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AngelL
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20 Aug 2021, 8:30 am

I guess I'm curious if others here get frustrated by this as well - like, is it something that other autistics go through, or is this frustration due to something else. I think we've all been accused of talking too much when we get on a roll about something we find super interesting, but I'm not talking about us - I'm talking about neuro-typicals. For instance...

So somehow fleas got into my home. I woke up one morning with flea bites around my ankles and have been fighting them ever since. Today, I took the fight to the next level and started doing some research because the things I am doing are not helping. After phrasing my question for the search engine and sorting through the results to find the most promising hits only to find that the first four articles I read explain, in excruciating detail, why - because I don't have pets, that it's almost certainly not fleas. In fact, it's probably something else. But to be sure, I should call an expert and have them come and make a determination. In fact, even though it could happen - it's probably one of these sixteen things...blah blah blah... The title of each of these articles was something like "How to get rid of fleas" and then, promptly didn't actually tell you how to get rid of them. W!T!F! Long before I did a search on 'how to get rid of fleas' I determined that they were fleas. I didn't ask "How can I tell if these bites are from fleas?"

Of course, this is just an example - I could have picked any one of a near infinite number of examples. It happens every day. I just don't know how to get neurotypicals to answer my questions rather than the question they think I should be asking. Or to stop them from going on and on about stuff that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Other examples:
"Hey doc, why do you think that the prescription I'm taking, didn't show up in my urinalysis?"
"I'm not worried about it," he responds.
I didn't ask you if you were worried about it, I asked you why you thought it didn't show up in my UA...

"Can you tell me how to get to XYZ restaurant?" I ask.
"Oh, you don't want to go there; you should totally check out LMNOP restaurant instead."
I know that "Where do you think I should eat at" inexplicably sounds exactly like "Can you tell me how to get to XYZ restaurant" to you but would you mind trying again - and this time answering the question I asked, please?!?!

By way of contrast...

I recently had it explained to me that I get too bogged down with details and miss the larger point (for the millionth time) - but the 'details' that seem so unimportant to everyone else...idk... If someone says, "I'll be there in five minutes" - you'd think I'd know when they'll be arriving, right? And I usually do - if I know them. If I don't, then "I'll be there in five minutes" is meaningless to me. i.e., If my father says he'll 'be there in five minutes', I know I've got an hour before he shows up. If I say it - I'll be there in more like thirty seconds. Or I just started with a new medical provider and she is explaining the 'You must cancel 48 hours in advance or you'll be charged' policy. I tried to head her off - "I won't miss an appointment; it won't happen," I offered. "Well, if it does..." Right. I have had a number of heart attacks. On two of those occasions, one in the cardiac care unit and once in the ICU, I checked myself out against medical advise to get to an appointment on time. I have never missed an appointment and if I do, you can't charge the dead. My point is that I told her I wouldn't 'no-call/no-show' ever, and apparently, that sounded an awful lot like, "So what happens if I blow my appointment off?"

Anyway, does anyone else run into this kind of thing?



ToughDiamond
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20 Aug 2021, 11:51 am

I'm familiar with similar oddities.

The one who wouldn't stop explaining about the charge for missing an appointment without giving 48-hour notice - I suspect she was just following instructions "obtain client's understanding and agreement about the rule on cancellation and notice," and she needed to check the box, and interpreted your reassurance that the event wouldn't happen as an impediment to completing that process. A lot of these jobs are codified and oversimplistic, and any deviation from robotically carrying out the procedure can cause the employee to try to rigidly stick to it regardless of what the client says. She wouldn't have been interested in anything but your indication that you understood and accepted the rule. Whether or not you actually might ever cancel an appointment was immaterial to her. The world of bureaucracy is like that.

I've long known that "I'll be there in 5 minutes" doesn't necessarily mean what it says. I wish people would be more literal, precise, and specific. I just bear it in mind and try to figure out what might really happen. I might ask them for something firmer if I need to know that, I might decide a latest-arrival-time for them and plan to assume they're not coming after that, and I might even tell them that's what I'll do - depends who it is and what the circumstances are. When people are vague with me I sometimes impose firmness on them like that, if my needs seem to outweigh theirs. To make it less aggressive I might merely suggest doing that, to give them some say in it.

