Taking things literally?
i know what most of you are reffering to, i often come across as aragant and this is somthing which i do not like about myself.
As for taking thing literally, i am slwoly learning what is and what isent literal. i am apprently very good at making up metphors though. although i only recently relised people used metaphors with declaring so.
I am often the last to get a joke and the joke which inmake up lose many people because they end up to complicated.
And i knw exactally what you mean about not knowing if somoen is erios or if they are joking, that is often a problem.
jammie
I didn't think I was actually that literal but I am.. well, I knew I did take alot of things literally but I didn't realise just how badly I did until someone pointed it out to me. I can relate to alot on this thread. Like the not knowing if I'm being teased or not - that happens all the time, I think they're being serious I just can't tell the difference. And alot of the time the people who do it switch between playful and serious so I have to ask constantly if they are serious or not and of course when they are serious they say yes and when they aren't serious they say yes as well because they're playing around. That's when I start exploding
Ahh I had other things I could relate to but I forgot them so yeah Oh.. and I never get jokes. I just blame it on the hair colour and it works good enough, but sometimes I never get the joke, or once I get it explained to me I don't find it funny. Then I feel very awkward.
I have trouble judging whether a person is sincere or not
Like if an NT jokingly stated "I have been abducted by aliens" I would think he was sincere and having serious delusions. I would dismiss him as gullible, had too much to drink or taken drugs which gave him hallucinations of seeing aliens and not pick up through non-verbal communication that he was only joking. Where as others room may pull my up and shout "can't you tell he was not serious?!"
I have met a few people who did in fact seriously believe they were abducted by aliens and I did in fact judge them as gullible or going through delusions. But the NT's had the added perception of picking through emotional cues and the tone of their voice that they were in fact serious about their story.
Paul
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Last edited by paulsinnerchild on 26 Apr 2006, 8:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
Hmmm, I just found my previous response in here (from a few months ago) and it's a little crusty - sounds like I was pretty frustrated by my literalness that day. On a lighter note yeah, I am very literal and it can make communication difficult, but it can be entertaining too - I'm also a very visual thinker and the combination of literal and visual means you end up with some hilarious mental images. Anyone else get that?
I used to take everything seriously. I didn't take things too literally though, but I did sometimes.
When I was between the ages of about 13 and 17, my friends used to bust on me for being so damn serious. I've lightened up, but sometimes I need to take things with a grain of salt, where for others they do this naturally.
One saying that could have far-reaching consequences if misinterpreted is "I'll kill you". It took me longer than most people to realise that USUALLY it means "I'm going to punish you" or at least doesn't imply an actual murder threat.
But when people such as my dad, and a previous boss, have said "I'll kill you" to me, part of me does wonder if I'm going to die. I must say, it has been devastating to me when people I had such a close relationship with have said it.
I usually don't have trouble with metaphors, like some of you it's the pragmatics I have a problem with. I tend to believe everything I'm told, unless it's totally whimsical. What people tell me might be far-fetched, but I have no reason not to believe it unless there's concrete evidence, or contradiction, to say otherwise.
Believing everything I was told - shall I say indeed gullibility - was a main reason for the teasing I received in childhood and adolescence.
For me, I have never had any trouble with understanding turns of phrase, metaphor, etc. I love puns and wordplay. The trouble I have is with understanding tone and motive. For example, I don't know if I'm being teased or if the person is serious. Eg, at work, sometimes I would sneakily check my email, and my coworker would threaten to call up the manager and tell him. I could never tell if he was serious or not, and every time I'd freak out and he'd laugh and tell me he was only joking. It took me a long time to learn that it was teasing. I tend to get VERY upset very easily at being teased, because I just don't know that I am only being teased. This leads people to say I have no sense of humour, which is untrue, I feel, but I can see why it would seem that way.
However, I don't have any trouble with turns of phrase such as "pull your socks up". I have never taken things literally. But I do prefer online to talking in person, since I'm not brilliant at interpretting tone.
Other thoughts?
Where in the DSM-IV statistical manual does it say that 'taking things literally' is part of the diagnostic criteria for Asperger's Syndrome? There are only two conditions: inefficient social skills, and stereotypical and routinized ideas and behavior. There are a variety of by-products to having these conditions, so not every aspie is going to take things literally.
Also, the idea of taking things literally could be thought of on a spectrum. At the lowest end, there are problems with things like metaphors, wordplay, etc.. At the higher end, there are problems with black-and-white thinking. In between, there are a mixture of high and low-end things. It just depends on the person in question, and it is very possible that some aspies may not even have a problem with literal thinking.
