Is this literal thinking? Or am I just really dense?

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A conversation I had with my partner this morning. We tend to have a lot of exchanges like this. In the past I've often come away from these feeling stupid for not understanding him. Lately I wonder whether these are an aspie-type thing due to literal thinking. All feedback is appreciated. So here goes:

Setting: we are sitting at the table, eating breakfast, discussing the morning's activities. Only the 2 of us are in the house.

Him: while you're watering the garden, I'll vacuum.
Me: I thought you wanted to water the garden.
Him: The vacuuming really needs to be done, so if you can do the watering, that'd be great.
Me: OK, I'll water. No problem.
[now things start getting weird for me]
Him: Will the watering affect the shower water pressure?
Me: Uh, yeah it probably will. It always has. [i'm wondering why he's asking me this because it bears no relation to anything that's gone before]
Him: [I didn't hear this next sentence of his; my mind was still trying to process the shower water pressure question]
Me: Wait a minute. You're going to be vacuuming. I'll be outside. Who's going to be in the shower?
Him, speaking slowly: I haven't showered yet, I'm going to shower after I finish the vacuuming. Who else did you think?
Me: Well there is no one else, and you said you were going to vacuum, so I didn't know why you would ask about the shower water pressure when you had said nothing else about taking a shower.
Him: <sigh>
Me: [roll eyes]

And then, breakfast over, we got on with the day.

Mis-communication, happens to everyone. I would'nt be that concerned about it.

Happens to me all the time. I deal with it by not really asking when things dont make sense
Although detachment may not be very healthy.

Yeah, I've done that, too (not asking). That's actually my usual tendency. It's a big progression that I can now sometimes engage and start asking questions when I feel confused by a conversation. But if it happens too fast, or with a stranger, or I'm already uncomfortable in a situation, I get a deer-in-the-headlights look as I try to figure out just what is happening. I start thinking: did I miss something? Did they misunderstand what I said? Maybe something they said earlier explains what they're saying now? How did this happen - the conversation was so understandable until just now? OK, I've been standing here slack-jawed for way too long, what do I say to get this conversation back on track?

And after a bunch of ums, ahs and ers, I might stammer out, "I'm sorry, what do you mean?" But it's just as likely that total silence will ensue, or the other person will excuse themselves and that's the end of that interaction.

AgentPalpatine, you're very right that misunderstandings happen to everyone. I seem to be very bad at coping with them as they happen. My brain kinda freezes up, making it difficult or impossible to ask for clarification, or verbally let the other person know that I'm lost. It's sort of like, if i am a car, my brain is the driver, and the conversation is the road being traveled, I'm driving along and suddenly nothing works, not brakes, accelerator, steering wheel, or gearshift. All my brain (the driver) can do is watch as the car rolls along. Sometimes the car stays on the road. Other times it goes into a ditch.

I've been doing exactly this for the last umpteen years.

When questions and answers don't match up, I usually stay quiet and simply let things unfold as they will. But since I've been dating and having short relationships, I've come to the conclusion that it's probably not the best thing to do. The confusion remains, there is a disconnect, somebody doesn't have half of the picture.

I think it is best to ask for more information. I believe an old saying "there are no stupid questions" applies. However, those providing the answers often answer with insult.

So he wants to do the vacuuming instead of the watering because it doesn't take as long, eh? If he's showering while you are still watering. Cheeky.

Nothing to do with the topic, sorry, I just thought that was amusing

He was thinking aloud about the mourning itineriary without verbalizing each step in his train of thought. You were taking his plans as a finished statement, and not as a work in progress. You couldve responded "okay-lets take it from the top- vacuuming, watering, showering...what order do you wanna do those things in...and who does what?"

Agreed!

Context. Does he vacuum often? If so, does he often shower afterwards? If so, he's taking for granted you know these patterns. Then again, why doesn't he already know water pressure usually gets affected when two sources are going simultaneously. All this reminds me of being married, it's a real balancing act.

