Discovery 2 - Let's talk about communication

There are far too many emojis to choose from now. (I'm talking about WhatsApp as that's the only one I use). It's too complicated!  

I love this. I wonder if it's to do with if you are more of a visual thinker or not. I think I struggle with tone of voice and often with my partner he will be joking but I take it seriously.  This has landed me in hot water on many occasions as I have flipped my lid at what he has said. He never means any harm and he doesn't have a malicious bone in his body. So even if I still don't believe he was "just joking" I have to remind myself of his nature and that helps me calm down. 

Similarly with interpreting mischief. I struggle to determine if someone is taking me for a ride or not. Likewise if I'm trying to be mischievous, someyimes it's not noticed and I feel I come across as a bit of an idiot and have to explain "I'm only joking". So I wonder if I miss out on others' AND my own tone of voice and body language.

Do you find small talk easy or difficult depending on the situation?  I was at an event today by myself with people I'd never met before.  At lunch break it was social time! I was invited to sit with a group and didn't want to be anti social sp joined them. They were so down to earth but I found myself struggling. To the point where I think they could hear my cogs whirring while I was trying to choose what to say! My mind was BLANK.  I had no idea how long the break was going to be for either.

In other situations I can do ok. I think it depends how in control I am, whether its structured "getting to know you" time or more fluid informal stuff and whether I'm eating and how long we have to do it for!

 I hear things that way too and have to use my inner translation tool! 

OH. MY. GOD

Exactly! When all you hear is "Autism = difficulty communicating" it can be hard to reconcile that with all the stuff you said about vocabulary, fluency etc. and for me the fact that my job is basically communicating (Business Analyst, so divining 'needs' from stated 'wants', reverse-engineering requirements from presented solutions, putting stuff in 'dev' terms so they build what the business people want - I must be an amazing communicator surely!?).

But it's all that other non-verbal implied, inferred stuff like when "Do you like this dress?" actually means "I don't really like this dress, please confirm that I'm correct" but could equally mean "I LOVE this dress! You are required to affirm this whether you agree or not"

I thought today that maybe that's why I (and other people with ASD?) prefer written communication - it levels the playing field 'cos no-one gets the benefit of non-verbal cues... or if they do they have to be explicit e.g. emoji

Text-based communication with emoji is probably the greatest advancement to successful NT<>ND communication ever!

Yes, I get puzzled by misplaced modifiers or subordinate clauses, and I find them all the time in the news media.  The worst one I saw recently went something like 'an emergency debate was held about the alarming growth of knife crime in the Commons'.  I pointed it out to someone else, who said 'But you know what it means'.  Do I?  Is the Commons rife with knife crime?  Is the Brexit issue making MPs resort to assault and murder in the House?

Pixiefox said:

The difficulties I experience include:

Sometimes speaking too loudly or too fast

Delivering monologues about a favourite topic

Having difficulty interpreting lies, deception & mischief

Sometimes being interpreted as being too blunt or insensitive

Sometimes being unsure whether others have meant to be rude or unkind to me

Having to plan what to say and then replaying it over and over in my head afterwards

Difficulty understanding a verbal message if stressed or upset

Can be distracted  by associations cued by dialogue with others.

Yes.  This is so much me, too.  I often replay over and over something I've said without thinking and which has not elicited the expected response in the person I'm addressing.  Are they offended?  Didn't they understand me properly?  Did they mistake my meaning for something else?  Quite often I've had to resolve the situation by speaking to the person privately the next time I see them to try to explain things, and quite often too this has led to their saying that there wasn't a problem with what I said at all.  I find that dialogue with others can be very distracting which is why I prefer to not speak if I'm driving with someone else in the car or if I'm working with someone, and I realise that this can make me seem 'quiet' or uncommunicative, which I then worry about incessantly.  I always feel that it is incumbent on me to keep a conversation going long after the other person has become bored with it without my realising.  I only realise when they go quiet themselves, or change the subject, or react in some way that I hadn't expected.

I don't know if you saw the article that was flagged up earlier on another thread, but it is very worth reading.  I haven't come across writer Katherine May before, but might have to read her memoir now about the walk she took along the South West Coastal Path after being diagnosed with Asperger's autism and needing time to come to accept that.  It's called 'The Electricity of Every Living Thing'.  Here is a small part of the article that I think is quite relevant to this discussion.  I hope you won't mind if I post it here.

