People tell me I don't listen

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My whole life people have told me that I don't listen, and my whole life that statement has always caught me by surprise. This is just one example of many.

Just today my aunt was throwing away some old magazines and she asked me to help her out. She says "go get a plastic bag", so go and grab a plastic trash bag. Then she starts on me with this whole "were you even listening to me? That's a trash bag!" I say "yeah, and its plastic, and, a bag, which is just fine for throwing away your magazines", then she goes "BUT YOU AREN'T LISTENING TO ME, LISTEN TO MY WORDS". I hate never knowing what people are talking about, this kind of thing makes no sense to me. Why couldn't she just ask for a plastic grocery bag instead of assuming I could read her mind or something? Instead, she just blames me and says its because I'm not listening, yeah, ok... so frustrating

I genuinely do miss the context of what people are saying sometimes, but with some things it's just hard to accept that its the case lol

Do people ever tell you that you don't listen, and are you ever confused as to why?

People associate things like "plastic bag" = grocery store bag, a trash bag is always a "trash/garbage bag." Basically you took it literally and that's why you were said to not have been listening because most people would have gotten the meaning.

Based only on this situation, she could have been more specific. It wasn't you. She wasn't clear.

I have been told that people feel that I am not listening to them because I do not guess what is "between the lines" and have a tendecy to make "intellectual conversations that make people feel dumb and think you are an arrogant girl".

I think your problem is that you did not guess what was "between the lines". It happens a lot with my mother when she asks me to help her, people do not like to have to give more details about things because they think it is easy and clear and that everyone who seems intelligent should understand them. It seems that you guessed from the context but made the wrong decision, perhaps you could try to ask more details next time.

I have also learned that avoiding the use of the pronoun "you" (tu/vous in French) when you are talking to the parents of your friend makes you seem egocentric (and thus "you don't listen") though it is truly because you do not know how to show respect to them.

I still do not know how people want me to sympathise with them, I can relate and speak just like everyone else (you know, people exchange experiences on a subject and some try to find a conclusion to actually help the other) but people still think that I am not listening. There must be something I do not get because I do not see the difference between what I say and what people say, I even use my experiences less than others do now and try to rely on logic but it does not work at all.
It seems that people who listen are considered to be bad listeners anyway...

Not looking into someone's eyes or moving around while they are talking may make them think you are not paying attention to what they are saying and are just bored and they find it irritating. Remaining silent is also a problem for them but talking is one too.

Obviously, I cannot help you because there is something I still don't understand about how to be a good listener but I think most people just assume you can read their mind or must be very expressive to show that you are listening (though it could only mean that you are a good actor) and they are not good listeners either anyway but fail to aknowledge this fact.

I encounter this frequently. In fact lst night I was in the car with my friend and he said "feel free to change the cd".
Since the music was fine, I didn't bother doing anything about it, and continued talking about the topic started before we got into the car. He repeated himself "feel free to change the cd" .. Which eventually I realized meant he wanted me to change the cd.

At work, asked to clean one of the machines, I would frequently go about cleaning it. More often than not I would be told that I was 'cleaning it too much' or alternately that I hadn't cleaned it enough.

NTs have a nasty habit of
<a> leaving holes in their instructions
<b> asking you to do something in a 'suggestion' manner.

They also have a nasty habit of getting frustrated when you interpret the instructions wrong.
What I have noticed in watching them (yes I've sat back and observed people - studied them). is that when an NT gets told "you screwed up" they just accept it, and redo the instructionss with the added data, getting it right the second time.

When we Aspies get told "you screwed up" we tell immediately correct the erroeous accusation, because well.. we ACTUALLY didn't screw up. This Aspie response pisses off the NT because it isn't the response they get from other NTs.

So they start telling us we're being arguementative, because no-one has ever had the balls to stand their ground and force them to realize their instructions weren't clear to begin with.

I never understood this myself until I joined this site and read a post in the YMBAAI thread which detailed a NT vs Aspie marriage quarrel that parallelled much of this concept, and which led me to see why me and my dad always fought so bitterly while I was growing up:

NTs don't care as much about details or about making sure every statement they make, or that is made to (or against them) is accurate in every way. Aspies do. This difference has led to many authority figures in my life (this is all hindsight and reflection) seeing me as a "sh&-disturber" and "troublemaker". Simply because (as I always saw it) I spoke up in my own defense.

There are two sides of the mirror. And to be blatatantly honest and a bit of a "sh& disturber", I still don't understand any reason for people on the other side of that silver plated pane of glass to have their way. They need to start learning that crap instructions lead to crap results, inefficiency, and (for us Aspies anyhow) anguish + turmoil on how to proceed.

sry. 2ble post

Last edited by OddFiction on 01 Sep 2010, 3:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Er... honestly, it seems like her issue was that you were listening to her words! Specifically, the requirements "plastic" and "bag," both of which you fulfilled to the letter.
She wanted you to somehow divine the part that wasn't her words, namely that she wanted some specific type of plastic bag and hadn't said so. That's supposed to be an Aspie problem, assuming other people are mind-readers, but it sure sounds like the tables got turned this time.

As a side note, the phrase "LISTEN TO MY WORDS" frankly awakens a deeply-buried instinct in me to punch whoever says it. What a condescending (and redundant) phrase!

Especially when it really isn't the words they want you to listen to! But I guess it rolls off the tong better than "listen to what I'm not saying"; witch is what they are actually trying to say.

Admittedly I do often miss context, however the difficulty lies in the fact that I never realize it until after the fact.

Honestly, I'm laughing just thinking about how ridiculous it is xD , and at least things like this don't bring me down for long lol

I get told this all the time. I think it comes down to the problem of literal thinking. Most people automatically know what your aunt meant by that statement. But we do not. I would react exactly the same way. A plastic bag is not necessarily a garbage bag. Being this way is tough, because I miss an entire unwritten language of communication between people. It makes you feel left out and missing the whole point of the matter.

OMG...reading these posts makes me want to scream. I *always* get told this, especially by my jerk husband, because I can't read minds.

*off to bang my head against the wall*

~Kate

No offense, but your aunt sounds like a b***h.

People tell me I don't listen because - Well, I don't.

I just want to point out that you listened to them telling you that you don't listen, and that sort of thing is the height of amusing things for me.

Usually it's them communicating too vaguely at us, and us interpreting their bad instructions in a way they wouldn't predict.

LOLOLOLOLOL!! !! !! I love it



Exactly. Just this morning my husband was complaining about being tired all the time (background: he has been bugging me for years to "solve his sleep problems" because I work in the neurological field, and NO ONE has been able to tell him "what's wrong with him", even sleep specialists), and I said I was tired and having a hard time waking up too, because I sustained a concussion two weeks ago. His response was to get all annoyed and say "why are you talking about yourself? are you just trying to get me to shut up about it?" I was like WTF???? then I realized, like 5-10 minutes into the argument that followed, that he was trying to nag me into working on "solving his sleep problems" in some tangential way. If the twit would have just SAID it, there wouldn't have been an argument. But, all our problems are allegedly MY fault...

Argh....

~Kate