Oh yes, context is important. He was assuming that I knew he'd be taking a shower at some point that morning (he always does) and it might very well be while I was still watering. But there was no explicitly stated connection to the 'I vacuum, you water' statement. Thinking it over again, I was first thrown by his request that I water the garden - this is something he likes to do and he had spent the previous day planting it, so I had already mentally allocated that task to him. When it suddenly became my chore, I had to reorder my mental plan. This process, for me, is not as quick as removing one card in a deck and putting it in a new location; it's more like moving a boxcar's location in a train: it takes a while & is an awful lot of effort for a small change.

So my train of thought was already engaged in this reordering when he threw the next curveball. (I'm mixing my metaphors, I know.) The showering/water pressure question was really 2 questions in my mind: 1) why the heck is he asking about the shower when it has nothing to do with the conversation thus far; and 2) how could he have forgotten about the water pressure. This is where I froze up: I had 2 equally important questions that needed answers and couldn't decide which to pursue first, as I replayed that particular conversation as well as trying to recall if he had said anything else relevant earlier in the morning, searching for the logical connection between the shower/water pressure issue, and everything that went before.

You see, that mental work is what I do when verbally confronted with something unexpected, instead of just immediately asking for clarification I start asking myself questions, trying to puzzle it out. Did I forget something from earlier? Is there some double meaning I'm not getting? Why are they asking me this when they must already know? Are they teasing me? And so on.

I know this is a lot to make of one misunderstanding, it's just one example of situations that get my thought processes derailed, causing all kinds of problems.

I didn't mind it, really I didn't. In fact I prefer doing things outside - it's much more calming to me to water, plant, prune, rake, etc, than fussy indoor work (even if it is stuff that I find interesting). And I prefer him in a washed state, too.

It would be worse if you chastised him/her for thinking of vacuuming the shower floor with the water running (electrical hazard).

That would have been taking things too literally.

Is your partner the Aspie, or you, or both?
When he said about the water affecting the shower, that sounds like something I would ask; totally irrelavent and just trying to turn a perfect plan into a small issue (not that he was trying to do that, but I'm just saying it's what I do).

If you're the Aspie, then wondering why he asked about the shower when it had nothing to do with the plan you both agreed on, isn't anything unusual because anyone would ask what that was to do with anything if there was nobody using the shower at the time and nobody else in the house who may use it.

If he was going to ask about water affecting the shower the other day but forgot, and then the conversation reminded him about it and thought he would ask then, it is still quite natural to ask why he is asking. Not all aspects of social interaction are that concrete, and not everyone can read minds.

Sorry but your partner sounds a bit daft, wanting to shower while there is a hose pipe running makes no sense to me.

An interesting thing to ask yourself is how would YOU have asked the question?

Would you simply say:

1) Will the watering affect the shower pressure? [pause for reply]

or would you say...

2) Will the watering affect the shower pressure? I ask because I think I will finish the vacuuming before you finish the watering and so I might end up taking my shower while you were still watering.

I would ask it like 2) because I know that I would not personally understand 1) (too few details!) and therefore I would assume that no one else could understand 1) either.

I do believe that a tendency to ask questions like 2) is related to Aspergers, and I believe it is one of the main reasons that people on the spectrum are seen to ramble/to provide too much detail.

I think I have a number of aspie traits, though I'm not diagnosed, and not sure I can be by the DSM-V criteria. My partner has his bizarre moments, but is definitely not aspie.

He often does things like this when we're talking, changing subjects without warning, bringing up something from past talks as if it just happened a few minutes ago, interrupting me (or himself) mid sentence to comment on some passing feature as we're driving somewhere. I think of them as his ADD-like, "Oh look! A squirrel!" moments. I've gotten better at asking him to clarify, or respond with, " Where did that come from?" and keep my mind from shifting boxcars around the yard trying to figure out the logical connections. (The big break came when I realized that with him, there usually is no logical connection.)

I agree that in situations like this, many people would ask for clarification. My issue is with my own mental process freezing up and having trouble responding when confronted with a gap in logic during conversation.

Naturalplastic, thinking out loud is exactly what he does. It used to annoy me to no end when he did that, because I always thought he was communicating decisions when he was really musing out loud. Once I discovered that his declarative statements were frequently requests for my input on the subject, communication got a lot better.

Foxfield, I'd ask it like your #2. Giving all the relevant info so the other person knows why I'm asking.

And to ZeroNetGain, that would indeed have been a vey literal interpretation! Lol!