I am so weird

Of course anyone that knows me is now nodding their heads in unison, but let me explain what I mean.

I am, what I would consider, a pretty social person. I really like people, I can talk for hours about nothing and I just like being around people. That being said, there are several social situations which are like totally normal situations that for one reason or another I just don't know how to handle. I don't know if it was a lack of training as a child or something in my brain is just wired weird. Here are some examples:

This one happened a lot as a child, and only occurs infrequently with my wife nowadays, but it does still happen. Someone will get angry/disappointed with me, very angry but at the same time disappointed with me, it used to be my mom and now on a rare occasion it is my wife. For some reason I don't know how to handle that. I can handle anger fairly well, sometimes not "correctly" (I lash out back in anger at times, other times I am humble and accept responsibility) so I think my issue is more with the disappointment factor, although if someone is just disappointed in me, I find it uncomfortable, but I don't laugh. That's right, if someone is really angry and disappointed in me, for some reason I laugh. I don't mean to laugh, I don't find the situation the LEAST bit funny, but for whatever reason my brain doesn't know how to handle the anger and disappointment at the same time, so as a defense mechanism it laughs. This used to drive my mom nuts (she would only get MORE angry) and until I sat down and talked with my wife about it, it used to drive her nuts. I explained it to her, and although she doesn't understand it, she accepts it for what it is, and actually she says her brother has a similar reaction, so maybe I am not alone in the world in this.

On a more widespread scale in terms of issues and my weirdness is the issue of gifts. I like gifts, I love Christmas, I love giving them and I love receiving them. On my birthday same thing, no problem at all. BUT when someone gives me a gift, like a friend is just trying to be nice and on some random day gives me a gift, I get all weirded out. It isn't that I don't appreciate it, in fact it is quite the opposite. I am so blown away by the fact that someone gave me a gift for just being me and being my friend and being nice to me I don't know how to respond. I will end up saying thank you like a thousand times, look and feel really awkward the whole time, and leave feeling somewhat depressed because I didn't get them any sort of gift. It is the weirdest thing, someone is being nice to me and wants to just give me a gift, and somehow my brain leaves the situation feeling depressed because somehow I feel like a failure because I wasn't able to properly express my gratitude.

So like I said I am weird. The only solace I can take in all of this is knowing that everyone else out there is weird, just in their own unique ways.

So if you are ever feeling awkward and completely out of place, just take comfort in knowing that you probably are but so is everyone else around you.