The NonVerbal vs. the Unsaid

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From what I was reading with pragmatics and politeness, Here's another one: One person asks another, "How do you like my new jacket?" The other, "It's pink." vs. "I don't." And context is used to understand the other.

"Turn down the radio" vs. "The radio is loud." Or maybe "Feed me" vs. "I'm getting hungry". Although I don't hear people say, "Feed me," you probably get the picture. There's also different degrees of politeness.

And of course from my brief pragmatics skimming, sometimes it's good to be this way, while others it isn't.

Nick, my degree is in Linguistics and I don't recall having studied Pragmatics. Maybe it wasn't a part of Linguistics 25 years ago. Very interesting topic.

And you're right, we should first of all list all the different cases of "The Unsaid" in order to be able to start understanding the Unsaid more clearly. Like I said above, there is Unsaid that is plain hidden (lie by omission, hidden for a reason), unsaid that is behind something uttered in its place (white lies, politeness, hints), unsaid that is assumed to be known by all (the Pragmatics you mention). I wonder if there are other kinds of unsaid for the list??

I've been following this thread, but it keeps getting me all muddled, so I'm going to comment on the original topic, or at least try to.

Greentea, when you say "UNSAID" do you mean things like this?:

1. The rules for various schoolyard games. In my day it was kickball. No one ever taught us the game; we were expected to know it, and woe unto any poor sod who guessed wrong.

2. The rules of engagement in various "real" jobs. Join in with the talking about people behind their backs, but don't talk about people behind their backs. Take the initiative and be a self-starter, but don't be afraid to ASK if you have questions. In other words, take the initiative ONLY if you are able to guess correctly what you are supposed to do, and don't actually bother any of us with stupid questions, so you'd better guess correctly, and if you get it wrong, it's your responsibility for not coming up with the right question to ask. But don't bother us when we're busy. And gosh, didn't you KNOW that we all socialize together after work? How could you have missed that? You should join us sometime at some vague future moment, but don't consider that an invitation.

3. If a man looks at you a lot and is really nice to you, and comments on your appearance, and buys you lunch, etc, then he might be interested in getting to know you for a relationship. Or he might be interested in a one-night-stand. Or he might be married with children and up to no good. Or he might be married with children and interested in having you as a family friend who might babysit once in a while. Or he might be gay and using you as a psychology experiment, and will soon announce that his circle of friends is already full. It's up to you to determine which.


Are these the kinds of things you mean?

I have to say, I'm not even sure if I have trouble with those things a little or a LOT. I was well into my 30's before I even began to have an inkling that I was missing things that other people were not missing. But maybe I'm wrong.

I rarely have specific instances where I'm going, "Gee, I don't understand that facial expression." I always assumed that I was understanding things, but my life has been filled with broad things that don't make sense, so perhaps I've been missing a whole lot. Or maybe I'm missing nothing at all, and people are just idiots. Ha ha! I have NO CLUE.

elderwanda, thank you! Somebody understands me, for the first time in my life! Your post says EXACTLY what I mean! Filed with my WP VIP quotes. I'm going to take it to the diagnoser too, and I hope she'll agree to read it, because if she doesn't, then she'll be giving me a dx without knowing what the problem really is with me.

btw, you're right, this thread is confusing. But that's OK. Because the whole topic of the Unsaid is so vast, that the purpose of this thread was just the basic, primary one of clarifying its being a totally different thing from the nonverbal. And we've been brainstorming around the topic of the Unsaid.

Exactly my feeling. I feel that way in a lot of situations. One thing that perplexes me is how I can be so much more intelligent than the average joe yet I still manage to feel more clueless about certain things that he somehow automatically knows. It's as if there are some things that I have to learn yet I never get to witness anyone else learning these things so I feel like I'm the only one out of the loop. I'm not even talking about social things. I just feel inexperienced at life in general.

I understand things on a theoretical level yet I have no "common sense". WTF is this common sense thing anyways? I can learn the laws of physics and mathematics because they are orderly, structured, and make logical sense. I can even understand human behavior and psychological motivations on a theoretical level and have a strong intuition. Yet a lot of the rules that society goes by are the opposite of structure. So much fickle cultural minutia and general randomness that people are just supposed to absorb. I think society is completely insane.

Unable to vote due to lack of precise options. Yes, I said lack of precise options even with the large variety. That's because it depends. Sometimes I can read others better than they know themselves in both unspoken then in other ways I'm completely blind to some things and don't catch on until months later. Usually when someone else tells me about it directly.

this. not my problem most people are indirect and complain that you don't detect their 'subtle' bs.

apparently I have a problem with the unsaid as well as non-verbal, because when people post exaggerated accounts of something with no context to indicate it's not the big deal the post implies it is, I take the post at face value and get concerned.

can I just stop trying to communicate or understand people? I'm getting tired and discouraged. I would like a job where I can communicate in memos and follow schematics, and I want to be around people who don't act like I'm a f**ktard when I don't understand their implied meanings.

