Autism

not wanting to be touched

That was a big one that contributed to my divorce. Even after decades and with the person who was supposed to be my closest relationship, and even after explaining a million times that the worse my autoimmune illness got, the less I wanted to be touched, it was a massive problem.

I still don’t get it, because I’ve never once thought someone else not wanting me to touch them impacted me in any way. I also never feel the need to touch other people. I guess that’s weird.

Maybe people just like to be offended. It can be a very attractive narrative.

You could call it unrealistic, but when has "realism" mattered in what anybody thought?

As: Saying what you mean.

I never really thought about this like that...

Most of the things in the list above are just circumstances where misunderstandings arise and it's not uncommon for autistic self-care (like withdrawing, not paying attention, etc) to be mistaken for disrespect.

When I was a kid, these misunderstandings sometimes led to me getting beat up. Now that I'm a larger-than-average adult man, the bullying and schoolyard nonsense doesn't happen but the misunderstandings and ensuing anger can take the form of grievances that have a way of turning into career-limiting drama. It' still bullying, it's just done the way adults bully.

These are all deeply frustrating, circumstantially stupid, and they all arise from an ignorant mistake in which me being inattentive or low on social energy or just having a hard time turns into them 'feeling disrespected'.

It can be exhausting when people take offense when none was honestly on offer- and the resulting dominance nonsense that sometimes ensues when they're petty about it has me a little convinced that too many adult people out there really don't distinguish between respect and submission to their weird dominance games