People not giving you direct answers

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Like this?
I find it very annoying when they don't give me a yes or no answer after a reasonable amount of time. I usually say yes or no and then explain though verbally, I'll explain first and then say yes or no because sometimes people like to twist things by not mentioning someone's reasoning. For example, if someone asked me, 'Do you think Cancer charities?', I'd explain first, because a simple 'no' can and will make me look like I want Cancer patients to die(sorry for the weird example).
I don't think this is a Aspie thing. The video above shows that everyone finds it frustrating when someone doesn't give a direct answer after a reasonable amount of time.
Usually the details can be implied as a yes or no answer though.
EMZ=]

A direct answer is a definitely a must with me. The "silent treatment" doesn't work on me. I would much rather hear "F*** off!" than nothing.

When someone is silent, I interpret it as the other person has something to hide, and is wanting to keep it a secret from me or everybody.

Yeah, negatives in a question always throw me off, especially when it deals with various possible measures:

"Don't you love me anymore?"

Possible answers:
"Yes" - I don't love you any more than I did before - the amount of love is the same as before.
"No" - I don't love you any more than I did before - the amount of love is the same as before.

"Yes" - I no longer have any love at all for you.
"No" - I no longer have any love at all for you.

"Yes" - In fact I do love you more than I did when we first met.
"No" - In fact I do love you more than I did when we first met.

I fee so much better now. The point of this thread was to see if my generalization about how aspies answer questions and what answers they prefer is correct.

My online friend told me after that suicide is hard on him because he came real close to it in 1993. He told me after I got mad at him for not giving me a direct answer. Like someone said in this thread about how it depends, people can also say "It's depends" when they get asked people who post suicide threads, do they get their sympathy because it's neither yes or no for them because it has to depend on what the situation is.


I can remember Selmana's (sp) example about how a aspie would respond to this question vs an NT child.

Teacher: Did you hit Seth?
NT student: Yes, but he hit me first

Teacher: Did you hit Seth?
Aspie child: Yes

See the difference? The NT child was indeed direct but then went detailed vs an aspie child only giving the direct answer but no detail. You would have to ask them more questions to get the detail answer.

I would have answered it the aspie way too as a kid.

Teacher: Did you hit Seth?"
Me: Yes
Teacher: Why?
Me: He hit me
Teacher: Did you hit him first?
Me: No

The worst EVER answer to questions are:

'I'll see what I can do'

'I'll look into it'

'I'll think about it'

'maybe'

Why are they bad? BECAUSE THEY ALL MEAN NO!! !

When I suffered from mutism, I needed to be asked yes/no questions otherwise I would stay silent.

_________________
I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

I do prefer direct answers. If I get a really vague answer I just try to clarify ("Do you mean 'no'/that you don't want X") or leave it at that. I can't be really picky about this because I'm guilty of giving unnecessarily long answers which may also be unnecessarily vague, and avoiding simple yes or no answers unless I am completely sure that that answer is correct. For example, if asked if I would be at school next Monday I might reply "Most likely," meaning that I'll be there if weird unforeseen circumstances (like being run over by a truck) don't interfere. I might want to work on that...

^ AH! A very interesting point! I had an argument with my stbx about a similar situation. He wanted me to go get him a piece of equipment but wanted me to promise that nothing was going to happen to it - eg I wouldn't drop it on the way or something. I refused to make that promise because something unforseen might happen. He then got upset at me for being so insecure that I wasn't confident in my ability to carry something to him. I tried to explain that that wasn't the problem, just that I can't promise for a certainty that nothing is going to happen when I pick it up. I'm pretty sure I can pick it up and bring it to him with no problems but you never know if something is going to happen.

He didn't understand, though.

i had this on again, off again "boyfriend" or "lover"...more like "hater" 15 years ago (for about 3 years) who was a genius PhD special effects programmer engineer geeky guy who made great $ but his bills were always late and his utilities were always getting turned off and his car registration was often expired and he used tshirts for pillowcases and wore 2 different socks and his hair was matted and his apartment was always piled high with unread ancient mail and empty plastic water bottles and there were nothing but math books on the maze of bookshelves and he was always 3-6 hours LATE...hmmm.....
anyway, he would always say MAYBE and maybe ALWAYS meant NO.
turns out he had a wife across the country. she had no idea about me even though he had the keys to my apartment and his dirty clothes were in my laundry hamper... so, i'd say "how about dinner sunday with so and so?"
and he'd say MAYBE... sigh!

I can relate to this thread.

When I ask a direct question, I am looking for specific information in a response. I don't have an ulterior motive, I just want the information that I am asking for. I often find, however, that my questions are interpretted as having some other motive. For example, I asked a colleague what work she had done over the past week. All I wanted was that information. Instead, I got a speech about how I apparently think she isn't doing any work. I tend to ignore most of people say and just filter for the information I am seeking. If I don't get that information, I usually think the other person is trying to hide something.

When someone asks me a direct question I give an honest and direct answer - but not always the direct answer they want. If someone asks for certain direct answers (e.g., "Yes" or "No"), I often think that the person is trying to manipulate my response.

here's a secret: this was a big problem I ran into early on, with my business, which my partner and I are still "recovering" from.

All people said was either "you're lucky in your first year if you even break even", and "sell what's hot, and people will come". Gee, sounds simple right?

Here's what the big reality is: you can have pure, uncut crack cocaine your first year of business, and virtually no one will come cause they don't know you're there.

you can even advertise on the monitor in Times Square, and no one will even give you a second look, cause you're new.

Wish someone had said it that way to me...