"I don't understand" never elicits an explanation

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I have found this to be nearly universally true: if someone says something that I don't understand, in the sense that I don't understand what they mean or what they are getting at, saying "I don't understand" never causes the other person to explain what they meant.

Often it makes them angry, because they think you are pretending not to understand in order to make some kind of point, like letting them know you don't agree, maybe, or just acting like what they are saying has no merit and should be set aside. These are guesses, but I have actually seen people say "I don't understand" in a passive-aggressive way. Maybe people just assume it's always said with that purpose.

But that leaves the question of how do you get someone to explain themselves when you don't know what they meant?

How about just asking "What do you mean?". That seems to invite a response more than "I don't understand.".

Yes.

"I dont understand" sounds like a veiled "I disagree".

Sometimes "I dont understand" works.

Or "walk me through it step by step. What are you talking about?".

Mostly I say nothing if I don’t understand because stating same doesn’t get me anywhere.

I’ve tried many different ways of expressing it, asking for more details, how would that work, I’m really sorry but I’m not seeing whatever. Nothing seems to work.

Patience is one of the nice things about chat gpt.

It depends who you say it to. One problem with it is that it leaves to the other person all the work of figuring out how to elaborate or re-explain. So it's helpful to be more specific about what you didn't understand, about where during the original explanation you couldn't make sense of the reasoning, to show them that you're trying to fathom it and are willing to work with them in order to get it clarified. One way is to try to feed back to them what is your understanding of what they've said, in your own words, as far as you can, in the hope that they'll jump in and offer a correction when they see something you've not got quite right.

I used to have this problem with reading books, where I couldn't understand much of what they were saying. It got better when I began to look through the text and identify where and why it didn't make sense to me. Often it just wasn't explained very well from my point of view. Sometimes they'd use unfamiliar terms as though I knew what they meant, sometimes the reasoning was faulty, sometimes they tried to be methodical in their description of a thing but their format would be inconsistent and confusing. I always felt a lot better when I'd identified the block and seen that the mistake was theirs.

Being more specific about what part you don't understand will help.

A lot of it depends on what you don't understand. If a NT thinks what they said is obvious enough they may think your lack of understanding I'd disingenuous. Some things might be abstract like humor. Sometimes people can't explain motivations or actions or emotions because of a lack of self-awareness.

Some people don't feel the need to explain themselves, or don't have the patience or energy to deal with your lack of understanding. Especially if other listeners did understand.

If it's an "insider" conversation they may actively not want to explain because your lack of understanding proves you aren't part of the tribe and therefore, in their mind, don't belong in the conversation.

I've had "Inside Baseball" conversations were someone listening was offended I didn't offer to explain. Other times other people in similar situations didn't care enough to want an explain or were offended that I thought they needed an explanation. Humans are often poor communicators.

Sometimes it's intentional. I almost got kicked out of school because I did something and no matter how many times I said I didn't understand, I didn't get any attempt made to explain what I had done it what I could have done differently.

Things like that are probably where the schizoid traits came from.

I have found "please explain this to me" generally gets a response

I say things like, "I don't understand, please elaborate" often. But, as others have mentioned, I try to be as specific as I can about what I need help understanding, like could you please elaborate on this, that or the other. I also tend to rephrase some things that have been said as well (active listening type stuff) and ask if that is what the other person meant as a way to ask for clarification if I'm foggy about something or only a little unsure v/s completely lost. I struggle with misunderstandings a lot and am not the best communicator in the world, so even then things like that don't always help me. Still, I try.

Thanks for everyone's replies. There's a lot of useful information here.

One thing that I often find happening, and I have noticed it most specifically with therapists, is that they will say something that is just a plain fact (sometimes wrong, but even when it's right this applies) and there's a sense that I'm supposed to draw some conclusion from it or that they are making a point, but I have no idea what it is. And in those cases I don't know what to say, because it's so open-ended, but if I just answer in an open-ended way like "I don't understand," that doesn't work, as we have discussed here. But saying "What do you mean by that?" or "What are you getting at?" or "Am I supposed to be drawing a conclusion from this?" all sound belligerent.

If my lack of understanding is because my attention is wavering I will let them know that "I'm having trouble focusing right now" or "I'm feeling foggy headed right now" and ask them to explain again, being as specific as possible about what part I don't understand so they don't have to repeat everything. Sometimes I will ask them to slow down or pause frequently if I am having processing issues. If, during a conversation, I notice either of these things are happening I will try to politely interrupt to spare them wasting their breath as much as possible.

If I feel like it's not a processing or attention issue I will try to explain back to them what I heard and why something they said doesn't compute. My interpretations tend to be more literal and logical with an incomplete understanding of social or emotional factors. Most people can follow my understanding and appreciate it and are happy to throw in the social or emotional aspect that I'm missing, though they often have a confused look on their face, likely wondering why it needs explanation.

I have noticed this also.
It doesn't seem to cross people's minds that a well-educated middle-aged person like me could have genuine difficulties with processing and understanding speech in real time.
So they assume I'm being passive aggressive or critical of them or something like that and get all upset and defensive.
When all I really wanted was a brief clarification

Communication is hard.

People learn differently and they express thoughts differently, and that is something so many people don't understand. Neurotypicals learn differently too.

All communications is metaphoric. Sounds are symbolic. They are assigned meaning, or maybe it's the other way around. Meaning is assigned a sound. Anyway, everything we express, verbally or visually, is metaphoric for some experience. I may be wrong with such a broad statement.

Some people are really good using words for expressing ideas. Mathematicians can use numbers to derive meaning and ideas. Neurotypicals and people on the spectrum don't always understand that the way they communicate is not a "one size fits all" law. I believe that people on the spectrum may be more aware people take in information differently. However, I know some neurotypicals know this as well. When I was in college, I remember some doctor (but obviously not their name) said some people are visual thinkers and some were verbal thinkers. That is how they interface with the world. I think that is over simplifying.

Also, sometimes not knowing a concept can stand in the way. It's like not understand one word in sentence and how not knowing that word affects the meaning of the sentence. Now replace the "one word" with a "whole concept" that that is part of a larger concept. Knowledge is built on knowledge.

Regardless. Communication, the exchange of ideas, can be very hard when two people have brains that don't process information the same, or one person understands a piece of required knowledge that the other person does not.

So when someone says "I don't understand." It can be very frustrating for that person, because they don't know how to communicate it any differently. It helps if we can identify where the understanding breaks down. Sometimes the gap in knowledge is just too great. I can easily imagine someone explaining something about quantum physics to me and my brain simply feeling like it's dog paddling in the middle of the ocean. And I'm fascinated by quantum physics. I'm just not a quantum physicist.

A New Look at Visual Thinking

I've been working on this for two hours (not lying), writing and rewriting and editing and rewriting. I'm sorry for muddled ideas or any sentences that I forgot to complete.