Published on 12, July, 2020
As a member of the community of people unable to read minds and pick up on social cues (!), I find someone not telling me where they stand on a particular thing to be worse for me than if they outright said yes or no.
E.g. if I expressed interest to meet a friend for the first time, and they just completely went silent, that is more torturous and excruciating than if they came back and said "thanks for the offer but no thanks" (or words to that effect).
Iain said:Sometimes you just need to learn to be patient - you are not the only thing in that persons life so you don't know if they have time to process an answer for you.
That is true enough. However, telling someone that you would like time to think about an invitation of some kind and will get back to them in due course surely isn't that difficult... is it?
I know that if I'm on the receiving end of invitations that appear to come from out of the blue, it can really throw me. Therefore, it's not uncommon for me to say I need time to think about it before I can commit myself to making a decision.
I struggled with it a lot. My thinking was to simplify it - we're either friends (i.e. immediate circle, you're someone I trust) or just acquaintances. The "work friends, school friends" etc stuff was just confusing.
I try and be as open with people as I can, but I don't rush into friendships. I don't let myself force anything anymore.
I sympathise with this frustration. I have a small group of close friends. When I meet new people, I’ve always found it hard to distinguish between people who are going to be acquaintances and those who are potentially close friends. I understand the difference intellectually, but when I meet people I like I just don’t know how they see it. I’ve been ghosted and dropped by lots of people I thought were going to be good friends. No idea what I did or didn’t do - certainly nothing outrageous.I know I’ll never be able to read things like NT people so I now accept that and am more prepared to be dropped by new acquaintances so it doesn’t bother me as much. If they turn out to be good friends that’s great but I can’t change who I am. It is their loss, even though it doesn’t always feel like that, and at least I still have my small group to rely on.
Sporadic Sparkly said:Complete silence would be likely to result in me thinking that the idea didn't appeal to them
I confess I sometimes give the radio silence treatment but this is because I lack the bandwidth to make a decision on it, or have other things on the go that are likely to influence the decision and focussing on them will give an answer sooner.
Sometimes you just need to learn to be patient - you are not the only thing in that persons life so you don't know if they have time to process an answer for you.
I'm not criticising, just explaining how I see it.
Yep. Even considering the person's own anxiety etc, I think it's disrespectful to not let the person know.
Okay, if the person is blatantly horrible and abusive, then that's a separate thing, but if it's someone who's actually trying to be nice, then it's a massive slap in the face.
With the example you have provided, it would drive me crazy if there wasn't even an, "Can I sleep on it and get back to you?" Complete silence would be likely to result in me thinking that the idea didn't appeal to them (for whatever reason), and that maybe they were worried I would be upset or take offence if they turned down the invitation.
In that situation, giving someone a clear idea of where they stand strikes me as common courtesy.
It's frustrating when it feels like there's a wall between you and the other person, and something seems to be preventing clear communication, but you don't know what.
Clarity in communication is what we need. I hate been in that strange ambiguous land with trying to work out every possible meaning of what or was not said. I often disappear down that rabbit hole!