The advice about where to eat - some people do that. I might explain that it's too late to change the restaurant and reiterate my question. But when it comes to directions, my first resort is to look at a map and find out for myself. I'm poor at taking in verbal directions, and as you've noticed, people can be poor at giving them.

The doctor's urinalysis seems to me like a presumption of your trust in his expertise. Some professionals are authoritarian like that. I suppose I might reiterate or rephrase the question until they answer it - "Did they not measure it?" "Did they get the result wrong?" "If they're right, why didn't the drug come out in my urine?" "If they're wrong, what does that say about their reliability with the other numbers?" It's very helpful if the doctor is an egalitarian and has the time and interest to answer the patient's questions. But if a doctor had earned my trust by past performance, then his not being worried might be a good enough answer for me.

Web searching on fleas - the upside is that there's nobody's ego to bruise, no people skills needed, no need to gauge when to apply aggression to get a straight answer. The downside is that a lot of it is very poorly written and a lot of it will be irrelevent, so sifting through it to find good answers can take a long time, if it can be done at all. Of course it's like reading books - the authors don't know what your question is, so you have to plough through the junk in the hope that the answer is there somewhere. Sorry to hear about the flea problem, hope you get it solved.

For 2-way communication, I think written dialogue may be better than verbal, but still not necessarily successful. It depends who you get.

I don't see what your post has to do with talking too much, except that there was a lot of yada-yada on the flea websites and Aspies are often accused of talking too much. Yes there is some irony in that.



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20 Aug 2021, 12:36 pm

Google very seldom answers my questions. Usually with my questions, mostly results from Quora comes up and that's useless.

That is why I ask questions here or on Facebook. I get a better answer. Although when it comes to political-related questions, people here often beat around the bush instead of getting straight to the point, mostly due to fear of being politically incorrect


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20 Aug 2021, 3:06 pm

Joe90 wrote:
Google very seldom answers my questions. Usually with my questions, mostly results from Quora comes up and that's useless.

That is why I ask questions here or on Facebook. I get a better answer. Although when it comes to political-related questions, people here often beat around the bush instead of getting straight to the point, mostly due to fear of being politically incorrect


Politics is bollocks but if you want any other questions answered or want to discuss anything feel free to drop me a line sweetie.



Something Profound
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20 Aug 2021, 5:19 pm

NT people tend to synthesize information according to expected norms. If you give X information, they will often absorb it, synthesize what possible answers might apply in the context of the situation, and give you the information THEY think is relevant.

In my experience (and this has helped me communicate better in general), NT people do not understand that if you ask X, you are wanting a direct answer to X, not an answer that is Y (which may be related to X, but is not in fact X).

As an example, when I was about 10 years old, I recall asking my brother while in line to get onto a "Keel Boat" ride" way it was called a Keel Boat. Instead of answering the question, he insisted that it didn't matter, a boat was a boat, and this boat just happened to be called a Keel Boat because it had a Keel. Which lead me to ask what a Keel was and why Keel Boats have one and others (presumably) do not.

Which lead to an argument because I kept trying to reassert the questions to get a clear answer, and he did not think it was an important enough question to answer. My attempts were not successful. I didn't get my answer until 20 years later when I happened to be perusing a book about boats and discovered that the only difference between a keel boat and another boat is that a keel boat has a keel, and that covers...most boats. There are a few that do not have a Keel, but very few.

It seems silly in retrospect, but to my 10 year old mind it was a very relevant question that should have been easy to answer. But because my brother did not understand what my question was, and instead answered what he THOUGHT my question was, it was pretty upsetting.

It took my time to understand that most people communicate like this and are not really good at answering things directly, and very specific to the question asked. Once I realized that, I began to ask questions with the added Caveat of explaining: I am not asking Y, I just want to know the answer to X even if it isn't that important." Basically, you are giving NT's instructions on how to answer you.

As for Google...well, Google is an imperfect search engine, and most articles are written by NT people. The best advice I can give you is to treat every article like a mathematic word problem: Some of the info is relevant to getting the data you need to answer your question, but some of the information isn't relevant at all and is just distracting. If an article can't answer your question, you are either looking in the wrong place (Which happens sometimes even if you have good search criteria) or the article is just...bad.

