People not giving you direct answers

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I get so frustrated when I ask a question and I don't get a direct answer. I mean how hard is it to answer a simple question. Like I ask a yes or no question, instead of saying "yes" or "No" or "I don't know" they give me another answer so I don't know if it's a yes or a no and it pisses me off. Gah. One of my aspie friends does this online and boy I ranted for the last hour about me needing direct answers because I'm literal and concrete, not abstract. He told me his parents gave out detailed answers and preferred detailed answers when they asked questions. Now it made me wonder if it's a none aspie thing where they get asked a question and instead of giving you a direct answer, they go detail because they aren't direct.


Here is an example with my aspie friend.

I ask him when people make threads threatening suicide, do they get his sympathy. Instead of saying "yes or "no" he said he stays out of that stuff. Gah. Was that a yes or no answer? Damn it, be direct. I am so sick of this s**t online I get from buddies. I have noticed with aspies usually, they give me direct answers like "yes" or "no" when I ask yes or no questions.

Another example:

He tells me if he played ball in his senior year he could have been a pro ball player. I asked him how did he find that out and instead of telling me "I am just assuming" "I'm just guessing" or "I was told." He said instead "Cause I know I had a good arm. Albiet I was a bit wild. Think Major League, the wild pitcher." Uh that doesn't answer my question because it still doesn't tell me how he found out he could be a pro player.

I notice my mother gives me direct answers. Could that be an aspie trait she has or she talks that way to me only because it's the only way I can understand her without getting frustrated because she isn't answering my questions it seems like when she really is to her NT point of view.

I often find myself having to keep asking questions till I get their answer and how do I do it, I have to ask them the same question in different ways hoping to get a direct answer and then I finally give out alternate answers for them to pick because I get sick of them ignoring my question. I mean how hard is it to give out a simple answer?

Is there anyone who prefers direct answers just like me and gives out direct answers when you're asked a question? I am beginning to think aspies tend to give out direct answers and none aspies don't give you a direct answer so they go saying something else instead which my aspie friend calls "detailed" so that's why I am posting this thread.

I hope anyone understands what I am trying to say. I couldn't figure out how to word this.

Last edited by Spokane_Girl on 12 Mar 2009, 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I had a melt down at work over e-mail with my manager.

I was asking if I could go home cause I was feeling sick and he mentioned that my record wasn't good(being late too much ect.) so it wouldn't be wise to leave. So I got so mad because I wanted a yes or no answer about if I could leave(and still work there of course).

It was simple, but at the time that was a horrible melt down I emailed my manager back like "Could you give me a yes or no answer". Was blunt as hell

With the suicide thing I think he just gets uncomfortable about that stuff. It's a very sensitive area for some people.

I know some people that are worse. They answer the question that usually has nothing to do with anything. I would like a more detailed answer, because it will open up many other things to talk about. I like picking apart sentences and making new subjects out of them.

I prefer direct answers, but some things are too complicated to be summed up with a simple yes or no answer.
For example, your question about suicide threats. It depends on the circumstances. I've known people who threaten suicide almost every day (no, this is not an exaggaration) to get attention and create drama. They'll change their MSN status message to things like "XXX is hanging by the throat and may not reply". These people don't get my sympathy.
If the person seems to be genuinely going through circumstances that, to them, are bad enough to drive them to suicide, then I'm more likely to be sympathetic.

Yes or no wouldn't have covered that.

I see the OP's point, though, and I have a (probably bad) habit of snapping at people to just damn well give me a straight answer when I think that my question/s don't raise too many complicated points.

people are uncomfrotable giving you a DIRECT answer because they are afraid it will sound like a command, a rejection, or a humiliation to you. so if they do not give you are DIRECT YES, than it is probably a NO.

anyone agree?

I can relate in a big way. Drives me nuts as well. My girlfriend always avoids answering yes and no questions regardless of topic. I usually have to re-ask the same question 3 to 4 times to attempt a yes or no response. Even then she gets mad at me and sometimes I get an 'I don't know' in the end. Why can't she say that at the first attempt of the question? I say 'I don't know' if I really don't in the same circumstance. Its not that hard.

What is equally as frustrating is clients avoiding telling me the truth about what's going on behind the scenes. Suffice it to say, I've been lied to and the lie was so obvious to me I was surprised that they would even make up alternative story's to what was going on. Won't bore anyone with details. End result is I feel insulted because I can only conclude they must think I'm so stupid I won't figure out what's going on. I stay away from these people like the plague.

Yes. I prefer direct answers.
In fact, i NEED them to make sense of the world.

i find it very difficult to sift through information that is indirect or unclear.. if i ask a question i need and want YES and NO answers.

I get so panicked if i do not get straghtforwardness and clarity.

And here I thought that not giving simple yes or no answers was an aspie trait! People tell me that I'm always giving long round about answers when a simple yes or no would suffice. For me it is usually because the question is somewhat malformed or I have to give the ground rules where the yes or no will apply. The malformed questions would include wording which (when taken literally) means exactly the opposite of what the person probably intended, or convoluted sentence structures.

