The literal Aspie strike again! >.<

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So...I was on a tech support call with someone. And they told me that my case number was xx November x Kilo x

Which I then wrote down as "xx November x Kilo X"

I was about to read it back to him and I was like...WAIT A MINUTE! XP


Has anyone else done something like this?

I have taken so many things literal in my life.



One of them was I was on the phone with Nintendo Power and I ask when does my subscription expire and they said December. So I thought I would have to renew it in December but no they meant my last magazine issue, not the month it expires in.

I think that would have happened to anyone though because I wanted the month and the person didn't take my question literal so she told me the issue expiration instead of the month so we had a misunderstanding. So I was getting all these nasty grams from them because they wanted me to renew my issue. When i got a threat, I called them and that was when I found out the misunderstanding.

I don't get the x x thing. Huh. Anywho, I love literal minded surprises.

I actually ask people to explain jokes and sayings. They know me, so they are kind. I still get the funny head tilted to the side question look.

My favorite question, now days, seems to be, Is that a saying or a joke or sarcasm? HA!

I must be Extreemly literal, becasue I still don't get it.

basically, for N, he said November.
For K, he said Kilo.

I literally wrote down November
And Kilo.
Instead of N and K
:-p


(*looks up at first post*)

Wow...I butchered that...sorry >.<

You guys aren't the only one who didn't get it. I'm NT, but I didn't understand it at first either.

I think what Mutanatia was saying was the operator was giving the code back in phonetic alphabet. like "A = Alpha, B= Bravo, etc."

Instead of writing XXNXKX, it was literally written down and about to be repeated as November and Kilo.

But I've done this, too. I was reading back something in phonetic alphabet over the phone and my co-worker actually started writing the words down. This "literalness" doesn't just happen to aspies, so no biggie.

Yes! That is exactly what I was trying to say! Thank you!

Uhhhh it only happens to you NTs sometimes, we have this all the time.

I run into this when I was younger all the time. In the meanwhile, I learned the phrases like an extension to the language.

But this also its benefits: I describe ideas, issues and other thinks in most exact manner; what I still did not learn is when people want an exact description and when not. This cause, especially in my relation, often enough tensions.

Me too. I get literally descriptive with speculative feelings like, "It wouldn't surprise me if...(after seeing someone's behavior), they ever had (did something else similar)", and people think I'm making accusations about someone doing something that they didn't do (possibly). I understand that I can't prove anything, nor can they. I base how far I think someone will take their actions (positive or negative) on observed behavior. I gauge it, and form an opinion, state it, and people get so mad about it. They always reword what I actually said, and then treat me like I made a completely different statement from the original. This happens to me quite often. If I see someone act a certain way, it wouldn't surprise me to hear about them in similar behavior in other circumstances that I literally can speculate because of what I've witnessed first hand. People can speculate many things about me, that are not out of the realm of possibility. It's not offensive to me. I give of an impression, and people are free to feel however they like about it. Everyone makes these types of speculations, it's just a matter of emotional involvement with, or wanting to protect someone that will make people get upset about making them audible. I'm sure there are other reasons too.

Here mostly the same. A typical example that I would not leave a notice "I will be back in 10 min.", but somethink like "It is very likely that I will be back in approx. 10 min." (because I do not know all factors and perhaps some will delay, some will accelerate).

This caused a lot of tension, because I am often accused of making thinks more complex in a deliberate manner, just to confuse and control people, especially my friend. It took him a lot of time to understand that this just my way of thinking.

An other problem raised from this pattern is the accusation of "negative thinking": When I made statements only by naming the most likely causes for failure and finishing with a general phrase like "according to my current knowledge there may be no further difficulties ..."



It is for us not easy to understand that quoting facts can be seen by NTs as an aggressive act, even if you just stating plain reasoning. They do not understand that an Aspie wants to help to foresee likely or possible difficulties, but they often see this as an attack on their person.

Even in my mid-40s I still can't assess properly this behaviour of NT - sometime they are thankful, mostly they take any critical reasoning personally.

haha i remember once when i was in second grade and some kids in my class who were baswball fans were talking about how the baltimore orioles beat the new york yankess and they were things like "the yankess stink!" so i was wondering why they dont just shower and do laundrey more often and people wont talk about them like that!! Luckily for me, i didnt tell anybody that...lol And this other time when i was older, we were on a class trip somewhere and we going on a tour through something and the guide showed us this huge plaque that had all the names of the people who donated alot of money...... and then the guide was saying how he didnt donate enough money to be on the front, so they put him on the back. So then I said out loud "whats the point of being on the back? its on the wall and no one could see it!" and then everyone started laughing and someone told me that the guy was making a joke......I felt really embarrassed
Anybody have similiar stories?

there are always times when i misinterpret, or fail to interpret sentences.
it is not only from being too superficially literal, but my "misapprehension experiences" all have something to do with literal types of substrates of my thought.

i have tried to think of examples as they happen every day, but i do not commit them to memory, but i have a few i remember (mostly very recent).
they most often occur if i am forced into small talk.
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when i was at my girlfriends house to pick her up, and i was waiting for her to get dressed, i had to watch TV with her father.

the news was on, and there was a story about some police chief who had died, and it was at his funeral. the person making a speech said "he was loyal to both his colleagues and the force".

i remarked that "it is surprising he had only 2 colleagues. i thought he was a chief superintend..."
i was told to shut up.
---------------------------------

another one was when a sports clip came on (still with her father) and it said "they are training very hard indeed. it will be their first match on north sydney oval in 30 years".

i wondered why they would be training now, and i thought they would be too old in 30 years to play the match anyway.
tammy's father thinks i am purposely being difficult and has little patience for me.