Teasing bothers me, too. I've noticed, though, that many people throw on a smile or tend to laugh if they are like teasing me. That's how it is within my family, anyway. There are times that I have misconstrued things, however. And if it is done by someone I tend to not know that well, I can get very hurt. I begin to wonder what I did that caused this person to tease me, even though I know that I probably didn't do anything. I just don't know what it is with me. I feel that my emotions are disconnected from my thoughts, in such a way that I will know something but feel something the opposite, so much so that it keeps on bothering me for some time regardless, and I just have to keep telling myself not to worry about anything.
- Ray M -
I absolutely love word play and satire. They are my favorites as far as comedy goes.
When I'm not looking for it however, and I am not in the frame of mind to receive it as such, I go litteral and the joke flies over my head. Especially racy jokes told aloud. I stare blankly and then ask someone to explain it to me, after which isn't funny any more!
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He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn toward it.
I said no I didn't...
If that happened to me, I would look at window 2. If nobody was there, I'd go to window 3, where she would have spoken from. And, I most likely wouldn't say anything, but I would be like: "Are you like confused or something?"
Next person to window 2 means for the next person in line to go to window 2. What else does it mean? I think that maybe the woman was confused or something. "Next person at window 2" means something a little different. I think it's just semantics. No need to worry about it.
- Ray M -
I understand metaphors and sarcasm, but jokes I can't get. Like, for example, here's a common one: "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side." I have no idea what it means, but it's supposed to be funny. To me, it's just nonsense. It's like that I can't picture the concept of why. I try to think of a few reasons why, and all I can think about is: "Well, why else would the chicken cross the road?" I just don't get it, and in fact I get very few jokes. I can sometimes understand the story-type jokes that may be a few paragraphs, and jokes like the knock-knock jokes. I hate situations when people are talking about jokes. I just hate it, because I'm so bad at it. And I will usually laugh just to fit in, and I may even throw in a joke I have heard just to fit in. I feel so awkward when in a situation with a few other people who are talking, and I'm close by and silent, especially in a situation where there are NTs.
I'm not sure if it's body language. I think it has to do with how I process things in my mind. I can relate to things like analogies really easily, and I rarely have trouble with sarcasm. At times, metaphors can confuse me, but I can get the drift of them most of the time.
There have been cases where I have been given tests, and I had trouble understanding the question that I know was supposed to be easily understood. It doesn't happen a lot, and it happens more with questions that are more or less longer in length. I sometimes get screwed up in trying to analyze the subject and predicate thing for some odd reason, and it's worse if there are a few 'ands' or 'ors'. It's like my mind struggles to process it, yet if I come back to it later, I don't seem to have as bad a problem as I did before.
- Ray M -
I've never struggled with figures of speech, puns, jokes etc. I enjoyed reading from a young age, so written language was never a problem for me. I do consider myself to have a sense of humour, I just find different things funny.
A lot like you though, I struggle with being teased, or corrected, as I'm never sure how a comment is intended. I've learnt to smile and go along with it, but a lot just goes right over my head.
One funny quirk is that I tend to read things like newspaper headlines wrong - either the meaning behind them, or I completely misread a word with funny, unintentional consequences. I was browsing a forum and happened upon a discussion on circumcision, and one of the first phrases was 'take your pick' which I read as 'take your prick'. I'm not sure what Freud would make of that.
We have a sign outside a jeweller's in town, that reads "Watch batteries fitted while you wait". My mother and I laugh now when we see it and ask eachother who would want to sit and watch batteries fitted.
That's my story, too. I was terrified in elementary school because the bullies would say "I'm going to kill you after school" and I always thought they meant it. Even now I never know if people are being serious or kidding around.
Idioms and ambiguous wording still throw me at first, but once I learn what they mean I never EVER forget them and feel quite natural using them in conversation. Sometimes it can take a while to realize that I'm interpreting things wrong, though. For example, on my way to work there's a hardware store and the sign out front said "CHAIN WIRE ROPE NOW AVAILABLE". When I drove past that sign I would think to myself "what is 'chain wire' and what would you do with a rope made out of it?" It took me about 6 weeks to realize they meant "chain, wire and rope now available". I sure felt stupid after that one...
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What would Flying Spaghetti Monster do?
That sort of thing has me stumped. Why can't people use proper punctuation?
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