"Is this not what you wanted?"

Obviously a simple true or false condition. But the possible answers are:
"Yes" (You are correct - this is not what I wanted.)
"No" (this is not what I wanted.)

Both yes and no mean the same thing here (to me). So I would need to give more than a simple yes or no to such a question just because either answer could be so easily misconstrued.

i have an aspie friend who can't make decisions well when he's stressed out. sometimes he can not answer a yes or no question. for example: "i'm going out to get some lunch. would you like me to bring you back a burrito?" and he just stares at me. and i give him a moment. and i ask again and he just stares. then i say, "would you like a burrito? please answer yes or no?"
and his answer is "yes or no."
i realize now, i need to ask literally ... "if you would like a burrito, say yes. if you do not want a burrito, say no."
sometimes i can't get an answer out of him about anything. so i just let it go. lately he's been quite spaced out and forgetful. maybe that is impeding his ability to make choices.

Oh man, I HATE this!! ! My (stbx)husband does this to me all the time! Like .. I ask him what he wants for dinner and he says "I ate a little while ago"

Ok... does that mean you don't want dinner... you want a small dinner.. you want dinner a bit later... what the heck! Give me a real answer, man!

He also never gives me enough details. I love having as much information as possible. He will tell me that someone at work commented on the pictures on his desk and I will be like "Oh yeah? What did they say?" and he'll say "They said it was nice." Uggh! I highly doubt someone walked up to him, pointed at the picture and simply said "That's nice." and walked away. There's more details there. I want to know allll the details!!

My guess is that people associate giving direct "yes" or "no" responses with being in the courtroom. (In the US court system, attorneys will accept only these answers, so that there is a clear record whether a witness accepts or denies something.) So when someone insists on these responses in everyday life, it makes them feel uncomfortable, as if an they're being put on the spot at the witness stand.

I've been in so many fights with my wife about stuff like this.

I'll ask a question, she'll say something from which she expects me to infer an answer, I don't infer anything or realize that anything is there to be inferred, and then she gets mad at me about it.

before I learned not to, I often would freak out at my own inability to give a direct answer. I can remember specifically as a kid, when my mom asked me what I wanted for dinner, and I just panicked and freaked out.

Her: What do you want for dinner?
Me: WAAAAAH! AAAAH! (scratch my face, bite my hand, run away crying).

The real answer was that I didn't care what I ate, barring something really gross, but I definitely wanted to eat something. I didn't know how to articulate that, and was afraid that if I tried, i might say something that meant I didn't want to eat, and that she wouldn't cook anything (actually she would have fed me anyway, but I didn't realize that).

Well, usually, i ask that people do so, yeah. -.- If there's no way around explaining something, i'm ready to listen though.

I can relate here. I'd swear that some people have been trained in life never to give a direct, yes-or-no answer to anything. Most often, talking to me, they've tried to do one of two things:

1. Seemingly answer the "real" question immediately—that is, where they think I'm ultimately going with it, two or three questions into the future. Almost invariably they have guessed wrong, and somehow it hasn't occurred to them that I have specific, conscious reasons for the precise wording that I've used in the question that their answer doesn't address.

2. Launch into a random spiel that doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I asked but might, if I'm incredibly patient, eventually connect with what I'm talking about. Me responding with, "That's not what I asked," started arguments until I figured out how to be tactful about saying it. I've also realized, having read about it a bit, that this can simply be the person thinking out loud, working up to a conclusion. Since I generally don't answer verbally until I've reached a conclusion that I can give, the idea someone starting to talk before reaching a conclusion was an unfamiliar viewpoint for me.


Regardless, having to sift through chaff in a conversation to get what information I need can be a real pain. At the very least, it's an exercise in patience. I tend to speak only when I have specific, carefully considered information to share. To me, that’s wasting as little of people's time as possible, which is only being polite. I've noted that many of the NTs around me—especially women—seem to have another, overriding component in their communication that I generally don't have in mine, possibly involving shared empathy and feelings. That's an area that I still run afoul of, even at age 52.

I will say, though, that I'm really refreshed to see a number of women here on WP who dislike indirect communication as much as I do. So many more people I've met who don't give direct answers have been women than men that I had thought indirectness was largely a female trait rather than a general human one.

This is the one I run into most. My stbx will immediatly assume that I have some agenda in asking him a question and will try to jump ahead when that's not what I meant at all... I meant what I actually said

Like this?
I find it very annoying when they don't give me a yes or no answer after a reasonable amount of time. I usually say yes or no and then explain though verbally, I'll explain first and then say yes or no because sometimes people like to twist things by not mentioning someone's reasoning. For example, if someone asked me, 'Do you think Cancer charities?', I'd explain first, because a simple 'no' can and will make me look like I want Cancer patients to die(sorry for the weird example).
I don't think this is a Aspie thing. The video above shows that everyone finds it frustrating when someone doesn't give a direct answer after a reasonable amount of time.
Usually the details can be implied as a yes or no answer though.
EMZ=]