Confused over things that aren't black and white

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If a rule isn't black and white, and there is any room for interpretation I get confused.

Like for example, I wanted to post a link, but the link is kind of an adult one, BUT it wasn't porn. Just a adult personals site basically. I didn't do it because I wasn't sure and didn't want to get in trouble, but things like that happen most days for me. I guess there isn't much of a grey area to me.

Anyone else get confused over things like that?

Oh yes, reminds me in minor baseball where I would get told off by both teams for stealing or bunting to hit when we were losing or winning by a wide margin. Apparently that's a dirty move but I don't understand why (trying to hit home runs wasn't for some reason) and if it is why it isn't in the rulebook like a mercy rule is? To make it more confusing, it was perfectly fine in the younger age groups yet I seemed to be the only person who didn't 'get' it in Midget (16-17). I still don't get it: I thought the goal of a sport is to score as many runs/goals as possible. If the final score is 78678912-0 then so be it. If it's poor sportsmanship, make a rule that stealing is prohibited when the run difference is 10+ for example.

I also still don't understand how some traffic laws (Red Lights) are universally obeyed 24 hours a day while others (Speed Limits) are widely ignored except in school zones and places like airports. Makes no sense to me whatsoever.

To put it into terms you might understand better, think of some of the things that provoke fights in hockey such as:

- Legal but dangerous hits
- Hard hits on star players
- Many different types of contact with the goalie

OR

What do you think would happen if a team, leading by 5 goals, pulled the goalie on a 5 on 3 power play?

There are things that are understood to be good sportsmanship that aren't explicitly written down. This goes for real life as well. If you take a parking space that someone else has been waiting on with their turn signal on, don't be surprised to see some key artistry done on your car's paint. Not all correct behavior is proscribed by law. If you find yourself running afoul of these situations often, you might want to find someone that can help.

Separately, I totally agree with the OP regarding ambiguity. I can very easily become paralyzed by it and end up making some godawful decisions as a result (or no decision at all). Things that are obvious and straightforward turn into a nightmare if I let myself think about them too long. I try very hard to put myself in situations where things are black and white, and avoid "judgment calls" if I possibly can.

My gut feeling, which I can't entirely justify, is that a link would be fine for the "-> Adult Autism Issues" discussion board of WrongPlanet. And for other areas, maybe how to look it up on google, instead of giving the direct link itself.

Yep, I hate wishy washy stuff. What I do about it is I make it black and white for me so I won't get into any trouble. Like for example I don't know when it's okay to hug people so I never initiate it unless the other person does. I used to get into lot of trouble as a kid because I do things other people do and get into trouble for it. I would be told something isn't okay to do and then I see another person do it and there would be no consequences, I would get confused. So I would do what they do assuming it's okay. It was cues I wasn't reading is the problem.

Now that I know I have a hard time with social cues, I don't assume I am being picked on anymore and being discriminated and treated different. I just stick to the rules and stick to what I am told and assume the other person is just being wrong for doing it. Sometimes I still feel I am being treated different but I assume it must be cues I am missing. Knowing your difficulties and accepting the, really does make a difference. I spent my time fighting as a kid to be treated normal when the whole time I was missing something and didn't understand something about myself. I was being treated like a normal kid, treated like someone who is being inappropriate so they treated me like how they would treat another child for acting the same way. But because I was not aware of not reading social cues, I saw it all differently and thought I was being discriminated. It took me a while to accept it when I found out and I thought my shrink was telling me it's all my fault for how I am treated. Sometimes I still wonder if he was just ASSuming and the other kids were really just jerks but it made my life easier once I accepted I don't read social cues well. Goodness, is this what they mean by black and white thinking we have? I never see it as such.

If the rule clearly states "No adult links" don't post it. If you are not sure if it's adult or not, I am sure you can still ask the mod and show them the link to see if it's okay or not. If you are too shy to ask, don't post it. Better safe than sorry.

Oh my goodness! I know what you mean about speed limits. In Atlanta especially on 75 and 85 no one obeys the posted speed limit. They go about 70 MPH instead of 55 MPH. Guess what makes it even more weird? My wife was pulled over for going the actual posted speed limit and obeying the law. The cop told her and warned her that she was impeding traffic.

A certain segment of the law in my area really does not care about traffic safety. They care more about making their quotas and bringing in revenue through fines and tickets. This does not apply to all cases but only some. I remember one time one of the counties put up traffic cameras on the traffic lights. Guess what? Revenue started dropping because everyone was stopping at the red light because people didn't want to pay a fine. Eventually, they took the cameras down so revenue could go back up. This does not apply in all cases. There are officials who genuinely care about public safety. There are those who want revenue so they can keep their departments going and functioning.

