Just be 5 minutes

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Who gets caught out by this?
I'll just be 5 minutes
I'll call back in 5 minutes
I'll see you in 5 minutes

I know NT don't mean 5 minutes but every time I will check my watch, then remember after about 10 minutes

It is one of those elusive "figure of speech". Like "give me a sec" or "hold on". It never takes a second and hold on to what? I was extremely literal as a child and growing up. It took me many years to "get it". Even now I need it spelled out for me to understand what someone really means. But I am too afraid to ask for clarification. It doesn't occur to me to ask. I just think that if I think more about it after they are gone I will understand, and that is usually not the result.

I got in trouble with the last guy I went on a date with, because I took "call me later" to mean later that night. A few days later I'm getting accused of stalking and lectured about an unspoken social rule about waiting three days to call someone.

I've had a lot of trouble with this, and while I get it these days, part of my brain is still "your five minutes are up!" and not having any of it.

Part of it was, too, that I hate dealing with uncertainty, and enough uncertainty can trigger severe anxiety. If I don't know how long someone is going to be, I might start to panic or just get really frustrated. And this goes both ways. Once, I was waiting for a ride to the store and was told "We'll be leaving in 30 minutes" so I started something that would take about 20 minutes. Five minutes into that, they came back and said "We're leaving now" and I refused to leave until I was done. What surprised me is that everyone else actually sat in the car until I came out. I did feel bad for that, but they never again told me "We're leaving in 30 minutes."

It has always pissed me off when I get told we were leaving and then I be waiting out in the car and my family would be taking too long to come out. I would go inside to see what was taking them so long only to find they weren't even getting ready. I be pissed because I was in the middle of something and I had to quit it for no reason at all just because I was told we were leaving. I swear my whole family had executive dysfunction.

So after a while I started to get rough with them about it so I would tell them to not bug me until we are really leaving. I was just getting so sick of their BS over the years so I started to get aggressive about it and it worked. But I find out years later when someone says they are leaving, they don't mean now. I had been taking it literal over the years so no wonder my family was slacking off and acting like they have ED. Plus my mom would come outside and say "There she is" and then yell in the house that I was out in the car. I just wonder why my mother never told me.

I still don't like to be told we are leaving and then not know when we are leaving. But I am not with my family anymore and my husband doesn't give me that trouble because I am the only one that drives. Oh yeah my husband also had to learn when I say things, I mean NOW. Like when I want him to do things or when we are leaving. It took me a while to learn "we're leaving" or telling someone to do something does not mean right now to NTS so they will slack off. I still fall for this when I get told to do things or that we are leaving because I keep thinking now. So my husband has told me "When you have time, can you go do this?" "After you are finished with that, can you do this?" Not his exact words but I think you get what I mean?



Over a year ago at the Montana flea market, my husband was looking at stuff and I was ready to leave that booth and he wasn't. He told me to give him sixty seconds. I really thought he meant sixty seconds so I started to count down, He said "Not literally, I mean like five minutes."


Another thing that irritated me and drove me crazy and made me anxious was when my aspie ex would say we are leaving in a few minutes and not mean it. He told me it can be a half hour or three hours or not until evening and it just drove me crazy because I didn't know when it was going to happen. I would get anxiety and have meltdowns and be difficult (not intentionally) because of the anxiety. I was like "When are we leaving?" just like my first ex when he go "can we go now?" except I would tell him when we are leaving like I tell him the time or tell him we are leaving after the show ends I'm watching and he still bug me so obviously he was just being a jerk. I would also get meltdowns for no reason because of the anxiety I get for no reason. Then I figure out years later that happened because I didn't know when it was going to happen and it makes me anxious. But back then I didn't know what was going on.

I am frequently caught out by this. My mum will say she'll be ready in 5 mins, when in reality she means about 20mins. So I get ready in 5 and part of me expects her to be ready too and gets really frustrated when she isn't. I think whenever someone mentions a time period for something, I automatically count it down.
If someone says they'll meet me in 5 mins and don't show at the time I'm expecting them, I get really really panicky.

