I’m actually glad you wrote out all the details of what happened - thank you, that was helpful. It’s clear you are confused about what happened, so you need help working it out and giving us the whole story enables us to go through it and share our ideas and interpretation...
... and interpretation of the details is what allows us to decode the social cues and give meaning to all this stuff, otherwise it is just lots and lots of details. It must get pretty overwhelming trying to sort through these whole loads of facts and details, when you haven’t got ‘the handbook of social cues’.
I think some posters haven’t understood that.
In this case, I think the difficulty lies in knowing when to take people’s answers at surface level, knowing they mean exactly what they say, and when you need to read under the surface, and not take the literal meaning of the words as the whole entire meaning of the social interaction.
Eg. when is it correct to push someone beyond their first answer, and ‘not take no for an answer’?
It can be rude and pushy sometimes: Like when asking for a favour, especially when it would require that person going to considerable inconvenience to do this favour for you.
But at other times it’s the best and most polite thing to do, when it’s a codified social etiquette, where something is offered by person A, the other person B refuses to take it, BUT it is a token refusal, and it’s part of a ritual, where the first person, A, then insists again on giving whatever it is, and person B might refuse again, and this dance can go on a couple more times until go out is satisfied, and person A ‘wins’ by gently persisting, and person B gives in gracefully: Like when offering to repay money / or repay someone having done you a favor, by you doing a favour for them in return / or showing your appreciation for a friend having done a favor for you, by giving small gifts or going out of your way to be exceptionally kind to that person.
This must be SO difficult for you, as a person who has autism/ Aspergers, to navigate these social nuances.
Your friend has handled this very unsympathetically. And her mother is just awful for behaving like she has done!
From your friends perspective I suspect this is what has happened:
You ask for a lift. Your friend gives a confusing answer to you. You ask for a lift again, seeking factual clarification... and get increasingly anxious for clarification as the time gets closer. You finally get a yes. So you think, right, my friend wants to give me a lift and she is completely happy about that.
Unfortunately. people find it difficult to say a plain and clear ‘no’ when they are asked to do a favour. People often think the other person should just ‘know’, by the ‘no answer’ and avoidance that follows such a request. If someone who is NT carries on pushing and pushing for that favour, it is considered rude and the other person may say yes, because they don’t know how to handle a confrontation. That’s not a happy yes, it’s grudging sad yes. They will probably do the favour out of a sense of duty, but the friendship will be severely tested, even broken.
I know that might sound very confusing because if you apply the same logic to the ‘repaying the money’ situation that happened later, you could think you did the right thing by not pushing and pushing... but nope, sorry! Context is king, as they say.
Asking for favors = do not ask multiple times! If you receive a ‘no answer’ eg a refusal to directly answer, or silence, avoiding the subject or avoiding you yourself, that actually means no to your question.
You offering an (appropriate) gift / compensation / favour in return for something they’ve done for you = Asking more than once is considered polite. They are being polite saying ‘no no please don’t bother’, or ‘it’s not necessary’/ ‘it was no trouble’, they probably do not actually mean it. They may well mean the exact opposite! You keep trying to give, and after a couple of no’s, this social ritual should end with them ‘giving in’ and accepting your gift / repayment or whatever it is. This does take some skill to get it right though!
Now, in your case your friend should have understood your motivations were completely different and that you didn’t mean to make her feel bad by pushing her for an answer like that.
But sometimes people do have lapses of empathy and maybe your friends feelings got the better of her, and just came in first, before her rational side made adjustments for you. It can be hard on people, if they constantly have to make adjustments and don’t get their own feelings tended to enough.
I would advise you to:
- Apologise profusely by text to your friend.
- Phone / meet up to explain in more detail, including suggesting ways to stop this happening again eg asking her to tell you straight and reminding her you won’t be offended? Or asking her if she can give you a sign, or a code like a word or phrase when you know to back off and stop asking?
- Ignore the frightful mother!!!
This is the kind of thing I’d say in the text. It’s time to be gentle and thoughtful about how your friend might be feeling. Friendships are about give and take. If your friend feels like she’s done too much giving, and you too much taking, then she needs to hear from you that you want to GIVE (in emotional terms) to her. I know you’re upset about what’s happened, but it would be a mistake to ask your friend to explain and / or ‘make it better’ for you, as those are both her doing more Giving in the relationship at a time when she might feel like she has little left to give.
So here’s my text: Tell her you are extremely sorry you may have made her feel pressured into giving you a lift. Apologise for keeping her out long after your job trial finished. Tell her that you thought she was enjoying it at the time but you’ve since realised that she may not have been enjoying herself as much as you were, and you might have been causing problems for her keeping her out so long. Then say that although you don’t understand why her mother felt it was ok to turn up and shout at you for something you weren’t aware of doing wrong in the first place, but you do t want to cause your friend problems. Then suggest meeting up to discuss it and to make sure you both can sort out any problems in the future before they get out of hand, as you value her as a friend far too much!
Ok that’s a loooomg text! Perhaps say half of that and suggest phoning or meeting up to say the rest of it?!