Yay! I'm glad to hear we're on the same page, and all of my babbling made sense. I do relate to a whole lot of what you talk about in your threads, Greentea. I wonder, though, would those people who were born knowing how to play kickball, and all those other things understand this. It seems like people who understand the Unsaid, cannot grasp the idea of Not understanding the Unsaid. It's like meeting someone who doesn't know how to sneeze. The dust really bothers them, and they see that other people just sneeze. They ask you to explain how to sneeze, and you say, "What do you mean? If you need to sneeze, you just sneeze. What a weird thing to ask?"




Yes! This is something that I've wondered about my whole life. You never get to witness anyone learning those things. But why not? I just don't know.

And, if you ask, you won't get an answer; you'll be worse off than you were before.

And if you wish use a therapy session to examine strange behaviors in other people, and try to figure out what you missed, your therapist will ask why you care, and why you don't want to talk about something so much more important, like that bad relationship that you no longer give a crap about and has little if any impact on you, and will be treated as though you are insane and paranoid for wishing to examine something that may actually effect your life rather than pay someone massive amounts of money to talk about something that you don't care about.
Because apparently, figuring out what it is that you tend to miss, or why people think strange things about you that you don't understand, that's not important at all. It's all about the psycho in your past that you know had some kind of personality disorder anyways.

sorry.. side rant..

I learned, the hard way, to ask a potential counselor or therapist if he/she was familiar with,or comfortable with working with someone on the spectrum. If not, we are wasting each others time.

Hmmm, it sounds like you need to explore your feelings about your relationship with that person from your past, and work through all that bottled-up anger. (Ha ha. Sorry, I'm just kidding. That was my "inner therapist." How do you feeeeel about that?)

Seriously, what you said there is pretty much why I haven't bothered spending my time and money on a therapist. I have a feeling it would end up the same way.

So true, Maggie. Psychotherapy is not only a waste of money and time for us, but also a source of self-doubt, additional confusion, and a constant anxiety that "there's so much in me that I need to change".

I'm not necessarily sure if that's always true. If a therapist COULD help me figure out what it is that I do that comes off in strange ways that I don't mean, and what it is that other people do that I totally miss, how to fairly casually explain to others exactly what my problems are, and how to work around things that are problematic for me, that might be very helpful.
Something I've noticed (and I think I'm going to start a thread about it..) is that if I'm looking at somebody's eyes, I'm probably not paying much attention to what they're saying. So basically, if I'm looking at their eyes, I'm not actually making eye contact. I'm thinking about the color, or whether or not I can see the whites around the outside of their irises, or whether their pupils are of a normal size for the amount of light in the room, and then wondering how large my pupils are.. and probably not retaining much of what they say. But if I weren't looking at their eyes, if I were doodling or something, I'd be much more likely to be processing and remembering what was being said. So I think a lot of the signals I give off are the opposite what they'd mean in an NT.
A therapist who could help me figure out and deal with stuff like that might be helpful.
Also, I have a lot of trauma issues relating to really bad therapists and treatments in the past. A therapist who could help me deal with that might be helpful. But I think that makes them uncomfortable, they don't want to say bad things about other therapists. So instead, most therapists end up insisting on going back to talking about things that are in their own comfort zones instead of things that I actually need to deal with.
And if I say that I don't want to talk about something, they always assume that it must be because I need to talk about it.. because apparently it's unimaginable that I wouldn't want to spend the whole $120 session talking about something irrelevant.. Obviously, the only reason I wouldn't want to talk about something is because that something was incredibly important..

In conclusion.. a good therapist who wanted to address things that I actually have issues with might be helpful. Just not one that wants to address things that they're comfortable with but that don't matter to me, or that I'm better off discussing with somebody else. (I'm in love with a wonderful engineer who understands me quite well.. and of course, doesn't charge me to talk to him. Why would I want to waste money talking to a therapist about previous relationships, when it's not like they could possibly have as much insight into what I'm like in a relationship as Kris has anyways? If, for example, I were going nuts about whether or not something from a past relationship were my fault, a therapist could only really guess at it from my side of the story anyways. Kris would be likely to actually know! Granted, he's pretty oblivious to most social issues anyways, but if the therapist is oblivious to most issues that I have, that makes them about even.. and Kris has no problem whatsoever talking to me without charging me an arm and leg. Or, maybe a leg... *evil grin*)

Fantastic! You have described me, perfectly. I can remember starting new jobs, and having a supervisor explaining the ropes to me. I would be looking down at my hands, or just past their head, and they would ask me if I were paying attention. And get cross with me, as well. It wasn't until a few years ago, when I first heard about AS, that I realized that I listen best when I don't look at the person.


So did I. Worse, there were at least 3 incorrect diagnoses, as well as ruthless exploitation of my vulnerabilities.


You must have been reading my mind!