Published on 12, July, 2020
I was listening to the radio the other day and they were talking about things that you’ve only just learnt or realised that everyone else seems to just know, the typical - “I was today years old when I realised…”. Made me think of some things that I didn’t register about straight away, and now wonder whether this is part of my autistic way of thinking about things, that I just thought about things literally. Some examples…
On for sale sites when people put something about collections, I always thought they meant that the person that bought the item had to be a collector to purchase it, as in a stamp collector or a coin collector, like it was their hobby. Not that they had to physically be able to go and collect it from the person selling.
In the song ‘one man went to mow, went to mow-a-meadow’ I always assumed there was a place called mow-a-meadow. I didn’t realise he was going to a meadow to mow/cut the grass.
when people put ‘Tia’ at the bottom of a post I thought it was that their name was Tia and it always amused me how many people shared the same name. It was only recently that I realised it was ‘thanks in advance’
Has anyone else got any examples of things like this? Do other people do it? Is it an autistic literal thinking thing or am I just stupid? :)
There was another woman I worked with (years later, in another company) who used to talk about her 'little boy' and I was equally bemused by what her 'little boy' got up to until one day she said that she went to a fish and chip shop with him and when she came out she dropped a sausage onto the pavement and he ate it.
I first asked why he ate it off the pavement + then the truth struck ...I said, oh, is your 'little boy' a dog? + she said 'yes' ....
Ahh such an easy thing to assume! I do wonder if non-autistics would just pick up on that they were talking about their pets and not their children! I also feel that I’m an over-explainer so if I was telling a story about my pet, it would be so obvious that I was talking about my cat! Ah stories like this do amuse me!