Why do NT's speak in code?

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In some countries / cultures replying "not very well because..." to "how are you" is actually perfectly OK. For example Central Europeans and Eastern Europeans are OK with honest answers to this question.

Expecting you to always reply "fine" is a very British and North American thing, as far as I know. This is probably because Anglo cultures are "crapsaccharine cultures" which focus on keeping up appearances:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... arineWorld

"Keeping Up Appearances" is a very good British comedy show, do you know it?

Please excuse me if someone else has posted this. I can't read as much as I used to so I did not review all four pages of this thread.

You're talking about something that I studied up until recently, called "symbolic interactionism."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_interactionism

Every social action has multi-faceted meanings, which are presented BY a social actor TO a social audience (of one or more people). I'm saying "people" but this would also apply if you were interacting with your dog, cat, or another animal who understands human social behavior.

It's not just neurotypicals. Everyone has actions that they perform socially, which have meanings. It is common for autistic people to have trouble catching onto the meanings accepted by mainstream society. They may also make up social meanings that only make sense to them, or just to a few people. So an autistic person might interpret a social action in a way not intended by the social actor, and they may also present a social action that makes sense to THEM, but not to the mainstream social audience.

EX) NT A and AS B have two different, alternate sets of social facts. NT's facts are shared by many people. AS B's facts are only shared by a few people.

NT A's social facts:
-It is important to be polite
-People feel comfortable when having polite conversation
-Topics of polite conversation include the weather, sports, health

AS B's social facts:
-Rule of politeness are confusing
-People feel comfortable when their boundaries are recognized
-Some people talk seemingly for no reason
-A good reason to talk is exchanging information about shared interests

Keep in mind that AS B's social facts would not be shared by all autistics (I would not even say most), but NT A's social facts ARE shared by most neurotypicals (in Western society).

NT A and AS B are standing around at the bus stop together. NT A starts talking to AS B about sports, a subject in which AS B is not the slightest bit interested and doesn't know anything about. AS B tells NT A that he is not interested in sports, and doesn't say anything else. NT A brings up the weather. AS B doesn't reply, because he is not interested in this, either, and has no information to offer. AS B felt awkward as NT A was talking. They stand in silence. NT A now feels awkward, and AS B is glad that NT A has stopped bothering him.

What has happened in this conversation are "social failures" from both ends. NT A does not understand that AS B is not from the same social universe, so he is bothering him and making him feel uncomfortable by talking to him about things he is not interested in. AS B is also socially failing, because he is not recognizing that NT A is merely trying to be nice to him by talking about subjects which he thinks will make AS B comfortable. Not responding or telling NT A he is not interested makes NT A uncomfortable.

Sorry for the length and complicity of this post. It's a long and complex subject.

TL;DR - All communication DOES have "secret meanings" and it's not just stuff NTs say. It's called symbolic interactionism.

Id reply with:

"No im fine actually, would you like to go for a coffee" just to see them squirm.

NTs are just outright irrational and crazy. I refuse to try and make sense of them.

However in regards to the conversation, its best to find a topic both parties are interested in, so just keep changing subjects until you hit on one you mutually agree with.

Best way to deal with.

NTs are still irrational though and have nonsense belief systems, including religion (or the sky fairies as I call them).

Let's come up with our own code! Binary, anyone?

01000011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00111111

If it comes to language I'm NT and this is the same in German as in English. What you think is a code is just that they expect you to know that something has a different meanings depending on their emotions and they expect you to hear the emotions. To learn this to hear you should try to hear a lot hear books. The authors have to write down the way that something is sayd or asked if it is important and the readers have to read it that way and do also read the way as the author has written it down. After a while you may improve in hearing the differences. Otherwise you need to train talking with somebody who you know very well.
Sample for nonverbal things is it comes to questions:
- If they ask without being angry or amused then they simply want an answer.
- If they ask being angry on the one that they ask means "I'm angry on you because of it. Change this or answer me"
- If they ask angry but not on the one that they ask means that they just don't like what they ask for and expect an answer only if he knows why it is right neverless.
- If they ask amused (ironical) because of what they ask for means that they ask for just being it recognised that they are amused and they don't expect an answer.
- If they ask rhetorical than they ask you for thinking a little bit about it and don't expect an answer.