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some girl was explaining to me why her boyfriend is a jerk, and she said "my boyfriend's father died before he was born".

i started to smirk because i was imagining what the punchline may be. maybe she meant "her boyfriend's father was so immature that he was not a good role model".

(if he died before he was born, then he must have had the maturity of a foetus)
i was wrong and i was chastised for my "mal-perception".

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an ad on TV about a cleaning wand (like a spinning feather duster) that has fibres that spin around, has a line in it that says "it attracts dust just like a magnet!!".

that does not inspire confidence in me. magnets do not attract dust.
well maybe they do if they are put on a mantle shelf for months.

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then there are literal initial perceptions that i instantly recognise to be wrong, but they are funny to me anyway, and i burst into laughter for reasons unknown to others.

i over heard a virile aggressive stud-like young man talking around a pool table about some old man. he said "he was the most borin' old man i ever came across".

i do not have a dirty mind at all, but a thought occurred to me, and i snorted my drink out through my nose.

that was a rare "initial precept" that was amusing to me.

------------------------------------

another thing i do sometimes (when i am rather unwell in the head) is walk out of a room during a news story, and walk back in during another news story, and assume it is still the same story.

one incident was very severe. there was a news story about some new revelation about the life of mother theresa. i did not really listen, and i walked out of the room. when i walked back in, the reporter was saying "the uncovered diary reveals a shocking and sad life of secret crack addiction and clandestine lesbian affairs..." and i walked out the other door and went outside.
when i got outside, i processed the information i just heard, and realised that this was a major surprise, and i went back in to hear it, but the story was over (there were ads on).
i did not watch TV again before the incident at work.
at work someone said to her friend "wow did you see that about mother theresa last night?".
her friend did not register (maybe she was not "up" on the news), and i remarked that it was a major surprise about her being a lesbian crack addict.

the first woman disappeared and returned with a manager who took me to his office and asked me why i said it. after i explained what i saw, he reasoned that i had misapprehended (he knows i am autistic) and i was not reprimanded, but those 2 women have not spoken to me since.
i did not see the discontinuity of the 2 stories inherently.
had i been sitting and watching, i would know they were unrelated, but if i do not see the transition between stories, i sometimes think they are the same story albeit bizarre.

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there was another show where there were interviews of fathers who had lost their sons in the iraq war.
i forget who i was watching it with or why (i normally do not watch TV).
a father showed a picture of his son sitting in a fighter jet with the canopy open, and he (the son) was smiling and wearing sunglasses and looked very postured and was making a "thumbs up" gesture.
the father said "and right after this picture was taken, he was shot down".

so i imagined they were ambushed somehow during the photo shoot, and i remarked that if they had paid more attention to security, and less to photo shoots, the plane would not have been destroyed. i also wondered manner of incompetence would permit a plane at a secure military airfield to be shot down before it even took off.

there was bristling from whoever i watched it with, and i had some unmemorable argument in defense of my misconception, but whatever.

"right after" meant to me "a few seconds later" and i molded my whole appreciation of the story around that erroneous assumption.



that will do for examples.

it is interesting to read other peoples examples.

Somebody was recently telling me about a freelance job she had undertaken and how she had "got burnt". I was horrified. It turned out that by "got burnt", she actually meant "didn't get paid". No burning in the literal sense took place at all.

On the night of the 2008 election I was talking to my neighbor and his girlfriend. I asked them if they'd both voted, my neighbor said yes, his girlfriend no. He then said "oh, don't worry, she's not illegal." I was about to open my mouth and say "yes, you don
t look like an immigrant," until my other neighbor said "that hasn't stopped you from dating 17 year-olds before." Turns out they were talking about age, not legal status.

Another time a guy wandered up to me and asked if I was "rushin," to which I replied "no, I'm Greek, Portuguese and Lithuanian." I though he wanted to know if I was in a organization for Russian people on campus, so I said no, but that I thought Russians were okay because we belonged to the same general sect of Christianity. When I started to talk about the Orthodox-Catholic schism and the historical links between Russian and Greek Orthodoxy, he quickly left. Turns out he was a (non-Russian) fraternity brother looking to see if I was joining his group.

I remember when I was 16 I was at one of my softball games and the other teams starts to sing there is a hole out in the field and I get confused and start looking at the field and I started talking to myself. "There's no hole out there," and then I figure they were talking about the Pitcher's mound because there was a dip in the ground where they dig their feet before they pitch the ball and I said "Oh the pitcher's plate." Then someone on my team said "It's a figure of speech Beth."


Another time I was in biology, our teacher tells us we need to wear our safety goggles and he didn't make his other class wear them and at the end of the school Mr. E came in and caught him with his pants pulled down and I was shocked because I couldn't understand why he had his pants pulled down instead of in the bathroom. So I asked him why did he have his pants down and kids laughed and this girl sitting next to me and my aid say "It's a figure of speech" and the teacher said the same to me.


Another time when I was 18 or 19 my mom and I were going to Missoula and she explains to me how the men cut corners when they put siding on our house and I told her they had to cut them so they could fit it on. And she keeps trying to explain to me how they did it wrong by cutting corners and I kept telling her how are they supposed to fit it on the house near the roof if they can't cut the corners off and she realizes what I was thinking. She explains to me it means they were doing short cuts to get the job done faster than doing it right.

On the 4th of July in 2004 I think it was or 2005, I go to the lake house and I hear my dad ask why is the bathroom floor wet and my mom says "Your dad put a brick in it," and I wondered where did he get the brick from and why did he put it in the toilet. He didn't even have bricks at his house so how can he have one then so I ask about it and my dad said he made it and I didn't believe him. I kept asking where did he get it from and why did he do it and dad was saying how he was constipated and I kept asking why did he put the brick in the toilet and my mom said it means his poop was real hard and it clogged up the toilet. "He pooped a brick."


All these stories still make me laugh.