Aspie vs. NT "Truth"

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It took quite a while, but I've learned that almost all NTs prefer the "sound bite" version, which might not be totally accurate or truthful, compared to the detailed Aspie version that is accurate and truthful, but takes me a long time to explain...

And the few that do take exception--are often troublemakers that will give you a hard time no matter what you say.

Absolutely! NT's want sound bites and bullets. No long explanations.

I think part of the problem with this though, isn't all NT's just wanting it "down and dirty," it's combining that need for quick information with Aspie communicative problems that I think causes frustration.

I have a harder time expressing my thoughts than NT's. I often use a lot more words than are necessary to get a point across. It takes me a very long time to condense a lot of words down to a few lines, and still maintain the complete gist of the thought. I can't tell you how many times others have taken long essays of mine, rewritten them and re-posted them preceded with, "You could have just said..."

Often after reading their "chopped down" version, I've found they managed to say exactly what my point was with far fewer words.

So I don't think it's necessarily that they don't want to hear the truth as much as it is they'd rather not have us answer with so much detail. We often think the details are far more important than they really are.

Hmm, I find that I'm much more concise when answering a question or making a particular point. Like if someone asks me a yes/no question. And then I answer with just a yes or a no. And the person that asked me the question is just standing there expecting me to say more.
Or when I ask someone a very simple yes/no question, and then the person starts going on and on even though only a yes or a no was needed.

I am more concise than I used to be, and maybe that isn't a typical trait. I'm not really sure. I do know I used to be very wordy, and still am quite often. My AS kids are very wordy too, and the irony is, it drives me nuts. I'll ask a yes or no question, and they'll start of in left field insisting it's the only way they can answer. What my kids are really doing, which is the same thing I used to do, is thinking that I need to "follow the logic trail," they used to arrive at the answer. And that could be to answer a simple question like, "Did you do use my coffee cup?"

I can tell you that for me, and my sons, the reason we developed this habit of long explanations is because when we were younger, we would offer input to an ongoing conversation, and get baffled looks, because what we're saying seems to be totally unrelated to the topic. I know I've learned, and my kids have too, that to avoid that problem we need to anticipate these problems, and "fill in the blanks" so everybody else has some idea of why what we're saying is not unrelated to the topic. They are now at the stage of going overboard with the explanations, including many details that most people, including myself (even though I'm on the spectrum too), don't need or want.

I may have just done it in this post.

I do this a LOT (despite what my signature says ), often for the same reasons you mentioned. I've been told more than once "Okay, okay, I didn't need to hear all that."

Yes, this all applies to me too. People interrupt me mid-sentence and say "OKAY! I got it".

Yup! Or, in my case, "GET TO THE FREAKING POINT, WILL YA?!"

Most people don't want details. They just want us to get to the point, and give a yes or no answer.

I have a tendancy to say the same thing 4 or 5 different ways because I assume that they dont understand what I am saying...I guess because I have trouble understanding others because of autism, hearing loss, and auditory processing dysfunction makes understanding what people say very difficult. I just figure that if I have all this trouble undrstanding something that others do too.
Then they just get mad because I am treating them like they are stupid.

Me too. I don't generally say yes or no. I may go Yes [insert long winded explanation] Which gets people to say "okay got it" or "yes I know". Its very annoying when you're trying to go for a more open conversation.

Nah. Worked for me, I just remembered why I started explaining things like that myself. Often either way ahead of or out on a tangent of the main flow of conversation, or at least as far as I thought. It's only natural that if people don't follow you and you believe you're following logically from them, that you feel the need to explain the logic, to sync, or whatever with them, no?

Yup. That's where it came from for me, and where it comes from for my kids now. Often, we don't necessarily need to. I think the feeling comes from within. WE feel they need to know every detail, but THEY may not feel they do, and often they really don't need to. It's that lack of Theory of Mind again. It's funny how the same lack can cause seeming leaps of logic at first, then later, too much logic.

You can pack a lot of truth and information into a small pocket of space.

I think that the motives behind this come down to the way autistics are in terms of socializing vs. the way neurotypicals are.

See, with autistics, we tend to be loners. We are a single individual.

With neurotypicals, however, they are part of a larger group. They don't need to have the information in their minds, they only need to associate with someone who has that information.

Autistics use individual knowledge, whereas neurotypicals use collective knowledge.

The "sound bite" mentality of neurotypicals reflects this. Neurotypicals only need to be aware that there is someone in the collective that has that knowledge, they don't need the knowledge shared.

We, on the other hand, wish to obtain that knowledge so we don't need the other person within our collective (a collective of one).

NO! I can't! And that's my point! Actually, I am just kidding. I can often do that, but it usually takes a lot of thought, and editing to do it.

There's another reason it's very hard for me, and that has come from learning many NT "rules of engagement."

I sometimes end up phrasing things in ways that hopefully won't offend anyone, which often takes a lot of words, phrased and rephrased in different ways. But those rules took a long time to learn. Now days, I end up pissing off NT's spending so many words and phrases trying not to offend anyone.

What is up with those people anyway? Are they ever happy with anything we do?