I don't have problems with authority figures who genuinely wants to make society better and uses the law to do so. I do have a problem when they put on a show of responsibility and beat their chests but they only want to benefit themselves. When the authority figure is clear cut and honest I have no problem. When they are dishonest and they talk buffoonery to me I know they're full of crap.

One of the questions on my application for social security was this. Do I have a problem with authority figures. It was a yes or no question. To me, this question was context sensitive and depended on the authority figure in question. I felt the question was a loaded question. If I answered yes, then it would come across like I had traits of ODD and I was defiant just to be defiant. If I answered no would it be taken as though that I would not have a problem with those like Adolph Hitler? To get myself out of the trap, I circled both yes and no and gave my explanation and told them it was a loaded question.

Yes, I have that problem too. The grey area, it can confuse the heck out of me. To be sure if something is okay, I usually end up asking - if I have the possibility to, which is not always the case. If I can't ask, I just don't do whatever I wanted to do.

Oh and cubedemon, I like your hypercube/tesseract avatar.

Last edited by Sylvastor on 17 Jan 2013, 8:51 am, edited 2 times in total.

I notices that especially autistics with a lot of routiniced and ritualiced behaviour is having trouble with that.
I'm kind of like that, but not that much. More than normal ppl I would guess.

I also don't understand why have the speed limits posted if you are meant to go faster than that? Why not raise the speed limit then? Basically it's illegal to go the speed limit if all the traffic is going faster than that. But yet you can still get pulled over for going with the traffic because that is what happened to me once. I was doing a gray area and I got pulled over for being gray instead of black and white. I learned from my mother it's okay to go fast if you are going with the flow of traffic. Now I refuse to go with the flow of traffic and go the speed limit. Man can't they make up their own minds? Or maybe they should put on the roads "go with the flow of traffic, not the speed limit" so it makes it less confusing. Or maybe the officer had to pull someone over and needed a reason for it and I had to be the one he chose because they need to give out a certain amount of tickets each day. :shrugs:

Yes, they have a quota they have to meet. This is what I do. I try to go with the same pace as the other vehicles around me. I stay 1 or 2 car lengths back. I try not to pass to many cars. I don't mean switching lanes to go around them. I mean driving faster than many of them so you go by them while staying in the same lane. I can pass 1 or 2 but that is it. This is mainly on the expressway. I don't switch lanes too often. I believe the police look for things that are unusual like what I have described.

NTs will state the speed limit is an absolute but depending on where you are at it may or may not be. You have to gauge the area you're in and the street, highway, or expressway you are at by observing the other drivers. Definitely do not have road rage either.

If you do get pulled over, do exactly as they tell you. Make sure you have your registration and insurance in your vehicle at all times that you can get to instantly. Do not try to put yourself into a situation in which you have to fumble around looking for these things. This will annoy the crap out of a cop. You do not want that.

I don't about your state but in mine they can't drive worth a crap here. People's driving habits are horrible.

I follow all rules, I got in trouble at work for being too strict and was told to relax I see everything in black and white, I fail at arguments because I fail to see any grey areas. I am also highly opinionated and fail to see how anyone could think differently from me. If there is a grey area in a rule or law I will ask people incessantly if what I am doing is okay.

I obey everything that is a law or rule, I am on it!

I don't drive or even have a license but if I did that would bother me so much. I'd expect to strictly follow the speed limit when I know it yet everyone goes over it.

Another thing that bugs me a lot is that there are certain rules in the mmorpg that I play that while I must follow them because they are the rules people break them all the time and never get in trouble, like not being allowed to log in on 2 accounts at the same time or not being allowed to transfer money and items between 2 accounts. People even admit to this publicly in crowded areas and get reported with no punishment and they do it in the clan I'm in even though a clan rule is to follow all the game rules. Doing those things would help me a lot, like being able to get experience on both accounts at the same time or have my good account give things that are easy to get or cheap to them to my newer and poorer account but I can't do it. It's the rules.

I have problems with multiple choice questions in exams, I will find a way to interpret most of the answers to be correct, then have trouble discerning which is the most likely. I try to decide what other people would pick as my answer.
Most things are grey to me, and I prefer clear, simple, unambiguous things. I often "over-ask" questions or have to repeat what was told to me in other words, just to be sure that I understand what was communicated. People look at me like I'm simple.
It's upsetting, because I know I'm not as stupid as they seem to think I am. They are not communicating as clearly as they think they are.

Yep, that's me. Everything always has to be black and white; no middle ground allowed. It drives my parents crazy sometimes.