How to speak to NT people?

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I have been trying for ages to get Neurotypicals to understand what I am saying in any situation, and how to understand what they are saying. I feel like they speak a totally different language. How do I decipher this strange, broken English into the English I know?

I would be able to offer the best advice if I actually heard you speak

What's preventing you from being understood? Stuttering? Trouble getting the words out? Using pedantic language?

You'd have to describe your speaking style.

You should give an example of HOW a programmer creates data. For most people, programming is quite abstract. Or, you might have to have him watch you program. In computers, it's sometimes hard to convey what you want to say when one speaks. The best conveyance is frequently through one's actions.

Where did "job insurance" and "cake factory" come from? I don't see any context to that. It doesn't make any sense to me.

I have problems with this as well. It's a pain in the ass when I try talking to someone, and I have to explain everything to them.

OP's example of conversation makes me laugh!!


I've got no solutions, but commiserate! When you figure it out, please share your results with me!

I don't know if the "other" is familiar with programming, but if he/she isn't, of course he/she doesn't understand what you're saying. Just imagine you're trying to explain programming to a student, and give a better, and more complete, explanation. The concept is very abstract and difficult to understand if the person doesn't know anything about computers or programs.

And I agree with Rocket123's comment "programmers write programs that manipulate data in order to accomplish a particular task (whatever that may be)."

And I have no idea what you're talking about in the 2nd conversation.

I agree with what others have said above w/ regard to explaining how a programmer creates data (I myself am far from an expert on the subject). This is quite a common phenomenon among folks on the spectrum: assuming that the other party somehow knows what you are talking about, when you're more or less using jargon. In my teenage days, I've spoken to other people about taxonomy and evolution in terms that a layman can't understand, and I was just assuming that they were following my every word. Whenever someone asks 'What do you mean? What are you talking about?', be ready to explain it on the most basic of levels.

I'm very curious about this. When my friend talks to me about programming, I have trouble understanding what he is talking about, because I am nowhere near as knowledgable as he is in this particular area (even though I have had more experience with it than most people).

I would say, just assume you know more about it than most people, and unless you are talking to a fellow programmer with a similar level of understanding, explain it as if talking to a child. And if the other person says something like "Dude, I know this already", then you can get more technical.

For me it's like:

Friend: "Cryptic stream of information and technical jargon"
Me: "Can you explain what that word means to me?"
Friend: "Which one?"
Me: "All of them. In order."

Oh my gawdz yes. This.

I understand it. I'm saying it in a way that I understand it. Why don't you understand it?

Theory of mind.

Just because I understand it, it doesn't stand to reason that someone else will. It's taken me a long time to figure that out.

Welcome to our World JoeDaBro

Hate to tell you but your problem is one of the core problems of being austistic. Because our brains think differently - we speak differently, use language differently.

As such, misunderstandings occur constantly. My wife (who is NT) could surely write a very large book about the challenges of communication between someone aspie and someone NT.

It gets a bit better the older you get - just a bit though....