The aspie pause

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Interesting, that. It's normally considered a large risk to interrupt someone if they're wrong. Unless you like being smashed in the face It's not a matter of simply correcting them, you're telling them that they're stupid basically, undermining them...

My mum is one that especially hates interjections along the lines of 'actually...' or 'in fact...', 'by the way...' etc. She particularly has the typical accepted reaction...she sees it as particularly rude, that the person doing so thinks they know everything, thinks everyone else is stupid, thinks they know better than everyone...particularly bad if they're doing it to those older, or more experienced in said field.

Even if you know better, or know they're full of sh!t...sometimes you just need to know when to bite your tongue :/ Of course, if their incorrect statements could lead to something major later down the track (say someone says it's alright to stay outside in the midsummer sun all day with no sunscreen...that should probably be corrected if the people listening are about to take that advice!) then it's probably advisable to go ahead and interject. Otherwise, if it has little or no impact other than making the speaker look stupid at some point...let them look stupid Better than making yourself look stupid...

I never know where it's appropriate to inteject, so I wait untill the other person is obviously waiting for a response.

I also had to eliminate "Actually" from my vocabulary. A girl I was dating a while back, told me that I made her feel stupid by not just adding to what she had said with "Also, did you know ...", but that by using "Actually", I was implying that what she had said was wrong and needed to be restated.

I [actually] didn't know that! And [btw] what is wong with by the way?

Steve

That reminds me... If you ever catch yourself beginning a sentence with "No offense, but.." don't bother finishing it. I wish more people were able to figure this little piece of etiquette out for themselves.

Anyway, judging by the results of this poll, "the aspie pause" might be the best thing we have to go on to recognize other aspies, because in my experience it's not something NT's do. And wouldn't you know it, it turns out that the cheese stands alone more often than a person with Asperger's does not have the aspie pause.

Pause?Sometimes,but more often I have simply been struck dumb by the absurdity of the persons speech.This has been happening alot at work lately......

ie.

co-worker to me"You can just dump the water and refill it."

me.

co-worker."just dump it,it's OK"<----very thick Brizialian accent

me.(I am not holding any water,The last thing I did involving water was filling up a mop bucket 10 min ago,should I dump it?)This is the pause.. ............"Do you want me to empty the mop buckets I just filled?I do not know what you are talking about"

Co-worker (looking at me like I am ret*d)..."earlier you asked me(this was an hour ago)what you should do with the dogs water in the morning,clean the bowels or just dump old water and refill with new water....just dump itunless the bowls look really yucky,then you should replace the bowl with a new one"

me...... "Thanks for the info"

LOL - good one Krex!

I am 43 and just last month learned that I pause. It was startling. What happened is I was driving with my daughter to school, and the DJ was doing his morning show, and he asked a contest question: "What is schmaltz?". I knew the answer, so my daughter called the station, got through to the DJ, and told him I knew the answer. He made her put me on the phone (horrors), so I spoke with him about what schmaltz is (rendered chicken fat used as an oil, and is a Yiddish word I believe) and how I knew it (I like to cook), and so we had this conversation for a few minutes. Then, five minutes later, he plays our conversation over the radio. I was entranced listening to myself speak, and discovered that I paused, noticeably, after every single question he asked me. Weird - and to think I've been doing it my whole life and didn't even know it.

"Actually" "By the way" "Also"...they literally mean "In addiction to" or "Correction"...socially they mean "No, you dumbass" "You don't know what you're talking about" "No, I know better". I'm sure no one here appreciates saying something from the heart then having someone else come along and literally say the latter. Those folks out in NT world put a far bigger emphasis on the implied meaning there, so those statements are a bit of a verbal slap in the face.

My boyfriend does it to me a lot and even though I know what he means, it doesn't stop me from feeling stupid and worthless (and very angry when done continuously)...he's adding to what I may have said, but it feels like he's undermining me. I do know he's not, though

"No offence, but..." does not mean what it sounds like. At all. But y'all should be able to figure out why that's one of the tools in your arsenal for really insulting someone in a PC way XD




Yeah somehow the Aspie pause seems to socially be the better of the two evils. People may find it a bit strange if you lock up, but they'll sure as hell be a lot more pissed off if you constantly talk over the top of them.

Guess you can ask yourself two very quick questions.
1) Is what I'm about to say at least 95% relevant to the current topic? (If no, likely an addition won't be 95% or more welcome)
2) Is someone actually talking at this very point? (If yes, then talking as well will have you ignored or glared at, as you are telling the other person to shut their pie hole )

Topic changes come when everyone else seems a bit dried up on the current subject, or it takes a natural turn - ie, statements bear relevance in other areas and slowly dwindle from talk of coffee to talk of Africa...best not to throw people face-first into a new topic, they'll just go back to their old one

The pause yes, definately.

When in a deeper conversation I think it is less noticable to whom ever I am speaking to, the moment I look away to "process" I probably appear to be in deep thought.

But when asked a single question like "Did you feed the animals?", and I look away for a few seconds just to come up with "yes". I think that is probably more apparent to people.

On the phone it can be a very "itchy" situation .

I definitely have the pause Before it would take about 45 seconds for me to be able to answer, and so often peopl would walk away thinking I wanted to be left alone But now it only takes me about 10 seconds, and a lot of the people at my school understand and so they try to be patient when talking to me, and it really helps when they support me to, and when they know what's going on because I don't have to feel rushed during a conversation - I can't stand being rushed!

I have more of a tendency to interrupt.

I have to think about the question and my answer before I can talk

Sometimes, I need a "translation" of the last dialogue, I need to translate "NT language" to "aspie language", and the pause takes more than 10 seconds.

Yes i have to pause and think before i answer, my bf used to yell at me for not answering right away.

My husband just told me that I don't do this "so much" in person, but definitely when we talk on the phone. I hate phone conversations, and cell phone conversations are the worst. I'm pretty sure I have central auditory processing disorder, which may account for the pause. Thanks for bringing up this topic. Very interesting.

Funny. Most of the relationships that I've been in, this happens on both sides. I can remember my wife and I just sitting on the phone with nothing to really say. We were seperated, but still thought there was a chance, and trying to have some sort of connection, but we just couldn't find anything to talk about. Just so wanted to reach out and actually touch, I guess.