How do NT's have a conversation with surrounding chaos?

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I can't offer you much help. When I am in noisy restaurant, or dinner party settings I don't even attempt to converse with people much of the time. People's words just get swallowed up by the ambiance. Its kind of like sitting in a glass jar. I can't make out what anyone is saying most of the time, even with people who are sitting right across the table from me. This is a common attribute of Auditory Processing Disorder.

I can't stand being anywhere with lots of background noise. When I'm in a noisy social setting I'm unlikely to say anything or pay much attention to the conversation. I need to spend all my energy dealing with sensory overload and (if there's enough noise) preventing an anxiety attack. Besides, it's hard to figure out what people are saying to me when there's lots of other stuff going on.

I have it the same way. Your opening post was like a precise description of how I feel when trying to answer a question, another one makes an interruption about bread or begins a new conversation with the one who asked, and I get confused, lose the track of thoughts, gain it again, maybe get interrupted again, and if it's very bad I may get an overload of a kind or have to leave the room, feeling very tired in the head, sometimes almost like a physical tingle in the head.

We have a one-tracked mind. That's the reason, I guess.

Last edited by AnnePande on 06 Aug 2009, 12:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That sounds very, very familiar.

I do tend to have a one track mind and find constant interruptions infuriating. It's as though each time it happens the tension rises in me and it becomes progressively more difficult to speak. I feel that perhaps people don't have the patience to listen to me because I "think" too much as I'm speaking. I can't always think and speak simultaneously like most other people. I just don't have the processing bandwidth that other people do. Also a lot of my thinking tends to be rather abstract where I feel like I'm fumbling for words to express what I feel. I also feel like people are taking advantage of my verbal slowness by interrupting and butting in when I pause to think. I feel offended because it seems like they're making me look less intelligent than I am when they bowl right over me. I find myself getting angry and having a sharp tone of voice to compensate as I don't know what else to do.

It isn't that I have this problem with everyone. It's specific people. There's this one guy I know in particular who frustrates me to no end. He's always hyper-jovial and gregarious but doesn't seem to fully listen to me ever. He interrupts with his sense of humor which I don't really get and find it irritating when I'm discussing something that's serious to me. It's like I can't ever have a serious discussion on something interesting for any given length of time with him because he'll continually insert annoying humor and change subjects on me. I realize this isn't an NT thing as a lot of aspies can be this way as well. It's just that the NT ones manage to be obnoxious and still be listened to while the aspie ones get universally shunned for the exact same behavior. Somehow NT's seem to earn the right to be annoying hyperactive talkers and poor listeners because other people find the inanity charming somehow. A lot of doctors and lawyers have this kind of personality. It's bizarre to me.

From an NT perspective, one thing I humbly ask you to consider is whether you're having a conversation with someone or are you talking at someone?

Yesterday, my husband asked to speak to me. He was sharing, and I patiently waited for my turn to respond. And as he continued, I waited and I waited. A couple of times when he took a breath, I tried to talk, but he had more to add, and I was not allowed to interject. His monologue went on f-o-r-e-v-e-r. And he would say the same things over and over again in an attempt to convince me of something that I agreed with after his first few sentences.

It got to the point where I felt like I wasn't apart of the conversation at all. Instead, I felt like I was just being dumped on. Which is fine - we each have moments when we feel the urge to 'get it all out', and we really don't want or need any sort of interaction or response. But there is a difference between the 'dance' two people enjoy when conversing and simply wanting another human to witness our self-expression.

Others want know they have a place in the exchange - that they have something valuable to offer, and that it's not all about you.

This may not be not your issue at all, and I understand that many today tend to have a 'sound-bite' mentality and are unwilling to put forth the effort to concentrate and 'give' to another.

But, could it be at times you don't realize how long you take to get your thoughts across? I'm just throwing it out there as a possibility.

Those are some very good points.

As an NT, I agree with StudentM's perspective. I realize that aspies find it frustrating no end to experience interruption of what they are saying or trying to say. To be honest, it is very difficult to know where an aspie is in her/his thought process and whether or not they are about to finish what they're saying. And frankly, often I experience that conversing with an aspie is like having to listen for ages about something that may have started out as an interesting topic but which have evolved into a one-way street of too much irrelevant information. It is not that the NTs don't understand the contents of the information, but that this way of conversing breaks the norms of typical conversations. NTs will often interrupt people who talk about (to us) uninteresting things regardless of their conversation partner being an aspie or another NT.

When I meet my aspie cousin, I know I have to prepare for an hour of listening to him talk in great detail about his interests and his life, and not expect to be asked "and how're you doing?" in return. It's not going to happen. It's ok, because I know that talking about his own projects makes him happy, and that this is how conversations with him works. But there's a limit to how often and how long I can do this. For most NTs conversations is about sharing emotions, information, and ultimately well-being. We express interest in each other, we emphatise with each other, we lie white lies to refrain from hurting each other, we make each other's day better by creating feelings of contentment in each other by conversing. Small snippets of informations we offer to each other makes us understand each others' current circumstances. To NTs this is the purpose behind conversations.

When a conversation topic bores NTs, we find ways to interrupt it or to stop having to listen to it, either by starting to talk about something else, by making a joke to make the conversation stop in a less serious way, or by excusing ourselves and walking away. We don't do it to be rude, but having to listen to lenghty explanations about things that stopped being interesting a long time ago, is something that most NTs are very unwilling to do, we feel that it is a waste of time and it feels like it drains away energy and enthusiasm. Just as many aspies find NT small talk boring and shallow and even dishonest, many NTs feel exactly the same about conversations which go on and on. I believe this is the reason why NTs and aspies find it hard to bear with each others' conversation styles.

I don't think this always an NT/extravert-introvert thing. Some NTs are genuinely interested in your response to a question and some aren't. I know NTs who wouldn't dare to use an unexpected interruption to change the topic, especially one that they started, as that would be rude. They would wait for a "natural" pause (as an NT would see it) in the conversation to introduce a new topic, usually in response to the interlocutor's statements. That's known as having a conversation or dialog: both sides participate.

Other NTs are too self-absorbed to care about what you're saying. They talk in order to talk. Others' responses are just a means towards the end of talking. I've heard stupid American women talk at each other because that's what they do. At least, stupid foreign women keep their mouths shut, as they don't really have anything to say.

I think it's a part of the smalltalk thing, ie. that in smalltalk you (if you are NT) just can ask new questions and bring on new topics as often as you feel for it. Or something of that kind.