just so I don’t come off as rude, but in reality, I’m rarely in the mood.

I’m like a lot of you: I like being on my own. I don’t generally care for big social situations and I am awkward in large groups or around large numbers of people I don’t really know. I’m from an extremely social family though, and an extremely social profession (teachers are chatty!), and most people don’t understand why I don’t like going to parties, out for happy hour, or spending the whole weekend at various events. That’s just not me. Luckily, I surround myself with friends who do get it, it’s just colleagues and family members who really don’t.

@Vunessuh I am like you in many ways. I love being home. It is the most comforting place I know. I don’t care for large groups, and never was a party person. I can remember years ago, I was working in a Medical Group, and befriended this really nice, funny, unassuming girl. We were work friends only, until she invited me to a social party with Miss California. I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t think of a reason not to at that moment. She picked me up and off we went. Upon arrival, my friend transposed into a person I had never seen before. You know, air kisses, darling this, darling that. I looked around and immediately that this is not for me. After enduring for a while, I had my husband come and get me. Give me my sweats, paints, and I am happy. I don’t know how I came off with my friend or her’s, but I really didn’t care.

I am shy and kind of awkward when talking to people. I tend to keep my conversations brief because I get nervous and unsure of what to say. A lot of times, people interpret this behavior as snobbishness. How little we understand each other!

I have been told that I am intimidating. Apparently I give off this vibe of being strong, unfriendly and unapproachable. People have said I carry this look on my face that says “don’t fuck with me”. Which explains why when walking down the hallway at work my co-workers would always go to the other side of the hall to avoid me. But once people get to know me they have said how much of a mistake they made about me and how much fun I am to be around. But what they don’t know is that I’m shy and not very comfortable in social situations and that can be misinterpreted as unfriendly.