asked friend for help & he got mad cuz I didn't understand

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Okay, so, my friend and I were talking via online text messenger this morning like we often do. We're in different countries and sometimes talk about differences in our languages, customs, traditions, stereotypes, whatever the case may be. We often joke around about our pet peeves as well, and talk about tv shows, etc. We had been talking about Twilight Zone episodes this morning for a bit, then later he commented on a frustrating thing he was dealing with in his computer work/hobby. Then a bit later I complained randomly about some grammatical and spelling errors I saw online on a different forum that came up in a web search result, and he was sympathizing with my frustration at a couple of my pet peeve words that were misspelled. Typical kind of day/exchanges that we have.

Then I was quiet for awhile, researching something or other about autism that I don't even remember right now, because as usual I followed links and more links until I wasn't even researching the same subject anymore, I was just reading an older google books result and ended up reading many of the free pages in the book because I found it interesting.

In that older book about autism and some other associated syndromes, I read several statistical statements which were generally set up like "a prevalence of 4-5 in 10,000 children," or "One in every 2000 people,". But one statistical statement was set up differently/broke the pattern, so it caught my attention.. it said "Rett's syndrome and Child Disintegrative Disorder are rarer, each occurring in fewer than one per 10,000 live births".

So, I brought up the text messenger box and commented:

"what a dumb way of stating something. they're talking about a disorder that has to do with speech and communication and motor movements, yet they make a point to say it affects about x in 10000 "Live Births". HOW CAN THIS AFFECT A DEAD BABY?"

him: It can't. they must be excluding still births or something.
me: yeah stillborn babies are dead babies and have no chance of developing a disintegrative disorder
him: which is why they're excluded from the statistic
me: they don't need to be. common sense says they are.
me: this affects about x in 100000 live births, and about x in 10000 dead births.
me: something wrong there?
him: i think you're missing the point
him: there is no data on the death births
him: so they're excluded
me: you can't have a disintegrative disorder if you're never alive, so there is no point in splitting the statistics between live births and stillbirths
him: they have to be excluded BECAUSE you can't tell on them one way or another
him: so it might skew the statistic
him: and i expect that kind of precision from a statistic
me: I don't understand. nobody is going to count the number of miscarriages or stillbirths when determining how many CHILDREN have something, because those don't ever become children
him: exactly
him: so they're not counted
him: they're excluded
me: so if we're not even counting them, why split into two groups
me: to not count them
me: they're simply ignored out of common sense
him: they're ignored by stating that they're ignored
me: only live children can even have this so we do not need to specify that this number is out of the live children
him: otherwise they're included in a statistic and makes it wrong
him: you're missing the point
me: they aren't included in the statistic though because they can't be because they don't exist anyway
him: i give up
me: i'm sorry, i'm trying
him: they're right to specify

me: this is one of those times that my brain just doesn't understand
me: i'm not arguing because I think i'm right, it's because it's not clicking
me: but thank you for trying and sorry its annoying
him:: they can't say 1 out of 1000 births has something, if they can't tell conclusively from one subset of those 1000, ie the dead ones
him:: so it would be a wrong figure
him:: because you can't tell whether or not the dead ones would have it
me: I just feel like the statement "child disintegrative disorder occurs in fewer than 1 in 10,000 children" would be as accurate as saying "live births" because OBVIOUSLY dead children cannot have this, it's stupid to even say that. neither can egg and sperm that didn't meet at all.
him:: so they have to exclude them to give a reliable figure from the ones they can get a figure from
him:: again, i give up
me: yeah I don't blame you. some things will never make sense to me
me: this must be about math instead of about communication
me: kinda like saying 1 in 10000 live births will end up contracting the flu someday. dead babies don't. dur.
me: nope. i give up
me: don't need to exclude the impossible conditions, otherwise where do we draw the line?
me: sigh brain doesn't brain some s**t
me: if they were counting blue eyed humans i'd understand the importance
him: stop
-----

So, okay your heads all hurt by now and so does mine because I know he's right, and I am not questioning it, I only wanted to understand why the author chose to use this wording for this statement he was communicating to the reader when the other statistics did NOT specify "live births", they said things like "children" and "people" instead, which are of course live births but aren't specified in such a way as to so specifically and blatantly call into attention the fact that some births are not live births, which I feel implies that the non-live-birth numbers have something to do with the statement which the author was making, whereas those numbers did NOT apparently apply to his previous statements, based on his word choice being so different this time.