NT people are very commonly bad at explaining things.



Joe90
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20 Aug 2021, 5:48 pm

Quote:
NT people are very commonly bad at explaining things.


Ah, it's an NT thing now. I thought it was Aspies that found it hard explaining things.


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20 Aug 2021, 5:54 pm

Something Profound wrote:
NT people are very commonly bad at explaining things.


Generally speaking, there is often a communication deficit. The Aspie asking for a clear answer, but the question being misinterpreted. The Aspie giving detailed information, the NT not really wanting any of it. The NT usually has the upper-hand because their response is the more common or "normal" one, so they know most will agree with them that the Aspie is being problematic in the communication.

And perhaps Aspies are more likely to share thorough, pertinent knowledge. I think NTs are more likely to deliberately withhold important information. This is because in their minds, such information may affect the social dynamics somehow, so they're very guarded with information.



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20 Aug 2021, 8:02 pm

Joe90 wrote:
Quote:
NT people are very commonly bad at explaining things.


Ah, it's an NT thing now. I thought it was Aspies that found it hard explaining things.


Perhaps I misspoke (Which ezbzbfgc2 did a good job at clarifying, see their post). Aspies do have a hard time explaining things. But NT's have a horrible tendency to assume an answer, and so they tend to be bad at interpreting the question, and this leads to easy miscommunications, and errors in explanations.

Yes, NT people have the upper hand, because they take this in stride and tend to correct for it rather easily. The barrier is that they do not see the obvious error, and it leads to issues that could be problematic.

I don't think I could explain it any better than that, but my point is that NT's are, in fact, part of the problem as well. They are not absolved of responsibility in these miscommunications just because they have the benefit of being NT. That is, it isn't just *my* fault that *YOU* (the NT whom I am communicating with) misunderstood. I am very capable of being clear, direct, and concise. Yet this doesn't mean I immune from this issue that Autists have with communication glitches. I have been clear, concise, and direct before and STILL ended up with an NT misunderstanding the question or statement I made.



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20 Aug 2021, 8:18 pm

NT folk rely a lot on subtle nuances, implications, hints, twists and turns in conversations. Starting with the timing and phrasing of the question itself.

If you think a question is solely about the logical, literal meaning of the words in the sentence, you're probably only grasping 25% of the actual conversation. That's the world of Autism. We're typically quite clever in an academic, pedantic, literal sense..... but socially clueless. Typical conversations have several different layers of meaning going on at once, and Auties often miss most of them.

Hence all the allegations about being "cold" and "unfeeling".

So what you're getting is the response to the question NTs think you're asking, not the actual literal question, because that's how NT world works.

Though in the case of internet searches I think it's got more to do with money-making clickbait than NT / AS miscommunication.



AngelL
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20 Aug 2021, 8:33 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
I don't see what your post has to do with talking too much, except that there was a lot of yada-yada on the flea websites and Aspies are often accused of talking too much. Yes there is some irony in that.


Yep, that was my point precisely. :)



AngelL
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20 Aug 2021, 8:37 pm

Something Profound wrote:
NT people tend to synthesize information according to expected norms. If you give X information, they will often absorb it, synthesize what possible answers might apply in the context of the situation, and give you the information THEY think is relevant.

In my experience (and this has helped me communicate better in general), NT people do not understand that if you ask X, you are wanting a direct answer to X, not an answer that is Y (which may be related to X, but is not in fact X).

As an example, when I was about 10 years old, I recall asking my brother while in line to get onto a "Keel Boat" ride" way it was called a Keel Boat. Instead of answering the question, he insisted that it didn't matter, a boat was a boat, and this boat just happened to be called a Keel Boat because it had a Keel. Which lead me to ask what a Keel was and why Keel Boats have one and others (presumably) do not.

Which lead to an argument because I kept trying to reassert the questions to get a clear answer, and he did not think it was an important enough question to answer. My attempts were not successful. I didn't get my answer until 20 years later when I happened to be perusing a book about boats and discovered that the only difference between a keel boat and another boat is that a keel boat has a keel, and that covers...most boats. There are a few that do not have a Keel, but very few.

It seems silly in retrospect, but to my 10 year old mind it was a very relevant question that should have been easy to answer. But because my brother did not understand what my question was, and instead answered what he THOUGHT my question was, it was pretty upsetting.