'To an autistic viewer like me, neurotypical life can seem astonishingly unemotional. I’m so overwhelmed by the sensory onslaught of a busy room that I’m almost tearful, while neurotypical folk appear to wade through clouds of sound, light and odour, entirely oblivious. It’s hard to resist the impression that they’re numb, or unreal somehow. They are certainly displaying a lack of affect in the face of extreme provocation. Where I am in constant movement; they are somehow still. During a networking event, I once became so agonised by the itchy label in the back of my dress that I reached behind to pull at it, and felt the fabric tear. I withdrew my hand, ashamed. I had let my mask slip.

I do not spend my time wondering, naively, what’s going on, or questioning the exact, literal meaning of everything neurotypical people say, but, distracted, I lose my words sometimes, or muddle them, or slur. Or else I go into a kind of overdrive, and pour out a barrage of speech that might not be measured, or appropriate, or relevant. As an adult, I have mostly learned to moderate this, but it’s not always effective. Either way – without words, or with too many of them – I see that discreet look that passes between neurotypical people when they’ve decided that you’re odd.

From my end of the conversation, the constant chatter seems colourless and dry. Instead of discussing their driving passions, my companions prefer to gossip about near-strangers, or to compete for airtime at the expense of listening and perhaps learning something useful. They are endlessly obsessed with their status and their identification with their tribe. As the conversation moves on to current affairs, people stumble over themselves to agree with the most influential person at the table. They seem able to assimilate news stories that I find too tragic to digest, and to flip them glibly into humour, finding glee in the kind of interpersonal politics that make the air feel thick to me. To me, their company seems superficial, blunt, emotionless.

If this seems like a terrible generalisation to you, based on a flawed understanding of someone else’s way of perceiving the world, then you’re beginning to get the point. I write these things about neurotypical people knowing that they are not true, because the culture that I’m immersed in tells me so. I am taught by books, films and TV that people have hidden depths, that their reactions do not always portray exactly what they’re feeling; I understand that people’s behaviour can be influenced by a whole range of factors that I know nothing about, and that I should not assume that they are ignorant, or stupid, or defective just because their responses do not match mine. What I ask is that the same courtesy is shown to autistics.'  Katherine May

Taking things literally as an adult is soooooooooooo well hidden. 

I thought the same too but realise now - I take everything literally but in a non literal way. 

Example - wife said to me - 

“The dog’s barking, at the gate” 

I get an image of my dog barking at the gate. Of course she meant -

“At the gate, the dog is barking”

Both sentences mean the same thing but not to me. The bottom sentence says - Dog wants the gate opened.

The top sentence says - the dog is angry with the gate. 

I identify with all those issues.  The worst is inability to spot liars until I can gather enough data to disprove their false data.  Not a lot of use when time is of the essence and decisions need to be made.

Pixiefox said:

I also  thought I was ok at small talk (even though  I can find it a bit boring) but now I see that my small talk is just a habit to  fit in, and that I try to choose subjects which are a bit of interest to me. Luckily I am quite interested in the weather!

This just makes me 

I can identify with a lot of this! Especislly in your first and last paragraphs. 

How can communication be 80pc non-verbal? That messes with my head.

Yep check all the above!  No wonder life is so hard in a predominately NT world!

Thanks for a great post, made me think.....

...Greetings. I was just passing... and as so often happens I see something unexpected...

Pixiefox said:

NTs may make inferences based on internal associations. The World Wildlife fund logo is a panda. If you tell one of their representatives "I don't like pandas" they may infer you don't like the world wildlife fund.

This is SO totally one of the main troubles which I also have! Good on Yourself, Pixiefox, for putting that! I might provide my own examples later, but meantime, I am still 'just passing'... Good Thread, Yes!

(I am pretty good at "picking up non-verbal cues", though. I know a bored or hostile, or interested face/body language quite well. I also know the tight "poker face" of trying not to grin or laugh at me, and the actions of being surrounded or "included in a conversation". But all of that is different discussions...)