So my question was - it seems obvious that the author thinks this particular statement requires pointing out that not all of the statistics in question are about live births, and I want to know why the heck is he making a point to draw our attention to disintegrative disorder in stillborn children, when there doesn't seem to possibly be such a thing?

So instead of type all THAT to him at this point, I just said "this must be about math instead of about communication" because I figured, a-HA, this is worded like this because of mathematical accuracy being desired in the sentence the author wrote, perhaps that's required with statistical statements (though then why weren't the previous ones worded similarly?).... so I thought "ah, I'm worried about the comunication the author is trying to engage the reader in, an I'm focusing on what his word choice means communication-wise, but maybe really it's a math word and statistics dictate saying it that way so even though it sounds weird he had to say it because STATISTICS! what do I know about statistics? math is where my report cards went from "gifted" to "what the heck? she's not working up to her potential!! lazy errors!!" (I really tried I swear).

bleh. anyone reads all that I apologize for making you and thank you for your time. I know it's my fault for going on and on about it, but ... WHY did the author specify "live births" like that?? Maybe his thesaurus ran out of words for "children", "people", etc and that was all he could think of.

What a dumb thing to make me crazy.

They're ALWAYS things like this, too.

That's really mean .

I think perhaps he's not really your friend... :-/. Don't worry though because not everyone is like that.

Then again perhaps I'm wrong and he had a bad day. I have friends from across the world too. Maybe you could wait a few days before trying to chat again but don't bring up the problem again

Okay, so, my friend and I were talking via online text messenger this morning like we often do. We're in different countries and sometimes talk about differences in our languages, customs, traditions, stereotypes, whatever the case may be. We often joke around about our pet peeves as well, and talk about tv shows, etc. We had been talking about Twilight Zone episodes this morning for a bit, then later he commented on a frustrating thing he was dealing with in his computer work/hobby. Then a bit later I complained randomly about some grammatical and spelling errors I saw online on a different forum that came up in a web search result, and he was sympathizing with my frustration at a couple of my pet peeve words that were misspelled. Typical kind of day/exchanges that we have.

Then I was quiet for awhile, researching something or other about autism that I don't even remember right now, because as usual I followed links and more links until I wasn't even researching the same subject anymore, I was just reading an older google books result and ended up reading many of the free pages in the book because I found it interesting.

In that older book about autism and some other associated syndromes, I read several statistical statements which were generally set up like "a prevalence of 4-5 in 10,000 children," or "One in every 2000 people,". But one statistical statement was set up differently/broke the pattern, so it caught my attention.. it said "Rett's syndrome and Child Disintegrative Disorder are rarer, each occurring in fewer than one per 10,000 live births".

So, I brought up the text messenger box and commented:

"what a dumb way of stating something. they're talking about a disorder that has to do with speech and communication and motor movements, yet they make a point to say it affects about x in 10000 "Live Births". HOW CAN THIS AFFECT A DEAD BABY?"

him: It can't. they must be excluding still births or something.
me: yeah stillborn babies are dead babies and have no chance of developing a disintegrative disorder
him: which is why they're excluded from the statistic
me: they don't need to be. common sense says they are.
me: this affects about x in 100000 live births, and about x in 10000 dead births.
me: something wrong there?
him: i think you're missing the point
him: there is no data on the death births
him: so they're excluded
me: you can't have a disintegrative disorder if you're never alive, so there is no point in splitting the statistics between live births and stillbirths
him: they have to be excluded BECAUSE you can't tell on them one way or another
him: so it might skew the statistic
him: and i expect that kind of precision from a statistic
me: I don't understand. nobody is going to count the number of miscarriages or stillbirths when determining how many CHILDREN have something, because those don't ever become children
him: exactly
him: so they're not counted
him: they're excluded
me: so if we're not even counting them, why split into two groups
me: to not count them
me: they're simply ignored out of common sense
him: they're ignored by stating that they're ignored
me: only live children can even have this so we do not need to specify that this number is out of the live children
him: otherwise they're included in a statistic and makes it wrong
him: you're missing the point
me: they aren't included in the statistic though because they can't be because they don't exist anyway
him: i give up
me: i'm sorry, i'm trying
him: they're right to specify

