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jackbus01
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12 Nov 2011, 2:36 pm

Powerwindow wrote:
So here you are talking about yourself having different or disfuncional (if you could say that?) body language, wich makes people misunderstanding or not understanding you.

I understand that, but thats not the whole problem. I dont understand the whole dont-know-how-to-interact-thing. Are you saying that whole part boils down to not understanding people (including the non-verbal), wich leads to inteacting the wrong way?? :S Should i understand your example this way.


Yes, I would say it is the whole problem. Consider the following hypothetical scenario:

You and I get together for a fun-filled pedantic discussion on social cues and body language etc. :)

I say everything I possibly can about it, but I am so excited I forget to pause every so often and let you respond. Finally I pause, anyway you say some stuff about your new job (or whatever), but then I go on and on about the previous topic. You are having trouble trying to react because my body-language is screwy and I am not making eye contact. I am not making eye contact because I have trouble processing your speech and your face at the same time (if that makes sense to you).
You do some non-verbal stuff like look at your watch or look away or something, finally you say "you know its late". And I say "that's no problem, I am not in a hurry", at this point I've decided to ramble on about language in society in general, which is quite fascinating, except you feel bored and you need to go. Finally you say you're leaving and walk off.
You feel upset because you thought you were rude to me because you left when I was still talking.
I feel upset because I clearly changed your actions from "very interesting" to "walking away", so I screwed up.
Now when I see you later I'm not sure how to approach you because I don't want to screw up like last time, meanwhile you are trying to avoid me because you had an embarrassing experience.

I'm not like that now, but I was when I was a teen. In that scenario, not only was I awkward, but I didn't interact with you well at all. You probably felt I was talking at you and not to you. So, the misunderstandings are on both sides. As you might imagine, this behavior makes social communication difficult. One might say I don't know how to interact.

Does that make sense now. I am trying my best to explain it.



jackbus01
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12 Nov 2011, 2:48 pm

Please note that in my example that situation (which sadly is realistic for me about 20 years ago) is a fundamental lack of understanding how to communicate. This is different than shyness or social anxiety. This really is a fascinating topic for me :) , but If you look at NT persons in a conversation they seem to be "in sync", whereas an AS person can appear "out-of-sync".

Please tell me you understand now.



Aimless
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12 Nov 2011, 3:19 pm

I was watching the Temple Grandin episode of "Ingenious Minds" and had to chuckle to myself at the point where the researchers told her it was time for her to leave to catch her plane. She had been talking about visual images of peaches and they had to interrupt her to tell her that it was time to leave. She kept going on about visual images of peaches as they were walking out the door. I had to laugh because that is like me. I don't seem to know when the conversation is over.


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jackbus01
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12 Nov 2011, 3:29 pm

Aimless wrote:
I was watching the Temple Grandin episode of "Ingenious Minds" and had to chuckle to myself at the point where the researchers told her it was time for her to leave to catch her plane. She had been talking about visual images of peaches and they had to interrupt her to tell her that it was time to leave. She kept going on about visual images of peaches as they were walking out the door. I had to laugh because that is like me. I don't seem to know when the conversation is over.


Yes, that would be me too. I need to be explicitly told the conversation is over! :)



fraac
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12 Nov 2011, 3:42 pm

I always decide when the conversation is over. A lot of social problems can be avoided by taking the initiative.



Powerwindow
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12 Nov 2011, 4:26 pm

jackbus01 wrote:
Powerwindow wrote:
So here you are talking about yourself having different or disfuncional (if you could say that?) body language, wich makes people misunderstanding or not understanding you.

I understand that, but thats not the whole problem. I dont understand the whole dont-know-how-to-interact-thing. Are you saying that whole part boils down to not understanding people (including the non-verbal), wich leads to inteacting the wrong way?? :S Should i understand your example this way.