- People who talk a lot get used to it and learn it because they learn to hear the emotional way something is sayd.


Mostly but sometimes people expect you to guess what they think that you already know it.
But especially woman are sometimes very indirect and expect you to guess the emotional reason why they say something and sometimes that you do something to please them because of this. Sample: "You didn't do it!" in an accusing way means "Do it!"

Thank-you for hitting the nail on the head regarding NTs' frustrating code-speech, hollowmoon.

I have often been "accused" of being too blunt or straight-forward in my communications by NTs. Apparently, sugar-coating everything they say carries some significance for whatever reason which I haven't figured out.

Deciphering hidden meanings can literally generate dozens if not hundreds of verbal permutations and my mind will actually try to decode them all. This is what is most frustrating about NTs' code-speech because guessing what they ACTUALLY mean to say is like trying to win the lottery. One in a million, perhaps more.

Since lying and/or deception is not in my/our nature, NTs and Autistics have a very hard time finding communicative common ground.

As an NT, before my husband's ASD diagnoses I would have said this "talking in code" was rubbish. I talk like I talk because it's how I have always spoken. It's how everyone talks. Now that I know better I can totally see that to a person on the spectrum ( sorry I'm new at this and have no idea how to refer to neuro diverse individuals - any suggestions?) would see NT's "normal" way of casual conversation as "code" alot of what we/I say is almost disguised. Sarcasm and implied meaning is something we take for granted. Now that my husband is diagnosed I actually find myself reminding myself to avoid this "code speak" just this weekend I made some or other comment like "oh I see you really love keeping your dirty clothes ontop of your drawers" meaning "move your dam dirty clothes away from where the clean ones are, I need to do laundry with out a sniff test" His reply : I don't get that sarcasm crap.
If an NT doesn't understand the literal way ND people take in verbal communications they will simply assume you should get the meaning as they intended.
Knowledge and understanding are the only key to effective NT/ND communication.

If a lot of Aspies have difficulty recognising or expressing their own emotions, wouldn't it be really easy to answer the question "how are you?" with a simple "fine thanks"?

I also know that this is a bad place to be. Did anything trigger your paranoia?
In my case, a bit over 10 years ago my oldest sister had a really messy break up. One night her ex hit her in the face because my sister hit his new gf (he cheated on my sister with her). Then he hit my sister's friend who came over to intervene. Then, the next morning while I was at work picking oranges in the hot sun not knowing any of this had happened the night before, my Mum went to his house to confront him where she slapped him, and slapped his new partner. He took the hit but when my Mum hit his girl, he hit my Mum too.
I got home and everyone was really quiet so I asked what happened. They were at least honest (including the parts where they hit other people first) so I said something like both parties were at fault. My family couldn't believe it, it was like I completely betrayed them or something for basically having the opinion "keep your hands to yourself" and I was barely spoken to for a couple of weeks. I had male relatives talking tough about getting revenge on him but of course they did nothing. It wasn't until I saw him out one night, my sisters ex was drunk enough to start a fight (he always admitted, even joked, about being a coward in a really charming, self deprecating way). But the fight didn't go as planned and people said he came off looking in worse shape than I did.
Obviously this was humiliating for him so about 24 hours later after that fight, me and my younger brother were at a friend's house when someone else showed up and told us our sister's ex was telling people that someone used his (and my sister's) computer to look up inappropriate child related images. Of course he didn't tell the cops even though my sister still had the computer and could have seized it. I still remember fuming but everyone there just laughed it off. I stayed in my home town for about two more years and never heard another word about anything like that. I saw the guy a few times and would dagger stare him but he'd look away, even if he wore sunglasses and could have just closed his eyes and pretended to hold my glare lol.
But after I left (I had a huge fight with a different sister coz I lost my job and was trying to mooch off her) I started to become paranoid living elsewhere. I began to interpret probably benign comments as being about his accusations. I have a pretty vivid imagination and people have told me I over think stuff. I hope so. At least I'm better off than my little brother. He's a diagnosed schizophrenic and watching how he interprets and reads into messages that aren't there is on a whole other level.
But NTs undoubtedly have skill sets to communicate indirectly for both positive and negative purposes.
In my opinion when some of them realise they're dealing with someone not as adept at communicating this way they take full advantage and relish in it.