I think I may have an answer to your question. But I'm going to warn you in advance this post may feel manipulative to be polite. I have a feeling this post will go over either very well, or very poorly. It's a bit of a gamble.

It seems like you decided to come here to ask that question instead of just asking the people you were talking to at the point they were unhappy. Think back to that specific decision. Why did you do that?

For instance, why not just profess that you don't understand to one of those people that you were talking to in person? Wouldn't it have been simpler to Hug the query? With the exception of emotional instability, people tend to be a pretty good judge of their own emotional states. It seems safe to say that in general they are a better judge then people who have never met them such as ourselves.

Now, there are a few ways you can approach this.

• Admit that yes, people themselves are often the best judge of their own emotional states and ask them.
• Admit you had some sort of aversion to admitting your lack of social knowledge in a social situation. This feeling of aversion will be similar to the feeling of aversion they are having. Perhaps because you don't wish to admit your lack of social skills because you would prefer to keep it ambiguous? By admitting a lack of social skills, you know they know that you know you lack social skills. This feels a plausible explanation, even though the explicit admission of the mistake does not change the state of the shared knowledge: the situation wasn't really ambiguous to start with.
• You could also argue with me. But why would you be getting defensive? You just admitted it's something you can't begin to comprehend. Surely you should feel gratitude at every poster who posts here to point out where you went wrong?

Okay, hopefully I'm done sounding purposely manipulative and throwing your words back at you.

Basically, that was an attempt to put you in a position similar to the people who you didn't understand, to show your attitude might be misinterpreted by someone who didn't understand you. You almost certainly don't sound anywhere near that bad. But I am very serious that you should consider asking the people who seem to be reacting poorly. I am just guessing. It may be a good guess, or it may be totally off base. But it's just a hypothesis. You should still want to gather evidence from the source. Even if it's personally awkward.