Have I Offended You

This is something that I have always worried about all throughout my life. Reason why is because in my past, I have unintentionally done so because of not seeing a social situation on account of my Aspergers Syndrome. I have misread many a situation and ended up causing offense where none was intended. Although these days, I realize that some of those "offenses" were not actually offenses but the supposed victim of my unintended offense chose to simply take it as such. Furthermore, bullies of my past have often used this to justify their bullying of me. The result is the constant worry that I might have offended someone when I didn't mean to at all.

This occurred again very recently. Twice a year, I organize a softball tournament where teams from all around the Southern UK come to play. We did have a team come from Leeds and one from Manchester but that was only once. Anyway, one team who has come to every tournament for the last five years without fail, isn't coming to my one this Sunday. My first thought was that I must have offended them and I worried about it for far too long. I emailed them letting them know there was still a space available and apologized if I had offended them. Turns out that I didn't at all. Their team captain explained the reason why they aren't coming to this tournament is because one of their teammates is getting married on the Saturday and half the team are going to the wedding. I felt relieved.

With that said, my social bungling did upset another team. I had promised the captain of that team that I would contact them if a team pulled out of the tournament. One did and that sent me into overload as I was panicking about filling the vacated place. Also, I had heard that the team captain I had mentioned was now playing for another team. So what I did was open the invite to everyone. That team captain started getting a team together. However, another team had gotten in with their entry form so I accepted them. Obviously, the team captain was very angry with me and I can't blame him. I have very humbly apologized to him but I haven't heard anything back, plus I have made him special offers for next year's tournament. I hope that helps. Still, I believe that my Aspergers caused me to bungle the situation and end up offending someone I didn't mean to.

In this instance, I can't draw any links with "He Was Weird," because there weren't any mentioned in the book. Saying that, there were plenty of bullies who were willing to find any excuse to bully Mark that there wasn't any need for him to worry about unintentional offense. Still, I think that experience which I wrote about also has influenced the fact that I do worry so much about causing offense. It is something that comes up in my life quite a bit but I still don't think I adequately handle it.

To buy He Was Weird, go to https://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475004278&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird