Published on 12, July, 2020
Please feel free to list your experiences with literal thinking or related behaviours whenever you feel like it, and whether these are important or as typically ridiculous as my recent example:
* I ordered a 'personalised' t-shirt from Ebay, graced with the word 'AUTISTIC' in gigantic, glowing capital letters. Wearing this shirt, I thought, would save me the tedium of explaining my more unusual words or deeds to others whenever it might be necessary. Hooray! Alas, after receiving the shirt I realised that it's Winter & resultingly bloomin' freezing so it's likely that the shirt is now as useless as I habitually am. If I wear the neon monstrosity that is the shirt under an opened jacket, its essential message - which ludicrously dwarfs the famous HOLLYWOOD sign, such are my design-skills - will either be lost on the NT crowd, or else appear as some kind of short, ironic and post-sexist anagram. Doh.
The most recent instance occurred on Christmas Day when my mother moved her car up the driveway, then said 'OK, you can go in.' I headed to the front door. Two seconds later 'Nooooo! Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I mean put your car in!'
Why didn’t she just be more specific and state that it was your car she was talking about?
She understandably assumed that the context was enough. I can always appreciate that afterwards, and it was a funny moment.
Shardovan said:bib-bopping along
Lovely!
Funny, it’s great how your literalism induces uncontrollable laughter. That’s a talent!
Though I do worry that my laughing so much sometimes creates the impression that I'm just bib-bopping along and not struggling or sad or distraught at privately unresolved things on several other fronts. It's a weird level of authentic cathartic amusement on top of a reservoir of sensitivity and hurt.
We misinterpret each other all the time about practical stuff. Almost in ways where an ordinary brain would have to put extra effort into getting it so wrong. Like recently when she said 'how's it going with the bed?' Even though I'd spent the entire day in my own place dissassembling two bunk beds left by the previous owner, I took the singular 'bed' to mean she had to be asking about my main bedroom, where the only new addition was an electric blanket. So: 'Yes, it's nice and warm thanks' 'What?!' The penny drops. Uncontrollable laughter commences. The hours just fly by.