Social Skills

I have a confession to make. I'm somewhat of a social misfit. I've always been a social misfit. While others were striving to be different, I was trying to figure out why I was different and how to be the same, and no one was trying to be different in any way like I was. I've been told by teachers all my life that I probably have ____ (you fill in the blank with whatever: ADD, Aspergers, dyslexia, OCD, etc.) I'm fairly sure that if there was a test to tell if children were like me in the womb, that there would be a 90% abortion rate on Kimberlys, too.

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, I'm continually trying to work on these skills and it gets harder as I improve more to identify the ways I'm screwing up as the differences get subtler and subtler. I've never had anyone to help me in this manner. My parents usually just punished me for doing something rude or socially wrong. My sisters, who are extremely adept with their social skills, would tell me how to do things but it didn't help me improve so much as just let me know the specific action in a specific setting.

Luckily for me I have my husband. One of the many great things he does for me is very gently pointing these differences out. Fairly recently, he pointed out very gently that my suggestions don't sound like suggestions but commands. If I see a better way to do something, I'm apt to tell you to do it that way and not say that it might be a better way to do it or say that if you do it this way it would be better and give the reason why.

So if I have offended you by commanding you to do something a certain way, I apologize. I don't intend to insist that you use my methods to parent your child or put colors together in your quilt or sanitize your kitchen and bath but am just trying to give suggestions for other ways that you might like to do things that I have learned from my reading or research or experience on a particular subject. I promise to try not to be so pushy in the future.

Thank you P for pointing this out and for having such good suggestions to help me. It is one of the many reasons that I will love you forever.