"Let's not be logical"

Post Reply New Topic

Does anyone ever tell you this or tell you you are being too logical or tell you to stop?

Sometimes my husband will say this to me when I am not showing any sympathy about something. He's told me I am more logical than my feelings and emotions and everytime I give support, I use logic. He says it's part of being me but wishes I'd think about feelings too. But he's said I have been doing better with empathy by asking him about his feet. I ask him if they hurt before I tell him to do something for me. It's taken me that long to even start thinking about it, two years. But yet I still can't stop laughing when he walks funny or goes "ow ow ow" and I felt so much better when he told me his mom's told him he looks like a big baby when he does that.

Last time he's said this was when I was refusing to donate $10 to a children's hospital and he said if everyone thought like me, all the kids would die because no one would be donating money. I said "But not everyone does and I like it."

I think I know what you're referring to. My wife had some car trouble once and called me for help and I treated it as a problem-solving exercise rather than an actual call for help. It didn't go over well. We talked about it later and now she'll tell me to "stop solving the problem" when I go into that mode while she's looking for support.

My ex-girlfriend always told me that, not always in such obvious words. Once in while I would say something like, "I'm so glad we have compatible immune systems," and she would me I took way too of a scientific approach to love and relationships.

Somtimes. More often my wife tells me that I take things too literally (which IMO is related). I usually catch myself midway when I do it now, though not always.

My husband thinks I take things literal all the time. I thought I was doing better.


Maybe online I am. I've been told by one person I have gotten better with picking up sarcasm.

I hate it when people say I'm too literal. my mom said that to me all the time when I was growing up, and it just confused me because I had no idea what she meant. now it's a real sore spot and a few years ago I started replying "you're not literal enough. you should try being less vague." which didn't win me any friends but no one said it to me once I told them that.

I AM literal. I do analyze and use logic to problem-solve rather than trying to immerse myself in the feelings of the moment. there isn't really anything wrong with that. I can logically deduce that a friend is coming to me for sympathy, most of the time, now that I know people aren't actually interested in solving their problems (yet ironically pretty much always know how I should live my life). I may or may not sympathize with them depending on how stupid they're being (everyone makes mistakes and I don't tend to judge, but when all someone talks about is the drama of their relationship du jour it gets tedious and VERY difficult to feel any sympathy for their self-imposed suffering!)

I don't recall ever being accused of being too logical, but I'm sure I fit the bill - just that people very rarely tell me what they think of me.

I could never see why the always teased Mr. Spock at the end of every Star Trek episode.

I had a female friend who was even more logical than I was...her tutor kept describing her as "logical to a fault" - with some exasperation.....I could never understand why it got on his nerves - I just found her style a refreshing change from all the other women I knew who seemed to expect me to decrypt their vague hints and innuendo. It's often felt like some kind of unfair test, as if anybody who wasn't good at emotive things would be seen as low status or "not all there." But I just don't see it that way.

I'm not usually comfortable in the emotional world. It's too cloudy for me to have any confidence in what is and what isn't. But I know I ignore feelings at my peril. When the heart and the head are in opposition, the heart usually wins.

I think that for relationships, the theory is that people generally make better selections of partners and do better in couples when they behave according to what their hearts tell them. I went through a stage when a number of women seemed to be quite interested in me but would suddenly disappear out of my life, often to return some time later with apparently weak excuses for the break and a desire to get things back the way they were. In the end I worked out a way of dealing with it that would seem more appropriate for a workplace dealing with absentee workers - I'd just set a reasonable time that I was prepared to wait, and if they weren't back by then, I'd move on and start looking for somebody else. It seemed a cold-hearted way of working, but it helped me to control my anxiety and upset.

You know, lots of feelings are logical if you think about them in more detail (thinking too simplistically and leaving out small factors makes them seem illogical) and of course there's always the logic that thinking more with feelings will create a better outcome for some situations, so it's the logical thing to do even if the feelings aren't directly logical.

If we, as humans, only treat everything in the starkest, logical, functional sense, then we are no better than animals (no offence to animals).

Having a range of different emotions and responses to different situations is what gives us our humanity.