me: this is one of those times that my brain just doesn't understand
me: i'm not arguing because I think i'm right, it's because it's not clicking
me: but thank you for trying and sorry its annoying
him:: they can't say 1 out of 1000 births has something, if they can't tell conclusively from one subset of those 1000, ie the dead ones
him:: so it would be a wrong figure
him:: because you can't tell whether or not the dead ones would have it
me: I just feel like the statement "child disintegrative disorder occurs in fewer than 1 in 10,000 children" would be as accurate as saying "live births" because OBVIOUSLY dead children cannot have this, it's stupid to even say that. neither can egg and sperm that didn't meet at all.
him:: so they have to exclude them to give a reliable figure from the ones they can get a figure from
him:: again, i give up
me: yeah I don't blame you. some things will never make sense to me
me: this must be about math instead of about communication
me: kinda like saying 1 in 10000 live births will end up contracting the flu someday. dead babies don't. dur.
me: nope. i give up
me: don't need to exclude the impossible conditions, otherwise where do we draw the line?
me: sigh brain doesn't brain some s**t
me: if they were counting blue eyed humans i'd understand the importance
him: stop
-----

So, okay your heads all hurt by now and so does mine because I know he's right, and I am not questioning it, I only wanted to understand why the author chose to use this wording for this statement he was communicating to the reader when the other statistics did NOT specify "live births", they said things like "children" and "people" instead, which are of course live births but aren't specified in such a way as to so specifically and blatantly call into attention the fact that some births are not live births, which I feel implies that the non-live-birth numbers have something to do with the statement which the author was making, whereas those numbers did NOT apparently apply to his previous statements, based on his word choice being so different this time.

So my question was - it seems obvious that the author thinks this particular statement requires pointing out that not all of the statistics in question are about live births, and I want to know why the heck is he making a point to draw our attention to disintegrative disorder in stillborn children, when there doesn't seem to possibly be such a thing?

So instead of type all THAT to him at this point, I just said "this must be about math instead of about communication" because I figured, a-HA, this is worded like this because of mathematical accuracy being desired in the sentence the author wrote, perhaps that's required with statistical statements (though then why weren't the previous ones worded similarly?).... so I thought "ah, I'm worried about the comunication the author is trying to engage the reader in, an I'm focusing on what his word choice means communication-wise, but maybe really it's a math word and statistics dictate saying it that way so even though it sounds weird he had to say it because STATISTICS! what do I know about statistics? math is where my report cards went from "gifted" to "what the heck? she's not working up to her potential!! lazy errors!!" (I really tried I swear).

bleh. anyone reads all that I apologize for making you and thank you for your time. I know it's my fault for going on and on about it, but ... WHY did the author specify "live births" like that?? Maybe his thesaurus ran out of words for "children", "people", etc and that was all he could think of.

What a dumb thing to make me crazy.

They're ALWAYS things like this, too.

One thing I've noticed is that some people take any questions and/or discussion as an argument. My mom does this a lot. It seems like in my mind, we're having a good discussion, but in her mind, we're having an argument. We'll be talking, and then all of a sudden she will get angry and tell me to stop arguing with her, which then leaves me feeling confused and upset that our discussion is unfinished. If I try to bring it up again later, she'll usually get annoyed right away and tell me to stop talking about whatever it is.

I wonder if something like that is what happened with your friend? Maybe when you told him that what he said didn't make sense and explained it the way you saw it, he misinterpreted that as you arguing with him and trying to prove him wrong when he was just trying to help you, so he got annoyed at you. And then when you added more facts to your point of view after he explained again, he got even more annoyed and told you to stop.

I'm not sure that there's anything you could do differently in the future if this is the case.

The author wrote live births because some people don't have the common sense to figure out they do not mean dead babies, they only mean the ones who are alive.

