Why are NTs so afraid of directness?

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I have to think it's related to why we always wrap a gift before presenting it. The gift is concealed but is known to be there. The wrapping shows a desire to please and the receiver, while unwrapping, can formulate a response if necessary. Even if not wrapped it will often be concealed behind the back before being revealed, or given in a nice bag. A gift given "naked" may be seen as uncouth or even rude. I think the hints and circumlocution so much appreciated by NTs sort of "wrap" the intended meaning in a pleasing presentation. Just a thought.

Perfect metaphor, Polgara!

Peculiar that, as I understand, wedding proposal diamond rings are placed in a fancy velvet gift box with a pretty bow....but maybe it's Zircon. Aspies give pure diamonds in the raw, and love - not just the wedding proposal.

NT's (and I'm one) are often not 100% direct/blunt/honest because we don't want to offend the person we are talking to. We don't want to talk to them as though they were a child.

They say that something like 1 in 150 people is autistic. That means if someone spoke to a group with the blunt directness that aspies prefer 149 people would feel "talked down" to and one person (the aspie) would be greatful that the speaker spelled everything out in great, clinical detail.

We are not often as direct because we are trying to be diplomatic. By sort of "massaging" the point you want to get across it makes it easier for the other person to accept your point of view because they don't feel that they have to be on the defensive. I guess what I mean is by saying something nicely, or with a little empathy for the way the other person may feel about it, you can get your point across, accomplish what you want to accomplish and not made an enemy out of the person. That makes the listener more receptive to hearing what you have to say & there is less chance for hard feelings.

In the end it's a win/win situation.

Well I find NTs can be quite confusing, they do seem to be hard to read. I sinerely wish that I could cook up something about the size of a torch which I could used to measure from a few feet away a series of parameters regarding their current mood. This dream tool would be like a geiger counter but it would measure dishonesty (white lies and black lies measured at once), how friendly they are, their general happyness, how awake they are, how stressed are they and a series of other parameters.

They sometimes say things which suggest to me that they have a problem which needs to be solved, when they just want to moan. Also sometimes when they have a problem which needs to be solved they do not say clearly that they have a problem which needs a solution. My world view works in the following way, if a problem pops up we need to consider and then maybe apply a solution to the problem.

Identify the problem, work out how to solve it, apply solution, everyone becomes more happy.

_________________
Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.

Hypocrisy is the base of all social relationships. Remove that and nobody would mate yet along reproduce. In order to make humanity survive, we need to be hypocrites and not ever say that your SO's mother could lose a couple of pounds.

Direated at NTs topic

NTs do not like to lose face, so being direct just puts them on edge. I am surprised they do not have meltdowns because of this.

I spoke to a long known NT last night and she went on and on about God and Jesus and I knew if I told her she was wasting her time trying to convince me, she would have a fit. So I nodded and said nothing, knowing that eventually she would stop talking. I thanked her for her time, said I had to go, and she kept her face and I left before I had a meltdown.

Irisrises is on board.

I only have two experiences of this problem, with my childhood family as an adult and with Lotloi (=LOngTerm LOve Interest) because with other people I am frankly not trying to tell them much usually, just trying to go along or get away. But with family it has caused a lot of problems because before I self-diagnosed I didn't understand that they didn't understand the same things I did, it was incomprehensible to me that things that were obvious to me were not also obvious to them, and likewise, that things that were difficult for me were not also difficult for them. I've learnt that my thinking is different but I haven't yet learnt how to say things in a way that gets taken seriously, although that's also to do with family dynamics unrelated to autism. But I don't speak to them much right now.

Lotloi is a bit different because he doesn't actually have much of a problem with directness, he just doesn't really pay much attention unless I really throw a fit which I don't like to do. He's a bit like a sieve, everything passes through him, including my carefully worded protests, invitations and goodwill gestures, which I always assume he will not only retain but treasure...no such luck. What to do. It's true what Sartresue said about losing face, he thinks he's losing face if he listens to me just like I guess he thinks it's an act of submission that I listen to him and comply with what he wants - but how else can people move forward together? I don't fight, I don't need to be fought. I admire him in so many ways and I don't want that to be a source of humiliation for me. That's not right.

But I don't make myself clear even when I think I have. And I'm not coy or flirtatious enough, women do that to inform men of their intentions. I think everything should be straight-forward - we'll meet at this time at this place, it's easy, you tell me, I tell you - but I guess he thinks that's boring, he likes to banter, and that's a lot of work for me.

It's love, no? I'll do this, not for you, but with you. But you've got to do it with me, too.

But I'm in this foreign city at the moment, for another week, and it's built around a sacred mountain which I didn't know before I got here but those mountains are everywhere so I'm not surprised. (What makes them sacred is that people used them for spiritual focus for millennia before the modern era although few of them are currently in use.) So this mountain, when I got here it invited me to share its alignment while I'm here. There have been two explicit instructions, both saying the same thing: one was when I went to a yoga class and the teacher said to me "notice that wobbliness in your knees? Hang out in that wobbly place" and the other one was a dance performance by a dancer/choreographer who'd lost a leg in an accident and he was dancing and talking and the show was about "don't try to find and show off your equilibrium, explore the possibilities in your lack of equilibrium". Always falling, always going on.

That may not sound very clear to everybody, me talking to mountains and so on, but it's the world I live in.