I can't deal with indirect answers

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I ask direct questions and don't get direct answers. I do not understand this from people at all. All it does is stress me out wondering what they meant. If they don't answer directly, how can I trust their answer? If I politely ask them to please answer directly they get very condescending and rude to me. Why are neurotypicals such jerks?

I find this outrageous too. I often ask yes or no questions and do not get either. Just something indirect, or often a "life story." Feel like I'm being pretty clear.

I've learned to deal with it over the years, but it does piss me off and I feel your pain.

If it's not something important, I just shrug it off, but if it happens often with the same person, I a make mental note to watch out for that person when it comes to needing answers. If it's something important, I insist on clarifications until I get them. That's gotten me a reputation as a troublesome person I think, but I prefer that to never knowing what's going on.

On a plus side, I can give indirect answers too to those who have done so to me when I don't want to answer something, and they can't do much about it without having to acknowledge that they're hypocrites.

Yeah! The life story answers....

Yeah people always categorize me as being rude or pushy when I just want an answer to a question. I wonder why it's so hard for them to just give a strait answer, seems simpler to me.

I've done that before where I do the same to them until they admit being a hypocrite or just won't talk to me anymore

Yeah, uncertainty is one of those things that cause anxiety, especially when you have autism (it's generally a part of autism). The equivalent of yes, no or I don't know, in the context of the question, isn't all that hard. I guess in the social world ambiguity is acceptable.

Someone can ask me anything and they'll get the direct and truthful answer.

It's not even the uncertainty, a lot of times. At least, not the uncertainty in their answer. The hard part is that, if you're asking a simple question for a yes or no answer, and you don't get that, then you can't help but question your own communication. You just feel like they're hearing things out of your mouth that you're totally unaware of. It's extremely disorienting.

We autistic people live in a world where A + B equals C.

We cannot conceive of a world where A + B presumes C, yet that is a common way which NT people communicate.

Don't get frustrated.

HighLlama,

I'm alright in that regard as I'm certain with my own communication. Unless I'm being metaphorical on purpose, I'm direct (sometimes too much, but I have trouble stopping that one), and I know the difference. Though, there's probably some social thingy why people sometimes won't give direct answers, and it may be due to things that make them feel uncomfortable in the social hierarchical structure. Judgement runs strong in that game, and people may fear making mistakes.

Two different ways of seeing the same things will lead to confusion.

I'm on the same boat. This is one of the most stressful things for me and I hate being around NTs for that.

I do not want to operate on assumptions and by guessing what people say/want. FFS! We are unique among all creatures alive on this planet by having such a complex language - it is by no means perfect data transfer tool, but it is efficient enough if used correctly. But for some reason, a lot of NTs do not try to maximise precision and throughput - their communication is kind of like a crappy broadband connection with huge amount of packet loss. This is impactful even in case of NT to NT communication, but even more so when they are dealing with people like us. Especially if you are one of those Aspies who get their mind flooded with possibilities.

Like, when someone is saying something indirectly and leaves room for interpretation, my mind gets flooded with what I would call a tree of branching statements, leading to different conclusions and outcomes. Many of which the person I am speaking with doesn't even think about. I am trying to narrow it down to ones with highest probability in relation to all the factors about given situation, but quite often this still fails and people get angry at me for not understanding them or not doing something the way they wanted.

Fortunately I have managed to "train my NTs" about it and acquired a high level of communication efficiency with them. But with other people? I am past the point of caring now, I am simply being rude to them and say that if I misunderstood what they wanted from me, it's on them, as they have failed to explain their thoughts and expectations in a clear, precise manner. I am trying to get them to tell me precisely what they mean by interruptions and asking questions, it may not be the way to make friends, but sometimes it feels like forcing words out of people that way is the only reasonable option.

rse92 wrote that in NT's world A + B presumes C, but from my perspective, it is more like A + B presumes C, but depending on circumstances like mood of the speaker, the way they feel about you or thing they talk about, or even any, no matter how minor, variable it may presume D, E, F, G or ...infinite number of options, really. I do not have patience to deal with this bs.

Indirect answers drive me crazy too. It's almost like NTs assume I can read their f*****g minds, and that I'm supposed to do that in order to get the real answer to a question I may ask them.

I also hate it when I say something to someone, and they infer a meaning from it that's completely f*****g different from what I'm actually saying.

I often feel like I need a translation service that can go back and forth between "aspie" language and "NT" language in order to communicate with people.

I relate to this so much. Sometimes it's hard to figure out how they got their interpretation from my words, since I feel I'm being pretty direct. Often, I feel with them that words can never mean just what they say.

Yeah, I'm almost never understood either, especially when it comes to things more complex than single word answers or direct mechanical requests. It'd be nice if everyone just asked me if they're unsure (seriously, I'm the softest person around even if I don't look it), but alas, that rarely happens. I'd also get people talking about such things behind my back and then making group assumptions on what I meant.

High school and college weren't all that fun. I stopped interacting with humans after doing work for a little bit as the disabilities stacked on.

Last edited by Dillogic on 14 Feb 2022, 6:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Indirect answers and the silent treatment are the bane of my existence.

NTs perceive body language and facial expression as important as words, even though though these are vastly less precise means of transferring information. How they interpret your words depend even on stuff like how you tilted your head during speaking and if you've looked away. I guess, this is because NTs lie all the time and even when they do not, they are not speaking their minds fully as they value being on good terms (in general) with people more than honesty and precise signals.

Of course, body language is a pretty primitive form of communication, present in most animals, even invertebrates. One would expect that when species develop much more precise, direct form of passing information, it will discard the less efficient, more confusing or impractical ones. I mean, this happens all the time with technology humans invent - we do not use smoke signals or telegram any more. The only exception are ...pictograms, also know as emoticons or smiles nowadays. We basically made a full circle going back to era of cave paintings just because people are unable to take written words literally or write in clear enough manner and need pictograms as supplement.

Honestly, I think humans have not evolved enough yet to exchange information between individuals in a direct, efficient way without all of these leftovers.

^Great post, KMCIURA! I think NTs actually find vocal inflection, facial expression, and body language more important than words. The actual words always seem secondary, which is so frustrating. It feels like everything you say has to be performed, which I find exhausting. If someone tunes out when I'm saying something important, I'll just say (deadpan), "And that's when I started murdering people." Or, "I keep having to hide the bodies." Then they usually wake up and hear me better