"Over" analyzing...

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I first heard it on an episode of "Dawsons Creek" when someone told Dawson that he always had to over analyze everything and it was kind of bothering for some ppl I think they said. Whatever. Well I dont think there is a need to STOP over analyzing things, that would just be stupid. I guess we do it for a reason. But it is sometimes irritating if I have nothing to think about and nothing "new" happens in a while, like right now for instance; I over analyze old things that I shouldnt be thinking about.......

Yeah. The old situations I tend to analyze the crap out of time and time again have no lesson to learn and benifit from. There doesn't seem to be anyting I can do abut it but have my pointless regrets a few times a day and go about my buisness.

I over analyze alot but don't try to look at it as a deficit anymore. There's some defficiencies about it but there's more benefits to cancel the negative aspects of itout. I cross referenced, asked questions and looked up every bit of infor I could find before settling on a new car. It is the highest overall rated in it's class in many magazine reviews and it lives up to every bit of the hype in the real world. Over analysis like that can be a good thing.

Ohhh... that sounds just like my husband, and now I'm thinking there is no doubt that he's an Aspie.

And if I point out to him that his analytical mind is causing problems under these circumstances, alarmingly, he CAN just switch it off, and then clashes strongly with my own Aspieness. He will suggest that we just drive over to the theater and see whichever of the 18 movies starts next, and I say, "Nnnnnnnno!! ! Let's not waste two hours on a movie we don't care about! We have to get to a computer! We have to look at IMDB! ...IMDB! ...must see IMDB!"

Ah, life with Aspies. It's probably better that we couldn't have kids.

I told my husband once that I can't ask him what time it is without having him explain how the clock works. He looked quite alarmed and said, "I've heard that before." And I hear it said to him over and over again.

There is nothing wrong with being analytical, and I agree that often people say, "Aw, you're too analytical" rather than admit that they have made a mistake and you are right.

BUT I think that we need to be aware that this can be a problem for us in social interractions, even with other Aspies, and we should try to avoid driving other people nuts by analyzing every issue to death.

Over-analysing and asking questions/repeating ones self as a result is, at least in my case, an attempt to understand.

My communication deficiencies have been highlighted this week due to the fact I have a new boss whos communication style is such that I can't filter out and understand relevent information such as instructions, being told to do a task. I miss the instruction completely.

As a result, I have found myself over-analysing everything she says, repeating myself over and over, repeating her own words back to her, and constantly asking questions to clarify. I never once had to do this with my old boss - if he wanted me to do a task, he'd tell me what he wanted done, tell me whether it was more or less important than my other tasks, and give me a deadline. He was very straight talking and I didn't realise until I had a new boss how important that was to me.

As a result of my over-analysing and asking repeated questions, I realise that I am coming across as obstructive and oppositional.

I overanalyze to. Its like does he like me? does he like my friend? did he look at me? is my hair good? My west side buddies help me out we get a movie, some pop corn and ice cream and hang out. It's so much fun!! !

I hate it when you stay up all night cuz ur analyzing stuff like why am I flunking trig or will a guy ever like me? Its miserible.

I think my mother tells me I over-analyze things when I analyze EVERYTHING when some things are not important enough-- as judged by most non-Aspies-- to warrant analysis.

For instance, I may over-analyze certain things which people have said, very minor things, as to discover their motivations when it really doesn't even matter to me if I sit back and ask myself "Do I really care?" and I would answer after thinking a bit, "No, not really". It's more like a mental exercise, almost for the fun of it.

Unfortunately, I often do this aloud which I think is what actually bothers my mother and she would be quite content to allow me to "over-analyze" everything if I only kept my thoughts to myself. Hehe.

Maybe there is no such thing as "over-analyzing" if one keeps it to oneself...

I agree. Apparently most people don't just go to the movies to see movies, but to be in the company of their friends and have a shared experience. The "play it by ear" comment could be interpreted as a friendship-strengthening compliment - the friend makes it clear that (he?) cares more about your company than about the particular movie; it is less important that a movie make you two laugh than it is that you two laugh together.

But personally I don't see how people can strengthen social bonds while sitting next to each other silently in a big dark room. When I go to the movies, my objective is to reap enjoyment from the movie. Enough enjoyment that it is worth my time. Which is why I rarely go to the movies (they are mostly bad), and why I research before renting them.

By the way, Torley, nice music & blog

The only person who told me I thought too much was my father and that was because he wanted me to stop thinking for myself and become a Jehovah's Witness clone. I wasn't letting him control me to his satisfaction and my constant questions on why I had to be in his religion to be part of his family didn't sit well with his plan. Of course, being the over-analytical person I am, I saw it as a bunch of bull, saying he should love me for being his daughter, not my religion. But he had already given up his brain to the JWs and sacrificed our relationship with it, eventually kicking me out the house. *coughbastardcough*

Last edited by nirrti_1 on 16 Jul 2005, 8:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

That it reminds me of when my mom came down from Cincinnati to visit the family for the 4th. Me, my mom and my grandma, three generations of women with either Asperger's or aspie traits, made plans to go to the movies. This is how that went..........

