Totally non-literal aspie

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I'm married to an aspergirl (diagnosed in the last year) and have always had problems with her not taking my words literally. Today I said "You wanted to go look at this chair sometime today, remember?" and she took that as "I want to go look at this chair right now." and started getting all dressed up. Thing is, it's Sunday, and chair store isn't open yet (most chair stores aren't open at all).

This isn't a one-off thing. I'll say "here's a fact" and she'll hear "here's a different fact and also blame and attribution and other horribleness".

All the reading either of us have done says that aspies in particular are especially literal and I'm super confused how this isn't lining up at all.

I haven't been diagnosed (soon, waiting for booking), but I can relate to some of that. The example of "You wanted to go look at that chair today, remember"? I too would have taken that as "Let's go and look at that chair right now". I would think "they wouldn't bring it up unless it was an immediate concern, so that must mean they want to go right now". It sounds like a misunderstanding, that's all.

Why does "they wouldn't bring it up unless it was an immediate concern" override the literal? Your response is in line with what she does a lot, you quoted back "You wanted to go look at that chair today, remember" where the original has the qualifier "sometime" in it. The way you quoted back would seem more imperative, certainly.

All the reading and examples I can find anywhere would indicate the literal overrides most if not all of the time. Especially with the qualifier "sometime" getting passed over / left out, stuff like that shows up in the general 'how aspies talk' a lot.

Honestly, the qualifier "sometime" wouldn't mean much to me, with or without it. It's essentially the same sentence reading it from my point of view, I just phrased it wrong.

As for the immediate concern over-riding the literal, I'm not entirely sure on that. I've only been looking at my actions carefully over the last 3 weeks, once I decided that I wanted to get a diagnosis. I don't personally think I take things too literally in comparison to many with Aspergers, so maybe that's why I go straight to the immediate concern. Think of Aspergers like a number of different gauges, each with different labels such as "Obsessions", "Taking Things Literally" etc. From the reading I've done it seems like everyone has completely different levels under each of those labels. I would say I'm on the low end of "Taking Things Literally", maybe she is too?

Also in my case, I try to understand social interactions as best as I can. I think I do a pretty good job for the most part, but certainly things do "slip through". I've learned that for the most part, people only bring up something if it's an immediate concern, so I'll go straight to that above almost anything else.

NB: I'm not diagnosed so this may not count, but I do have some traits, although I don't think I'm very literal.

Anyway, I would find the word "sometime" in your sentence a bit confusing. Why would you say that? It makes the sentence rather pointless. At least if she already knew/remembered that you were going to look at that chair that day, it would be a bit like saying "I want dinner sometime today". But of course you do! So when? Do you mean we should have dinner right away? Are you hungry?

Agreed with PorridgeGuy, I was going to add that "sometime" to me would mean nothing in the sentence because it could mean now or it could mean later, meaning that the 'immediate concern' I pointed out above still applies, because "sometime" includes now. Also, the way it was worded sparks the 'immediate concern' response, because it's more of a statement, or closed question rather than an open question. If you'd said "what time do you want to see the chair?", then I'd have responded differently.

Keep in mind that most of the stuff explaining AS is about kids. As aspies get older, very often they learn to compensate for social issues, but still have weird gaps.

So maybe when she was little, she took everything literally, and then realized people say nonliteral things sometimes and started assuming they were being nonliteral too often?

OP, are you aspie? If so you could probably disregard this but if you are NT, then...

...Aspies who are high-functioning, intelligent etc. tend to be quite aware of the impact of the way their brain functions, and the differences between them and others. They learn to adjust-as-they-go, that is, when they hear an NT's words, they know they probably have to think of them less literally and try to think about "what is he/she actually trying to say to me?". So in the case of the chair, your wife possibly did take it literally, then remembered that that's usually not the best way to interpret things most people say, and tried to convert your sentence into what she thought you meant (e.g. "he* is bringing this up because he wants to go and look at the chair. Though he's trying to sound relaxed about it, he probably wants to go asap. I'd better get ready."). It's a process I believe many self-aware aspies go through hundreds of times per day in the course of interacting with other humans.

(It happens the other way around as well. When an aspie speaks naturally, they will probably be very literal. But most NTs will naturally "interpret" what is being said instead of hearing the actual words.)

Basically, taking things as literally as we naturally do rarely works well, so we have to go through a second, more deliberate, stage of processing input where we try to interpret/read between the lines. This might be what is happening with your wife.

*I'm assuming you are male, apologies if you are not.



(Basically, what Ettina said. Sorry, only just read it!)

I kind of have the same problem. My husband will say "Maybe I will go out to my parents tonight" and for some reason my brain processes "I will go to my parents tonight" forgetting about the word maybe. So I say something about it and he goes "I said Maybe." I drop it. Perhaps tell your wife you said "I said you wanted to look at the chair sometime, not I want to look at it now."

Also you you don't need to have every symptom of Asperger's to have it, you can have some and still have it, you can have almost all of it or half of it. Just as long as you meet the criteria and it causes you any impairments, then you have it. Maybe she just doesn't have that trait of taking things literal or she learned to not be literal as another person here suggested.