In which Tom offends everyone

Part 1

I realized the other day that I offend people. I really do not mean to and I am mostly surprised when I do but the salient fact is that I am an offensive human being. I have been thinking of why this is and I have come up with a possible working hypothesis. I may seem to ramble a bit here, but bear with me and I will return to the subject eventually.
A) I do not understand the way other people think. Sometimes what I think they are thinking is not what they are thinking at all, if in fact other people do think which sometimes I think is very unlikely;(that in itself is a prime example of how I offend people, I make grandiose statements informing the rest of the world that it is somehow deficient on the tom-o-meter.) Back to thinking, I truly do not think the way other people do. I realize this mostly at movie theatres and other public places where everyone around me reacts to something in the same way and I fail to see why. Then later I am the only one reacting a certain way to something completely different. For example I give you the movie, Braveheart. In one of the Battle scenes a man gets his arm chopped off, I was laughing and everyone else in the very full movie theatre was making ‘oh that was gross ‘ sounds at first I saw nothing odd at this, then I realized that it is the outward manifestation of an inward oddness. I think differently then most other people. I do not know how or why, I just know that I do.
B) People confuse me. I just do not understand sometimes. Once I asked a girl what she wanted for Christmas and she told me “A pair of Mittens and some slim fast” So, I got her a pair of mittens and some slim fast. Everyone (including the girl) told me what a jerk I was. I did not understand why people where so upset for 15 years, when I told my wife the story and she explained why I was such a jerk. Now I understand that there is this thing called “irony” and I have a vague notion of what it entails, but for some reason I almost never understand it when other people use it and when I try, I come across as just being mean. I think it may have something to do with voice inflection, and being a lip-reader that does me no good at all. If only people had a little screen on one eye that would flash ;) whenever irony was being used. I have hit a few (ok more then a few) guys whom in retrospect, where probably just being ironic. Not assholes.
Next: THE UNBEARABLE ODDNESS OF ME