It took my time to understand that most people communicate like this and are not really good at answering things directly, and very specific to the question asked. Once I realized that, I began to ask questions with the added Caveat of explaining: I am not asking Y, I just want to know the answer to X even if it isn't that important." Basically, you are giving NT's instructions on how to answer you.

As for Google...well, Google is an imperfect search engine, and most articles are written by NT people. The best advice I can give you is to treat every article like a mathematic word problem: Some of the info is relevant to getting the data you need to answer your question, but some of the information isn't relevant at all and is just distracting. If an article can't answer your question, you are either looking in the wrong place (Which happens sometimes even if you have good search criteria) or the article is just...bad.

NT people are very commonly bad at explaining things.


This isn't the first post of mine you've responded to that while I'm reading it I'm thinking, "I don't have an identical twin...do?"

Yeah, you pretty much nailed it for me.



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20 Aug 2021, 8:38 pm

Quote:
As an example, when I was about 10 years old, I recall asking my brother while in line to get onto a "Keel Boat" ride" way it was called a Keel Boat. Instead of answering the question, he insisted that it didn't matter, a boat was a boat, and this boat just happened to be called a Keel Boat because it had a Keel. Which lead me to ask what a Keel was and why Keel Boats have one and others (presumably) do not.


A 10-year-old asking what something means isn't unusual. I reckon the truth was that your brother might have not known why it was called a Keel Boat but didn't want to admit it.


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AngelL
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20 Aug 2021, 8:55 pm

Something Profound wrote:
Joe90 wrote:
Quote:
NT people are very commonly bad at explaining things.


Ah, it's an NT thing now. I thought it was Aspies that found it hard explaining things.


Perhaps I misspoke (Which ezbzbfgc2 did a good job at clarifying, see their post). Aspies do have a hard time explaining things. But NT's have a horrible tendency to assume an answer, and so they tend to be bad at interpreting the question, and this leads to easy miscommunications, and errors in explanations.

Yes, NT people have the upper hand, because they take this in stride and tend to correct for it rather easily. The barrier is that they do not see the obvious error, and it leads to issues that could be problematic.

I don't think I could explain it any better than that, but my point is that NT's are, in fact, part of the problem as well. They are not absolved of responsibility in these miscommunications just because they have the benefit of being NT. That is, it isn't just *my* fault that *YOU* (the NT whom I am communicating with) misunderstood. I am very capable of being clear, direct, and concise. Yet this doesn't mean I immune from this issue that Autists have with communication glitches. I have been clear, concise, and direct before and STILL ended up with an NT misunderstanding the question or statement I made.



Watch a NT blow of an Aspie's question because he didn't think it was important enough and watch how fast he ends up in HR...oh wait, I'm sorry, did I say an NT & Aspie? I meant, 'Watch a man blow off a woman's question...'

How many years will it take before society to get to addressing 'neurotypical privilege'? Yeah, I won't hold my breath. My point is that if we are going to talk about NT's being part of the problem, I don't think you can get around taking about their privilege. i.e., An Aspie gets into a fender bender with an NT who was very clearly at fault. Thirty seconds after they apologized, they're saying it wasn't their fault. Thirty seconds after that, they're blaming you. The police pull up. Does anyone here really think it's going to work out well for the Aspie? NT privilege.



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20 Aug 2021, 10:28 pm

AngelL wrote:
Something Profound wrote:
Joe90 wrote:
Quote:
NT people are very commonly bad at explaining things.


Ah, it's an NT thing now. I thought it was Aspies that found it hard explaining things.


Perhaps I misspoke (Which ezbzbfgc2 did a good job at clarifying, see their post). Aspies do have a hard time explaining things. But NT's have a horrible tendency to assume an answer, and so they tend to be bad at interpreting the question, and this leads to easy miscommunications, and errors in explanations.

Yes, NT people have the upper hand, because they take this in stride and tend to correct for it rather easily. The barrier is that they do not see the obvious error, and it leads to issues that could be problematic.