I think pretty much everything that you typed here (I've shortened the quote a bit but ALL of your post was helpful, thank you) is exactly right and does apply to me, and I thank you for taking the time to type it all out. It seems likely that this is how he felt about the way the conversation went, and you certainly do describe where I was coming from very well, too. I'm sure things will be alright when we speak again, I will apologize for going on and on about it. I should've just chalked it up to "pet peeves" and moved on with my day I guess. (Not his reactions, the subject of my not understanding-ness.)

I know what you mean. I love fanfiction.net, but I often feel like I'm on the outskirts of my (tiny) fandom. People will reply to my PMs and reviews, but it seems like everyone else talks to each other all the time and knows so much more about each other than I do (and I'm not new) -- you see all over their fics that this is dedicated to person x, and this is for the x holiday challenge, and this is a birthday fic for x, etc. I have no idea how you move from being on the outskirts to being actually in the "club" where you can be included in this kind of stuff. I'd love to be included more!

I mean, I've had a few longer conversations with people, but most of them end up going the same way as you described, where they don't reply after a while. In some ways, having someone ignore your message makes you feel worse than if they got in a big argument with you (in my case, anyway). I hate not knowing what I did wrong or why the person doesn't want to talk to me anymore. I think I may sometimes have an issue with info-dumping, so I try to slow myself down as far as that goes. I have had a few successful conversations with people, one person in particular who PMs me from time to time and seems to like me, but there still just seems to be so much distance between me and the rest of the people in my fandom, and as much fun as I have reading their work, I still feel left out.

I just read your exchange with our friend. I know it was frustrating as tar for you guys but reading it from my third party perspective I found it very cute and funny because it reminded me of how I would think. You and I are so similar!

Now I could be 100% wrong on this but I will just take a guess. I come from a family full of doctors and medical people and I have heard these kinds of reports and read these kinds of things many times. My dad is also a doctor and I have heard him use this kind of terminology a lot. I am guessing it's just what I might call proper medical terminology. It's just the way they refer to it. That is most likely all it is. That is my guess anyway.

Thank you for sharing it with us.

No need to apologize!

I have to admit that I'm terrible at math and I don't know much about statistics, but from the way it sounds, I agree with you. I don't think there's any reason to specify live births.

The only reason I can think of to specify live births is if there's a genetic test for Rett Syndrome. I'm not sure if there is or not, but if there is, maybe they test suspected live and dead births for it? I think it can be fatal, so it would probably be helpful to know how many babies with it die and live.

I'm not sure about that, but hopefully a more math-minded person can give you a better answer.

I like 'ruminating' too. It's a neat word.
I wonder why so many people need caffeine every day? Is it that addictive? I'm kind of glad that I stick to tea, milk, and water.

Its hard to say from what you said. Maybe you were taking something too literally.

Depends on what the thing is that you didnt understand.

Could be that he was being argumenitive (like Quill said), could be that you were being argumenative like someone else said, could be that he thought that you were being argumentative when you werent.

I had to laugh when reading your reply because every single time I read a post of yours I generally say the same thing to myself - "that is so like me!!", haha. I'm sure you're right about that. IT just sounded funny because it was such a smooth flowing book until that little bit of technical jargon snuck in there and made it come off weird to me. Kind of like those commercials that are always on tv for medications and they try to seem like such normal people having regular days but then they say something like "..and my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis doesn't affect me anymore" - LOL!! Not so casual anymore suddenly. A casual conversation would just be "my psoriasis isn't sucking, yay!" .. .well you know what I mean by drawing this comparison hopefully. I haven't had my 4:45pm latte yet and it's already 4:43pm so my brain is on it's way out quickly. And I'm not anywhere near a dunkin donuts either so .... I'm doomed! No coffee= no brainy for me.

I have had similar experiences. I also have it happen often that when I don't understand something and keep asking questions to try to understand or keep trying to explain how it is making sense to me, people just automatically assign a "You're being argumentative and combative" attitude to me. That is usually not the case at all. I am just very confused and my brain won't stop spinning until it understands. But I think that some people don't understand how I can possibly be confused about the thing I am confused about because it's not something that would confuse them or anyone else they know. So their only thought is that I must be arguing. They don't understand that my thought perspective and process about the thing is very different from theirs so I have a very different way of understanding. They can't conceptualize that because they only understand their way of understanding. So the only option left for them is to assume that I am displaying argumentative behavior.