Do People Listen Or Only Presume?

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One of the things that has always plagued my life is that people seem to insist on reading between the lines, placing their words in my mouth and operating on their own blind presumptions rather than simply doing the obvious and asking questions then genuinely listening to what other people have to say. In this way they only manage to deceive themselves and will absolutely convince themselves that they know the answers when they don’t even understand the question. One of the more common "famous last words" I’ve encountered in my life has been the statement, “oh, but I thought…” or the similar statement, “oh, but I didn’t know…”. Years ago there was a sign hanging on the wall of my workplace reading, “Those of you who think you know the answer are annoying to those of us who do”. I always loved that sign even when I was a peon because it hits the nail right on the head, although it IS to some extent an expression of that same arrogance that lies behind such presumption to begin with. In a single word this attitude is described by the word, “hubris”.

There was a famous psychologist of the 1960s named John Lilly who had a quote to the effect of “what one believes to be true either is true or will become true in the realm of the mind”. In 1969 I told my dad that I wanted to buy a motorcycle. He told me he thought I was crazy for wanting to do so and sent me to a psychologist because of it. The psychologist agreed with me to my dad’s annoyance but I still had to go see him monthly. One day during that time that psychologist sat me down in his office listening to a tape of John Lilly for 30 minutes containing nothing but different people repeating this same quote again and again in different tones of voice. Needless to say I never forgot those words and they DO say a lot about people and their presumptions.

Very recently this happened to me again from somebody who otherwise should have been one of the most understanding and non-judgmental people I’ve ever known. This event caused me to wonder what other people might have experienced along these same lines.

Please only answer this poll if you have some form of autism. Neurotypicals might encounter different experiences or treatment by others.

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Sometimes I think I must have some form of aphasia. Because what I think is coming out of my mouth when I speak can't possibly correlate to what the other person has heard and interpreted.
I remember that quote out of the movie "Fight Club," where they are discussing the fact that people in conversation are not listening, just waiting for their turn to speak.
I find that a lot.
It's even more frustrating when in control conditions (aka in therapist's office last time, in quiet with just us two, having a conversation I had scripted loosely to the best of inherent predictability) I am told "I don't know what the problem is, I find you very easy to understand."
Grrr.
My relatives do this. I am always saying "but you're not listening."
I will start to say something, and they will completely ignore what I have actually said and then just invent something they think I have said. I literally have to repeat things several times, sometimes prefaced by the phrase, "no, listen to what I'm saying," before they will actually get what I have said.
Actually listening is a rare, radical thing to do. I recently encountered someone who does this, and it's incredible the difference it makes. She will actually remove her own ego from the situation and listen to what you are telling her, and then responds based on what you've actually said. I was quite shocked the first time she did this to me- which says a lot about how others don't listen to a word.
Perhaps especially with people with speech issues like me, you have to take the time to actually listen to what the person is trying to communicate before you go making assumptions all over the place, and most people, I find, don't have the patience and don't actually care enough to bother.
And anyways - you'd have to be crazy not to want a motorbike.

Are you asking how the people in the person's life listen, or how much they think humanity in general does/doesn't?

People never really listen when I talk. I'm always having to repeat what I'm saying several times. People will ask the same questions every time I see them. I have speech issues myself and people will assume that I'm ret*d because of the way my voice sounds. They are mind blown when they find out I have a four year degree and got mostly A's in all my classes. People will twist my words and tell lies about me to other people. People hear what they want to hear.

Actually it applies to both. I created the post/poll with individuals in my life in mind considering the many reactions I’ve gotten over 67 years. However this leads to a conclusion that if so many people behave in this manner that it might be a characteristic of humanity in general as you question. Such a conclusion would be faulty on my part in that I might be seen as displaying the same reaction I am talking about. It does seem to be the case though, especially if you take a look at Washington these days.

I want very much to write a long reply to many of user C2V’s comments above, which I think have hit the nail right on the head. However about 10 hours after I posted that, I encountered a family emergency that has put me in a whirlwind rush to go out of town this weekend to help out until after Christmas. So maybe I will get back to this post later and/or remotely, but I know only too well that such intentions rarely come to pass. This post hasn’t seemed to get much attention anyhow but I have been a bit surprised how heavily the few votes leaned towards the presume end of things. I guess I’m not the only one after all.

The way I look at it, is that there are different layers in a conversation. I like studying conversation in order to write better dialogue in my stories. The first layer is context, this tells people a lot, and is the key to understanding any conversation.

Context in conversation can be split into parts, the people involved, how many are involved, and the setting. It's usually a good way of figuring out sarcasm, if it doesn't fit in with the assigned context then it's probably sarcastic.

However, it's also where assumptions come in. Assumptions are often based on learned experiences (X liked rock music when they were a certain age, I haven't talked to X about rock music since (insert number of years here) but I'm going to assume that they still like it because I have no reason not to).

People assume. Everyone does. It's a fact of life. These assumptions play a big role in conversation, as they help shape our perspective. We all work with what we know, and also what we perceive to be accurate. That is until we receive contradictory information.

In such an occasion, our brains have to make a choice. We can either reject this new information and stick with our old perspective, or we can try to accept it. Usually I find when people say "Oh, well I thought..." it means "This goes against previous learned information and expectations, and right now I'm trying to explain to myself how Y can be true when I thought X was".

Some people pride themselves on reading others, and quite a few accomplish this well. "The tell" is a common writing technique used by another character when they know a certain character who wouldn't usually open up, in order to reveal something about that certain character.

It's usually something among the lines of "You always do (insert action) when you are nervous, so don't lie to me about being fine".

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheTell

You are correct in thinking that many people are eager to talk about themselves, I usually find that to be the case when the conversation is considered dull by both participants, so they both try to turn the conversation to be about themselves in order to, in their point of view, make the conversation more interesting.

Although, it can also be the opposite, when both participants are eager to share information about themselves because they get caught up in a certain subject, and forget to consider the natural flow of conversation to the point where it's more like they are talking to themselves and not exchanging conversation with another person.

I've probably missed the entire point of this thread, oh well.