Why do you want to know?

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Do you have any suggestions for reducing misunderstandings relating to this without mentiontioning ASD?

Like people will assume someone is being judgmental when they ask a question about their choices or about things in their life? Like they also seem to think people who ask something have an agenda?


My mom also gets defensive if I ask her about my childhood like the time I asked her how come she and dad didn't have tubes put in my ears when I kept getting ear infections. It's a crime to be curious and wanting to find out about it. So you are to keep it a secret and never ask about it.

Dave Pelzer asked his mother in 1987 or 1991 about what he ever did that made her hate him so much and her answer was he talked too much and was too loud. That's what made him her target? See even NTs ask questions for things they want to know an answer to like why it happened. If he never asked, he would have never known the answer to why it happened.

At Babycenter someone will ask a question and women jump on the OP with their rude remarks or snarkness or being mean and hostile or bully the OP. So I have learned it's a crime to be curious and to want to know why and people think you are being judgmental when you ask. They act like the OP had some agenda behind their question.

Even NTs have this same sort of misunderstanding just like aspies. Then women have also said there "Why do you want to know why" "Why must you know the reason why women choose to breast feed or formula feed?" as if it's a crime to wonder why.

How old were you guys at the time, maybe this will make more sense & did you have no access to a computer?

Be me like asking “If 2 cars crash into each other at 50mph, will the crash look like a 100 mph crash?” answer is no it would be a 50 mph, but do you think the person I was asking, would know.

I know they won't have the answer & most would tell you the wrong answer. Only some would give the correct answer.

I also never had anyone ask me “Why do you want to know?”. But then maybe I start off with.

“I would love to know, if 2 cars travelling at 50 mph crashed into each other, would it be a 100 mph crash?”

I use "love" instead of "like". Maybe that might be why I don't get that response back. Or ask silly questions I know the other person won't know.

League_Girl

Erm only pattern I see from your questions, is asking ones that would have attached negative thoughts about another.

Hexagon by all means feel free to use my quote "Why shouldn't I know?" I don't think there are any copyright issues.

Cogs I'm pleased for you that you are starting to understand, communication is a minefield, in some cases it will be trail and error, finding a way that works best for you and in a way that you are comfortable with. I'm only good at communicating via writing as I have a speech impediment.

What do you mean, can you give an example? Like do you mean people would get a negative opinion about the person after their answer?

My guess is they don't know the answer or don't want to tell you. Imagine some kind of awkward question people ask you and you really don't want to tell them, you'd probably say "why do you wan to know"?

It's true that a lot of NT people aren't used to learning things for no particular reason, though they might have other reasons to not talk about those as well. I mean, if you actually asked those example questions and you're older than 7, I wouldn't be surprised if nobody wants to answer. Many of those don't have definite answers and it takes quite a bit of time to research and explain. People might feel like you're intentionally trying to waste their time.

I stopped asking my parents questions at 8 because I knew they wouldn't know. Now if only they would stop asking me questions.

Use this one as it's the easy one to explain. since you put "Why must you know the reason why women choose to breast feed or formula feed?" I am guessing that is what was asked? since the other ones are along the same line.

They probably had allot of people give bad negative attitude towards them breast feeding in public for example. Since allot of people think it's wrong for the person to not breast feed if they using a bottle, bad negative feeling of not breast feeding the baby.

Like they hate the feeling & the nurse might of had bad attitude towards them trying to get them to do it.

Yeah that question has been asked before.

I saw an example of this on a TV show last night and it actually made sense...

"Did you tell my sister that I'm having money problems?"

"No... Why?"

In this case I totally get it... If it feels like you're being accused of something, you want to know why!

I think just knowing the difference is there will be a big help. You now know they are looking for some sort of story or agenda behind a question so that will explain some baffling behaviours. But how do you let them know their isn't an agenda behind your questions without revealing AS? Perhaps you can reveal instead that you are a person who likes to collect information and data just out of curiosity,not meaning anything else by it. They will just think of that as a stand-alone personality trait and make no connection to AS. They will then also probably make some lame joke about you being a good contestant on the TV show Jeopardy (a show that rewards mental data collection, for those who haven't seen it). Just nod and that inevitable joke will pass.

Yes, exactly right. In the example of asking your mom why she didn't have tubes put in your ears, the agenda she is guessing at is that you are accusing her of negligence. When I'm in a situation like that, I give some pre-emptive guessing answers that aren't accusing. "Were you afraid the operation might be dangerous and would damage my hearing even worse?" is an example. But that only works if you can think up some plausible guessing answers to defuse the defensiveness.

Grrrr. It happened again. I asked my NT dad about emotional agendas, since it was a new concept, and he asked me why I wanted to know. I think he thought I had an emotional agenda behind wanting to know about emotional agendas... In this case, I did have a reason for wanting to know, but I made it perfectly obvious in my question. And he still asked it.

Last edited by Hexagon on 01 Mar 2012, 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have always told people that I am trying to help understand me that most people primarily talk to socialize and secondarily to exchange information. For me, it's the other way around. And since I rarely feel a need to socialize for it's own sake, it's almost entirely about information exchange when I speak. If I can work it into a conversational format, great! Also, I say what I mean and mean what I say. No agendas, nothing hidden. To me, it's a meaningless and confusing waste of time, and I am generally unaware of people's hidden meanings and agendas, although things will sometimes occur to me later. A possible exception to my meaning what I say is that I do use sarcasm, because I often find it humerous. But it's usually pretty blatent. I'm sure that people also think I'm a bit gullible, because unless it's really far-fetched, I generally believe what people tell me. It doesn't occur to me that they have some hidden agenda for telling me something that is false.

Sorry if this is off-track, but it seemed somewhat pertinent to the thread.

I think it's weird that how she understands me and knows how my brain works and how I talk but yet she can still make false assumptions by reading into what I say. I would say she understands me most of the time.

Wow interesting posts Janissy. Got annoyed sometimes when I ask a question and could tell people were putting assumptions into their answers. Now I know why

I never know 17 year old people still ask their parents serious questions. I thought all they ask by that age is to borrow the car.

Actually I don't think most people ask anybody those questions at all unless they're taking a philosophy class. I really don't expect anybody other than the smartest people to possibly know, which to me means just a couple of my friends. Of course I don't know your dad. Maybe he's very smart and you trust him very much. Just want to say, in my experience, it's just atypical for late teens to communicate with their parents on that level.