My husband is always taking forever to do something. He will say "I'm going here in a minute" when he needs to go to the store for me, or run an errand. When I ask for clarification "When exactly is here in a minute, as in how long in actual time?" He gets irritated and says "HERE IN A MINUTE!" I tell him that he did not answer my question at all, he's simply repeating his original answer and my question was how long in actual time he means. Usually that means after whatever he is watching is over. Although after it's over, he goes to the bathroom and that takes about thirty minutes. It's like he waits to go to the bathroom until I need something done. Then he has to walk around and see what the kids are doing, and stop and watch their tv. If he sits down to watch what they are watching, that's at least another thirty minutes.

I'd rather he just say "I'm not, go yourself". I wouldn't be upset over that at all.

The phrase that used to confuse me when I first heard it, pertaining to time, was the new way that "A minute" is used. "Just a minute" used to mean "I will do it as soon as I can, very quickly, it won't be long". Now, they say things like "Matt! How you been? I ain't seen you in a minute!" or "I'm coming over, but it's gonna be just a minute now". At first I thought they literally meant a small amount of time. It was only after frustration and waiting that I discovered that the inflection and tone meant that it would be much longer than a minute, closer to an hour or two. I had known that "A good minute" means about a half hour, maybe longer at least, but "a minute" has always meant a short amount of time to me.

Frances

Not to be confused with a New York Minute.

I LOVE THAT SONG!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !

Frances

This is one of the things about the world that drives me crazy. I don't even know where to start.
So many people just seem to have absolutely no concept of time, or they say one thing when they really mean another.

Me, I am pretty much exactly on time for any time I give or is given to me. I guess the rest of the world doesn't operate like this. There is this whole system of implied time that I am completely unaware of, and I'm the one who gets jumped on for being exact.

For example. I worked for a few months at a 7-11 store.
My first day, I was told My hours would be 8am-4pm
I showed up at exactly 8:00am on the dot.
What does my new boss do? he gets on my case for being late!! ! WTF!! ! If he meant show up 10min early, tell me to show up 10 min early, don't just expect me to read minds. He proceeds to lecture me for 10min like I'm 12 years old or something. It probably never even entered his mind how his lecture delayed things.
No wonder I quit without notice 3 months later. I had no respect for the man after such a bad first impression.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-q8N5wye58[/youtube]

I really like the Eagles.

Thank you Verdandi! That was great!

I like the Eagles too. I think Long Run was their best album. I love the song Long Run. Also some of the older stuff of course.

Joe Walsh is another favorite of mine, as well as Don Henley.

Don Henley has such a great sound. It always conjures up memories and feelings and even smells of that period of my life when Sunset Grill and Boys of Summer were released.

Long Run does too. I am very scent oriented, and the song Long Run always reminds me of the smell of the Rave hairspray from years ago - it's got a different scent now, sadly - and Bubble Yum bubble gum, and the smell of freshly mimeographed handouts from the teachers.

I won't get started on smells. I'll never shutup if I do.

Speaking of New York Minute, did you ever hear that one they did as a tribute right after 9/11? I don't know who did it, but it was great, in a very sad way. They mixed in audio from the news into the song.

Frances

I just found out, had no idea before about the 9/11 version.

I've never listened to the Eagles in terms of albums, but mostly songs. I remember some of my favorites were on their greatest hits or best of or whatever it was called. Take It Easy has a strong nostalgic sense to me. Witchy Woman is very compatible with my visual music -> color synesthesia. Hotel California's one I've liked my entire life. The lyrics gave me rather vivid (not synesthetic) imagery.

There are so many other songs I loved, but right now can't remember names.

If you like specific bands, and don't mind listening to songs from albums that you may not have heard of theirs, you might like Frostwire. It's the music sharing program I have. It's like Limewire, which was like Napster, but instead of downloading one song, you download the whole album. If you like a specific decade or genre, there are also huge collections of those. I have a 12 CD collection of "the best of the 70s" that I downloaded and burned. If you are interested, PM me and I'll give you the information. I haven't had any problems with it, and it's free. I just don't want to get in trouble for accidentally spamming on here by going into it or giving you the web address.

They also have entire discographys of bands. I got my husband the entire discography of Rush and of Pink Floyd. I'm more into songs too, and I judge how good an album is by how many songs on it are played on the radio. I usually dislike listening to anything I haven't heard before, but I end up hearing something somewhere, used to be at somebodys house, now it's when my kids play it, and like it and so it becomes a song I like. I'm wierd that way.

Frances

When people say "just a minute", I count to 60 before I bug them again.

My daughter has no real concept of time which can work to my advantage or not. I lose track of time easily too. Thank goodness for alarms and timers.