Taking Things Literally

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One of the things that I get hung up on is taking people at their word. More than once people will say something about expressing interest in something. I get excited because this person wants to do this activity. Then I never hear from them again on the subject. I'm learning more and more that there are so many different communication cues that I'm missing. I hear that someone wants to do something and I tend to think they actually mean it. But sometimes there seems to be more going on that I'm not aware of. In the end I get upset because what the person said didn't match their actions.

I'm curious if others have experienced this and how did they handle it.

Ah, well that is the core to be an aspie. Not easy that one and I think many of us have had that experience more than once. Let us take lunch one day they will say, but proberly that is just something they just say without meaning it. Do you have some friends that shares your interests?

I used to be like this until I realized that people love to say stuff when they're blabbing that they forget later. Like, "We should definately go to that game next week". Then the next week you call them and they are totally doing something else. I do really their think NTs mean what they are saying at the time the say it as they probably throw around activity ideas with several different people every day. I just don't think they keep track of these ideas and forget about them later. NTs can be completely rediculous sometimes if you ask me and I think anyone who was unfamiliar with our society would notice this immeadiately. Now days, I just don't take anything an NT says for.a grain of salt. They seem to be complete air wasters most.of the tme they talk.

Yeah, it's annoying. I wish people would only say things as though they were sure about them, when they were actually sure about them. Would it be so bad to say, "I might go to that game next week", for example, so that your audience knows that you're not absolutely decided on it? But maybe they are saying "maybe", in a way, with their body language and their connotations and all of that, and another NT knows that they aren't sure about what they're going to do, whereas an autistic person just looking at the words couldn't tell the difference.

Best policy... make the NT tell you clearly and literally. For them, communication seems to be more an art than a science. It's like they talk in poetry and abstract art, and we're using syllogisms and photographs.

Maybe just saying it to be polite or whatever, hoping you will forget about it?
People have a zillion ways of saying stuff instead of just being direct.

I've always taken things literally someone would say something any I'll think they really meant it, as a child I used to get told things that would scare me.
Later they would promise something and never do it.

Here where I live those comments are not meant to be taken literally. Ever.
if you meet someone the person says something like: "let's get together! Come to my house next week" as a way of being friendly but she/he doesn't mean it. If he/she does means it you are going to receive a call later. Even still. If the person means it she is going to set a specific time for the visit. If it's just a vague statement then the purpose is to be friendly.

After all the years I've been on this planet, I've come to learn that peoples' offers to lunch and for me to visit them aren't true and it kind of works in my favour because I don't want to go to lunch with them or visit them anyway - so even if I think they mean it, I play on the 'insincere offer' habits of NTs and use it to my advantage to get out of even the more likely genuine offers. It works in my favour and I don't have to do anything except forget about it.
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I feel sorry for this poor kid:
“One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. ‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘Disneyland burned down.’ “He cried and cried, but I think that deep down he thought it was a pretty good joke. ‘I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late."

I neither find it "polite" to be lied to

nor when I make a commitment to I forget it, If say I am going to do something I do it - if some emergency makes it IMPOSSIBLE then I notify everyone involved.

the difference is that in this case it is neither a promise nor a lie, but a sentence that is said to be friendly. Based on the social rules they all know they expect the person to know they don't mean it. It's like a code that doesn't mean: "come to my house", but "I am being friendly". We have to learn how to decode it.

I'd say - if they say "Come to my house" and you don't have their address and they don't give it to you, there's a pretty good chance they don't mean it. You could freak them out by looking them up, ringing them and say, "I'm outside your house. I've come for that visit!"

That'll teach 'em!

people who speak in code to me - I refuse to speak to them anymore - I feel a whole lot as if I am a person who speaks one language and they just insist that if they speak THEIR language louder I will "get it"

like this famous cartoon of a WP member, "NT is our second language".

I tend to go by people's exact words almost all the time, specifically for doing a certain task. In the event that they get mad because I did something wrong, I just point out it's exactly what they said.

Hahaha! Will have to log this one..!

I do it too. I say that's exactly what they said and may repeat it word by word.