Help with explaining telephone problems.

What I personally believe the issue is (and I acknowledge that nothing is impossible, including the possibility of myself being wrong) is that the neurotypical mind doesn't constantly evaluate whether they are saying the right or wrong thing. They purely express their thoughts, while we tend to contemplate within our minds, questioning whether to say this or that, often resulting in saying nothing at all. It took me 20 years, but I've learned not to care. Not caring about what I say has allowed me to develop effective communication skills.

In conversations, it's like a game of chess, a back-and-forth exchange. You pass the ball of conversation, taking turns to speak. When it's my turn, I express myself. When it's your turn, you respond based on what I've said. Even if it seems off-topic, their response was triggered by something I said, so I should just express my thoughts. The key is to worry about their judgment after the conversation. Did they ever indicate that I shouldn't have said something? If not, there's nothing to worry about."

Drakenfeld said:

the neurotypical mind doesn't constantly evaluate whether they are saying the right or wrong thing. They purely express their thoughts, while we tend to contemplate within our minds,

I believe it is more subliminal for NTs than that - they do a lot of the assessment of what is being said - including the tone and phrasing - much more efficiently than us and without having to use as much of their concious mind.

This stems from the difference in how the autistic brain develop where our lack of filters means we often need to conciously evaluate inputs to decide what to discard and what to consider before responding, while an NT brain will have advanced filters for all kinds of mundane stuff, letting them keep thier foucus on whatever inane subject they are interested in talking about.

Drakenfeld said:

In conversations, it's like a game of chess, a back-and-forth exchange.

There are plenty of people who talk lots and don't give you much of a chance to respond if you aren't ready with an immediate reply. These are often the hardest to deal with.

I spend 32 years in IT, lots of it in a user support capacity where I would be often on the phone to talk a user through identifying and resolving issues (they would often be upset when calling in which makes it a lot harder).

You quickly develop scripted responses to wedge open those little windows of opportunity in a conversation to be able to formulate a reply, but need to rotate them so the user doesn't catch on that you are stalling whem while working out what to try next.

People have loads of different ways of speaking on the phone so it can help to understand them and work out how best to deal with them for a positive outcome, including keeping a file on the more important ones so you can come across as having paid attention to the mundan content of previous conversations.

For the likes of the assistants to the board members in the companies I worked for I would keep a Notes file with entries for each on subjects like their partners/kids name, significant events they talked about, interest, things that happened to them etc and would use this to pad some of the times when we were waiting for their computer to reboot for example for me to ask how they are getting on with the (insert subject of relevance). It made them feel that I paid attention to them, gave them a positive to talk about while they were stressed about and IT issue and kept them talking about something they were happy about for a while in the day when they could switch off from other stuff.

I guess I developed an interest in the "headology" behind the subject in those long years.

But like the rest of you, I avoid the phone whenever practical and if I don't recognise the number calling me, it gets ignored now.

Drakenfeld said:

the neurotypical mind doesn't constantly evaluate whether they are saying the right or wrong thing. They purely express their thoughts, while we tend to contemplate within our minds,

I believe it is more subliminal for NTs than that - they do a lot of the assessment of what is being said - including the tone and phrasing - much more efficiently than us and without having to use as much of their concious mind.

This stems from the difference in how the autistic brain develop where our lack of filters means we often need to conciously evaluate inputs to decide what to discard and what to consider before responding, while an NT brain will have advanced filters for all kinds of mundane stuff, letting them keep thier foucus on whatever inane subject they are interested in talking about.

Drakenfeld said:

In conversations, it's like a game of chess, a back-and-forth exchange.

There are plenty of people who talk lots and don't give you much of a chance to respond if you aren't ready with an immediate reply. These are often the hardest to deal with.

I spend 32 years in IT, lots of it in a user support capacity where I would be often on the phone to talk a user through identifying and resolving issues (they would often be upset when calling in which makes it a lot harder).

You quickly develop scripted responses to wedge open those little windows of opportunity in a conversation to be able to formulate a reply, but need to rotate them so the user doesn't catch on that you are stalling whem while working out what to try next.

People have loads of different ways of speaking on the phone so it can help to understand them and work out how best to deal with them for a positive outcome, including keeping a file on the more important ones so you can come across as having paid attention to the mundan content of previous conversations.

For the likes of the assistants to the board members in the companies I worked for I would keep a Notes file with entries for each on subjects like their partners/kids name, significant events they talked about, interest, things that happened to them etc and would use this to pad some of the times when we were waiting for their computer to reboot for example for me to ask how they are getting on with the (insert subject of relevance). It made them feel that I paid attention to them, gave them a positive to talk about while they were stressed about and IT issue and kept them talking about something they were happy about for a while in the day when they could switch off from other stuff.

I guess I developed an interest in the "headology" behind the subject in those long years.

But like the rest of you, I avoid the phone whenever practical and if I don't recognise the number calling me, it gets ignored now.