First, we were trying to find out which was the best time slot to see "War of the Worlds". My grandmother didn't like the 5pm or 8pm slots because they were too early or late. My mother wanted a time slot that wasn't too crowded and gave us a chance to go to the record store.(In true aspie form, we obsessively collect and love music and DVDs more than clothes)

I wanted to see the 7pm showing on the giant movie screen but wasn't sure since my mom was afraid the picture wouldn't be the best quality. Then grandma didn't want to deal with big crowds so we had to pick something with few people in the theater. Then it looked like it was going to rain and here we were, deciding whether we should go if we might get caught in the rain. My mother suggested maybe we should wait until the next day. And I pointed out it'll probably rain tomorrow as well. My grandmother was still tired from the 4th of July and was contemplating if she even wanted to go.

We finally decided on the 7pm giant screen showing and when we get in the theater with 500 seats, I wanted to sit toward the front because I wanted to experience the aliens up close but grandma wants to sit in the very back because she thinks she'll have to look up at the screen and mom wants to sit further down because she thinks the seats in the back weren't clean. So here we were, three generations of women, over-analyzing when to go, which one to go to, which asle, which seat, what order we're gonna sit in, who gets the arm rest.........It was hilarious, to say the least.

And when the movie starts, it's like we're the robots in "Mystery Science Theater 3000" commenting about everything throughout the movie. Analyzing why Steven Spielberg made the tripods sound like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" or me and mom pointificating over how in the world could the guy's car start after the others couldn't. Me pointing out all the references to 9/11 and how the bodies in the river were like the tsunami. And grandma going on all throughout the movie on how the 747 crashed into a bunch of houses and didn't even scratch the cars or how could the guy's kids who were at home a couple of blocks away not hear the commotion when the first tripod comes out the ground. And all three of us wondering what the heck the aliens were using human blood for and what was that red plant they're growing. I know the other folks around us wanted to hit us all upside the head so we could shut up.

That's pretty much how we act when we're at the movies. My whole family over-analyzes everything else, too, something I never thought as being negative or abnormal. In fact, they think it's a sign of intelligence to go on constantly figuring everything out every single detail. For one thing, my family is African-American, which is a racial classification that's, unfortunately, been stereotyped as dumb, shiftless, akin to apes and uneducated For any black person to discredit these lies by being a problem solver and thinking constantly, is seen as a positive thing no matter how excessive.

I think that's also why you don't hear much about Asperger's in the black community. If a black child is perceived as being really smart, any ASD traits he shows would be written off as being "weird" because of his genious.

Sounds a lot like a conversation btwn me and the youth director. He tends to verbalize his analyzations far more than I can, due to my speech difficulties. But I can do this quite well when I am given some time to present my thoughts. I was notarious/famous for anaylzing books in my english classes in the same way your family found references/allusions.



I agree. I met one black guy in HS who was nearly a complete social klutz and uber smart in some rather narrow areas (physics and maths)

Yes, it happens to me. I tend to over analyze things.

I'm doing that a real lot lately and things that happened months or years ago are getting mixed in with recent stuff and I wish there weren't so many out of control emotions involved and I could just get on an even keel again.
All this analysing is making me tired but yet at the same time, unable to sleep!

It's a good thing I wasn't at the same show. This is one example of how aspies can really clash with other aspies. I go to the theatre instead of renting a video so that I can be totally absorbed in the experience of the movie. The dark room, the huge screen, and everyone sitting quietly to watch the movie are critical parts of the experience for me. I want to pay the extra money to see the movie in the theater so that I can see the movie as it was meant to be seen, without distraction. When other people want to engage in running commentary during the movie, it makes me absolutely berzerk.

A film is a work of art, just like a symphony. I can't imagine that if people went to the symphony and engaged in running commentary throughout the performance, that this kind of thing would be tolerated.

What makes a movie a shared experience is that AFTER the movie, the people who went to the movie together can discuss it, share the laughs again, critique it, or rip it to shreds. But that discussion really isn't very valuable until after seeing the whole movie from beginning to end as a completed work.

Ahh dear, I used to get told off for over-analysing ALL THE TIME! Which confused me greatly, as I never saw what was wrong with it! I mean, analysis is another way of saying critical thinking... how can you think too much? Isn't self reflection a *good* thing? Lol, so then I over-analysed the comment 'you over-analyse too much'!

My instinct is to analyze. This may be due to an overabundance of free time on my hands. I ruminate over situations, occasionally long past situations, over and over again. Rumination really is the right word: It's like I'm digesting my thoughts, spitting them up into my conscienceness and ingesting them again until a nutritional product is reached. I think about possible successes, past and current failures, and the happenings in my day--if there were any. Often because of a lack of memorable activity in my days, old events are still fresh in my mind, and those are what is ruminated over.