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I Come Off As Subtly Weird

I am an intelligent and articulate person.  Nonetheless, I have some trouble communicating.  I am fastidious, and I speak in a meticulous way.  I have careful and somewhat stilted diction.  It seems to me that people, in conversation, are playing a game whose rules I don't know and are taking it for granted that I do know them.  I misunderstand even moderate vagary; the slightest ambiguity can confuse me.  I'm a lot like a robot.  Hints and intimations throw me off because I can usually tell when I'm supposed to make an inference but I don't trust my ability to do that.  I'm wracked with self doubt.  Am I striking the appropriate tone?  Am I making the expected facial expession?  Is it obvious that I'm faking familiarity with the conventions of this social activity?  Have I fully understood? Often, when I can muster the courage to ask for clarification about some common thing, my fellow conversant seems baffled by my request; conversation doesn't come easy to me and I have to think of it like a science, but most people don't.  I get jokes, but my own are usually a touch too cerebral and seem offbeat even when I'm trying to be funny in a conventional way.  Conventional is a few fingers beyond my reach.  People have made (mostly harmless) fun of my upright, formal demeanor, treating me like an oddity.  I seem stoic and stuffy, perhaps sometimes even to those few who know me well.

Sometimes, people have trouble understanding what I say for one reason or another.  This is upsetting.  My limitations in conversation are frustrating. No matter what, I never feel completely certain that I'm comprehending whomever I'm speaking to or that, as a conversationalist, I'm meeting their expectations.  Basically, I'm never sure if I'm passing as normal.

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