Yes, I would say it is the whole problem. Consider the following hypothetical scenario:

You and I get together for a fun-filled pedantic discussion on social cues and body language etc. :)

I say everything I possibly can about it, but I am so excited I forget to pause every so often and let you respond. Finally I pause, anyway you say some stuff about your new job (or whatever), but then I go on and on about the previous topic. You are having trouble trying to react because my body-language is screwy and I am not making eye contact. I am not making eye contact because I have trouble processing your speech and your face at the same time (if that makes sense to you).
You do some non-verbal stuff like look at your watch or look away or something, finally you say "you know its late". And I say "that's no problem, I am not in a hurry", at this point I've decided to ramble on about language in society in general, which is quite fascinating, except you feel bored and you need to go. Finally you say you're leaving and walk off.
You feel upset because you thought you were rude to me because you left when I was still talking.
I feel upset because I clearly changed your actions from "very interesting" to "walking away", so I screwed up.
Now when I see you later I'm not sure how to approach you because I don't want to screw up like last time, meanwhile you are trying to avoid me because you had an embarrassing experience.

I'm not like that now, but I was when I was a teen. In that scenario, not only was I awkward, but I didn't interact with you well at all. You probably felt I was talking at you and not to you. So, the misunderstandings are on both sides. As you might imagine, this behavior makes social communication difficult. One might say I don't know how to interact.

Does that make sense now. I am trying my best to explain it.


Thanks very much for the good explanation. I understand some of the problems, including this, but still its hard to understand whats the core of it is. I.e. you could say, like i said: they dont understand people and then leads to interacting the wrong way. But the problem is its hard to know what you mean about "interacting the wrong ways". It's hard to picture, because its not something you see everyday. Like if i lived with 2 aspies i could say "i understand that, because i experience the types of things". But i quess its an impairment that leads to many types of difficult sitautions, like the ones people mentioned in this thread, and not just 2 simple things (then it would be easy to understand). So like i said; its hard to picture out of some simple examples, because it must be a alot more general thing affecting people in many possible ways? Maybe you first understand it properly, when you have known an affected person in real life.

But would others agree that the social impairment boils down to not understanding people? Wich leads to the problems. I don't know if it is right to formulate it like i did ("interacting in the wrong ways)??



fraac
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12 Nov 2011, 4:44 pm

Watch Abed from Community. Some say Sheldon from Big Bang Theory but the characters around him are sitcom staples, whereas Community has realistic interaction.

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But would others agree that the social impairment boils down to not understanding people? Wich leads to the problems.


Also not being understood. As if from the wrong planet. Oh hey, is that what that means? If you have a different set of motives from someone your assumptions about their meaning will be wrong. Most of conversation is assumptions about things unsaid, if you think about it.



jackbus01
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12 Nov 2011, 5:56 pm

fraac wrote:
Also not being understood. As if from the wrong planet. Oh hey, is that what that means? If you have a different set of motives from someone your assumptions about their meaning will be wrong. Most of conversation is assumptions about things unsaid, if you think about it.


Yes, that really sums it up.
I am humbled by the fact that I have had people in the past explain something like crazy to me, because I just didn't get it. I think when a person doesn't experience something (or see someone experience it) they have a hard time understanding it. I always knew since I was young that I perceived that world differently than the average person, but it took me a long time to understand why. WrongPlanet is a perfect name.



Powerwindow
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14 Nov 2011, 10:36 am

About the lack of understanding how to act. What you would call acting inappropriate. What are exaples of these type of behaviours? What does that look like?



jackbus01
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14 Nov 2011, 11:09 am

Powerwindow wrote:
About the lack of understanding how to act. What you would call acting inappropriate. What are exaples of these type of behaviours? What does that look like?


You want to know what an inappropriate behavior is? Also examples. Maybe I'm being rude here, but if you understand the definitions of "inappropriate" and "behavior" than it should be obvious. What else is there possibly to explain?



Powerwindow
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14 Nov 2011, 11:47 am

jackbus01 wrote:
Powerwindow wrote:
About the lack of understanding how to act. What you would call acting inappropriate. What are exaples of these type of behaviours? What does that look like?


You want to know what an inappropriate behavior is? Also examples. Maybe I'm being rude here, but if you understand the definitions of "inappropriate" and "behavior" than it should be obvious. What else is there possibly to explain?


Yes, it is easy to imaging, but i am thinking inapproriate behaviour could mean alot of different things, so saying something is inappropriate does'nt explain what type of behaviour it is.