If you ask my why and then go on about how you dont want excuses, the convo is over.

The mistake here is that the person explaining is interested in things like being correct or promoting efficiency while the adversary is only interested in hierarchy and dominating the explainer within their social context. That's the miscommunication happening.

A reason is an explanation although not all explanations are reasonable.

An excuse is an attempt to justify a reason/explanation.

Excuses are used when the expiation is not reasonable.

I think this person asking you is really trying to tell you you did something the wrong way, but in a less direct manner, because directness is considered "rude" in some cultures.

A reason is a motivation to do a thing. An excuse is a reason to do the wrong thing (though not necessarily an inherently wrong thing - just anything that the other person thinks was wrong).

It’s a problem even for those of us who are neurotypical (my son is not which is why I follow this community also, so as he gets older I can understand better).

But as someone said, bosses especially will say this and they really just want you to say it was your fault.

In my mind, the difference is if you are excusing the behavior.

“I’m sorry I’m late, I missed my alarm” is an explanation because I’m not excusing the behavior, just explaining.

“I’m late because my alarm didn’t go off” is an excuse because I’m asking to excuse the behavior.

That said, excuses seem to have this bad reputation as being just a reason for laziness, but they really shouldn’t as they can be valid.

Example, my work requires 2FA to log in, which I get via a text. I use a local carrier and “our vendor who handles texting went down”. In that sense, that was my excuse for being late getting logged in - and it wasn’t laziness.

excuses lend themselves to lengthy explanations. reasons are more succinct and pertinent

Every excuse is a reason, but not every reason is an excuse.

There are genuine good reasons for things not going as planned. Like things being outside of your control.

But if it was inside your control, and you could definitely have made it go as planned, but you didn't. Then your reason is an excuse.

More often than not it's more appropriate to say "I misunderstood, how should it have been done?" or "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. I'll be more careful" which may or may not include an apology depending on whether you inconvenienced someone else.

I really dislike rhetorical questions.

It's not just you, neurotypicals on the receiving end of that hate it too. Everyone gets told that garbage line once in a while. It's always said by someone on a power trip, they're trying to put you down into a place beneath them

(got put in wrong place. Edited and put in correct place for proper response)