That being said, I don't mean to be a put down to aspies. What I'd like for people w/AS to consider though is that not always taking everything in it's most literal, logical sense is not a bad thing. Often here I see posts complaining about "Stupid NT's and their illogical, emotional way they go through life!" "Why can't they just see the reason in doing something the most logical, honest way!!?"

Again. Because being able to see the world in shades of gray (and color), with it's nuances and variety of circumstances and then being able to respond appropriately and sensitively to the specific situation is what sets us apart from all other species on earth. So please, don't be upset at NT's for seeing/reacting to the world in the way that they do. In most cases, it makes the world a more pleasant, civil place.

I don't sympathize when in certain situations that others would, but I've learned to preface my inability to sympathize due to logic.

For example, a friend of mine was telling me that he thought his ex g/f was doing Meth again. My response was "This is going to sound cold but no one is twisting her arm and making her do it." He was given fair warning that I was going to be logical about it. He then went on to say that she would probably lose her little girl, and I stated that "While unfortunate for both of them, it would be logical in thinking that if you don't want to lose your child you don't do stupid things like doing meth." While he was a little frustrated with me in the conversation, at least he didn't get all freaked out, like people have in the past when I was 'cold and unthoughtful', cause he knew it was coming.

I think logic is important myself. I'm not usually the sort of Aspie who takes things literally a lot, but I do have a logical thought process.

As for sympathy and such, I think I'm OK at it but I need to make a conscious effort a lot of the time to show it.

My ex-girlfriend used to have a go at me for being logical, and it annoyed me a lot.

So being logical is being literal? How so?

I don't see how using logic and reason makes us less evolved. On the contrary, I fully opine that those who allow emotion to rule their thoughts are far closer to animals than those that use logic. Animals get angry, they get content, they feel grief and sadness. Yet they don't use anymore logic than what instinct dictates.

Also for your last sentence, I again respectfully disagree. Emotion, specifically jealousy, anger, greed, self-righteousness and pride are the cause for 99% of wars, murders, stealing, brutality, oppression, and whatnot. Logic and reason dictate that those things harm your own self-interests so why would you do them? There is NO logical reason to start a fight, unless it's to prevent a worse one. And the worse one wouldn't exist if your opponent was ALSO using logic.

While I agree that emotion is a good thing in that it develops and strengthens our humanity, (and is something I'm working on developing more of myself) it should never ever be allowed to rule someone above their reason. When it does is when I cease to be able to understand how and why the person does their actions.

I would say the gift of logic.

We just see opposite sides of this behavior. You see emotions as greed, jealousy, anger and pride. I see them also as compassion, understanding, empathy, sympathy and caring for our fellow man.

Why pull your car over to help a stanger lying in the street who is in trouble? What logical reason could there be for that? You don't know them. You don't expect to get a reward. You could endanger yourself. Why do it? No animal would pull a strange animal to safety. Why do something kind for someone you don't even know? Because you are human. You have compassion. You have empathy for this poor persons situation.

That's all I'm saying. I'm not trying to bag on people who, due to no fault of their own, can't express or understand these emotions. But likewise, I don't like to continually hear about how "stupid and illogical" these real human feelings/emothions are. They are, if you can look at the whole, overall picture (I know, hard to do if you only see things as black or white), good.

Well not all people help other such as if one of them saw a man on the side of the road. I wonder how many cars would actually stop just to see if the man is all right? I doubt every driver who drove by were on the spectrum.


I rarely do good things to help people. One time I gave five bucks to a lady downtown because she was nine dollars short for shelter and she showed me all this paper work to prove she was being honest. Five bucks was little money to me so I didn't care and it was all I had anyway.
Also when I have too much change in my purse and some person comes up to me asking to spare any change, I give lot of it away to him. My husband told me to just put it in our Spokane cup in our living room where he keeps his change and he can take it to the bank to exchange it for quarters for laundry. But he has soo much empathy, he easily feels bad but yet refuses to control his feelings and he's told me he does good controlling them but yet refuses at times to do so. What gives? So he never carries cash with him or else he ends up giving it away to people who are asking for change. With me, I just keep on walking ignoring them shaking my head even if I do have change and bills in my purse. I also know lot of people off the spectrum refuse to help these people because they could be lying about needing food just so they can use money for drugs. I know there are suckers out there who will give them change.