Treating other people ... I'm not sure how to describe it.

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I used to, in my 20s, basically treat people like I could give them information and they could act on it in the manner that I perceived as most logical. One that was actually reasonable, IMO, was people who'd give me rides home, and I would tell them the way I was familiar with. Many would improvise off the directions, come from an unexpected direction, and then expect me to know how to get home from there - and typically, I had no idea. But I applied this same thinking to all kinds of things - some of which I was right about, sometimes there really was more than one way to do a thing and mine wasn't necessarily the best.

But I had a real hatred in general of people improvising from what I said, like, I told them exactly what works, why did they have their own ideas? It drove me up the wall.

I'm actually a lot nicer and less rigid about this, which is probably a good thing for my interpersonal relationships, but I think it used to characterize more of my interactions than it probably should have.

I've never had a problem with other people having their own ideas and solutions that are different to mine. I have always looked to other people to learn better ways of doing things.

In similar vein to your issue, what really did used to make me frustrated and annoyed is where I could see an easy solution to a problem and where known issues would be continued to be worked around. I could never understand why my logical ideas were ignored even if the solution was simple and looking them in the face.

I have now learned that the real issue (root cause) is often not the problem described. This may be a symptom or even a red herring to hide behind. From my AS point of view, life would be much easier if people were truly honest about a situation. We could then concentrate on resolving real issues instead of expending energy trying to fix difficult problems that are not important.

Story of my life....

Seriously, I can relate to that situation. Many times, I will explain something to someone, and they will have a entirely different interpretation and reach a totally different conclusion. I can picture how it works in my head, but then I run into problems when the world doesn't cooperate with what's in my head.

Seems to be a basic deficit of Theory of Mind.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately too... I'll be interested to see the responses.

Well, these were situations like my rides home where doing things as I described meant I would know what was going on and departing from that would leave me utterly confused and lost.

I did learn to trust other people more and accept they had valid ideas of their own, although I still had issues on occasion. I can think of a few occasions.



Yes, this was pretty much the case sometimes.



I am not sure I understand what you said here.



Yes, I've been thinking about "theory of mind" a lot lately, and finding more and more situations in which I have had (and sometimes still have) difficulties or even outright inabilities. I actually thought it was better than it likely has been for some time, and this caused a lot of the strife and arguments I've been in - an inability to see other people's point of view, or accept it as valid. I think I am currently better at this, but it is not always the case.

In other things I find it difficult to predict how people will respond to something. I remember permanently alienating a friend because I sent him something that I thought he would find funny, and he thought I was mocking one of his failures. I wasn't, but I misunderstood something that I knew and didn't know how to consider what his feelings might be, you know? It was really frustrating because I was unable to predict just how bad an idea this was.

I'll relate back to an example that I have quoted on another thread.

I was once tasked to solve an impossible problem that many had tried to tackle before me. But, now the problem was bigger and the future of my comapny depended on my success. I had made known that I thought that I could solve the problem (an engineering issue). I was let loose and given a budget. Two weeks into my four month project, the problem was solved and I had spent only 10% of my budget. I thought I was the saviour of the company and would be appropriately praised and rewarded. No such luck!

My boss actually wanted to start a new product line but did not have a secure business case. He wanted to be seen as having one last go at solving the impossible to support his case. In succeeding to do what he had asked of me, I sunk his argument. I was immediately promoted out of the way so that I couldn't make waves while he found another way of making his case.

So what am I trying to say? I was able to see a solution to the declared problem. I had been ignored until the problem became important. I thought I had been listened when asked to fixe the problem. In reality the problem was a sideline excuse do something different.

If my boss had listened to me in the first place he may have had confidence that I could fix the declared problem. If he had been honest he would not have asked me to solve it. If I had not been AS, I suppose I may have been able to percieve his actual intentions.

The above is only one example. I have seen many instances on this site where AS people have asked why some NTs can't see a solution to a simple problem. In these cases, I think the real issue may be that we AS sometimes have difficulty understanding what the real problem is.

When I was younger and talking to people far up the chain in the organization I worked in, I can remember seeing a simple solution to a problem, and stating to the person in authority, I don't want to question your logic, but.......

What a mistake. I quickly learned I should be much more subtle about stating logical solutions, like well I wonder what would happen if we were to do it this way, instead I don't want to question your logic. In my mind I thought that was polite, and had no idea how offensive it could be seen for a subordinate to talk that way to someone high up in the organization.

Regarding TOM. I never realized how unintentionally offensive I could be until someone pointed it out to me. We had a short Filipino man that was a financial manager for our organization that everyone knew and I "affectionately" referred to as "the little brown man". I actually had no idea that this retired Senior Chief out of the Navy might take offense to it. I must of said it a hundred times; I can't believe I ever said that now. I was 25 years old and still clueless to so many things in the world.

About the same time when a man who had been disabled with a heart attack since his middle thirties mentioned to me that life was not fair, I told him I thought it was. I knew bad things happened, but I thought the rules and regulations made it fair.

Amazingly noone ever punched me out, but I guess they realized more about me than I did; and tolerated it. I guess it was a good thing I worked for the military, but wasn't in the military.

I have this sort of problem all the time. For example, tonight at work, I got annoyed by a cashier turning off the monitor on a register before I had taken the till from it. My method is to leave the monitor on until the till has been removed so I don't forget any tills. Apparently, someone, at some time in the past, told her to turn off the monitor when the register was closed. But that's wrong and messes with my routine. Why must she do things her way?

I always feel that people are allowed to have their own opinions about things, but they need to explain why their way is better than mine, If they convince me, I will adopt their method. But most people just seem to go with their own way and ignore the whole "communication" step. And yes, I realize the irony in that last sentence.