I don't think I could explain it any better than that, but my point is that NT's are, in fact, part of the problem as well. They are not absolved of responsibility in these miscommunications just because they have the benefit of being NT. That is, it isn't just *my* fault that *YOU* (the NT whom I am communicating with) misunderstood. I am very capable of being clear, direct, and concise. Yet this doesn't mean I immune from this issue that Autists have with communication glitches. I have been clear, concise, and direct before and STILL ended up with an NT misunderstanding the question or statement I made.



Watch a NT blow of an Aspie's question because he didn't think it was important enough and watch how fast he ends up in HR...oh wait, I'm sorry, did I say an NT & Aspie? I meant, 'Watch a man blow off a woman's question...'

How many years will it take before society to get to addressing 'neurotypical privilege'? Yeah, I won't hold my breath. My point is that if we are going to talk about NT's being part of the problem, I don't think you can get around taking about their privilege. i.e., An Aspie gets into a fender bender with an NT who was very clearly at fault. Thirty seconds after they apologized, they're saying it wasn't their fault. Thirty seconds after that, they're blaming you. The police pull up. Does anyone here really think it's going to work out well for the Aspie? NT privilege.


I have been very frequently accused of "mansplaining," but this is something I find a bit odd because I explain things in the same fashion to everyone, male or female, and it is always over the top. After explaining this to my female friends, they agree that it is not intended, just an affect I have.



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21 Aug 2021, 12:19 am

I have people blow off my questions or answer them in seemingly unrelated ways all the time. I wouldn't mind the latter so much if they wouldn't often get offended by me clarifying that I meant my question literally, and that I want a literal, fully related answer.

People also get annoyed because I detail my explanations too much. Unlike a lot of people I don't assume that others know everything about the topic I'm talking about, so I feel the need to be detailed and give clarifying information when it may be needed.



AngelL
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21 Aug 2021, 8:10 am

HeroOfHyrule wrote:
I have people blow off my questions or answer them in seemingly unrelated ways all the time. I wouldn't mind the latter so much if they wouldn't often get offended by me clarifying that I meant my question literally, and that I want a literal, fully related answer.

People also get annoyed because I detail my explanations too much.


THIS. ^ This is what I'm talking about. I KNOW why you put in the amount of detail you do, because I do the same thing. It is NOT 'too much'. It is too much for an NT, period. No one gets to define my experience for me. This idea that "this level" of explanation is too much, this amount is too little and this amount is 'just right' - and NT's get to define that for everyone is ridiculous. Heck, it was an NT who wrote Goldilocks and the Three Bears - so I know that NT's can understand the concept of subjectivity...

The part I have a hard time with is when I start to judge my behavior by theirbeliefs. i.e., They decide how much explanation is 'just right' and when I fall out of that range, I don't think, "Oh look, I do it differently." Instead, I think, "I did it 'wrong or 'too much'" because after a lifetime of being told that I'm 'doing it wrong', they've brainwashed me into believing them...

HeroOfHyrule wrote:
Unlike a lot of people I don't assume that others know everything about the topic I'm talking about, so I feel the need to be detailed and give clarifying information when it may be needed.


I do the same thing but... I don't just do it because I'm assuming they know everything about a subject - I do it because the details and clarifying information is important. The fact that they don't see the importance does not mean it has no value. Here's a really good case in point:

I play Klondike solitaire. Someone mentioned that they never seem to win and if I knew any tips. Well yeah, I have a lot of tips. "OMG, give me all you've got!" they say. Now look, I do understand, even before I begin, that they don't want "all I've got" even though they said it. Nevertheless, I start in pretty fine detail because if you can grasp the entirety of the concept I'm explaining properly, a pattern will become obvious, and you can extrapolate from there. In other words, if you'll just be patient and really pay attention and listen to the first 10% of my tutorial - you won't even need to listen to the remaining 90%. I know that my first 10% is taking 5x longer than anyone else's first 10%, but you'll actually have mastery in half the time because 5x 10% is 50% - and you'll understand 100% by then.

Anyway, third person interjected to stop me and save the poor damsel in distress from having to listen to me. Because, as he said, 'those details don't matter'. Except, the world's record win rate for Klondike is 42.7% officially, and those details that don't matter have my win percentage north of 65% after thousands of games. I get that she's not looking to break the world's record or anything - but really, why ask anybody anything if you can't invest in three minutes of explanation. Because really, I would have been done talking in three minutes.