do not like the idea of "taking a hint"

[paloftoon]

I dislike the whole idea of trying to "take a hint." We really should be direct 1-1. It takes a real human being to be able to be that honest. You can still be polite about it. It may not be easy, but it's just the right thing to do.

 

[pjcnet]

True and the point is a lot of autistic people won't spot the hint in the first place, then the other person can get all offended, angry and/or upset and the autistic person doesn't understand what went wrong.

This has happened to me on a number of occasions and I found out later, often from someone else.

 

[Suzanne]

I can tell there is something going on, but not what it is, so I generally say: please, can you explain clearly what you require of me? And generally they are ok.

I am open about having aspergers and actually, it came from one of my elders ( priest), who suggested that I say straight away that I have aspergers. His brother has aspergers.

 

[SusanLR]

I can tell there is something going on, but not what it is, so I generally say: please, can you explain clearly what you require of me? And generally they are ok.

You are lucky.
I find if I don't take the hint and ask to have it explained, most get angry leaving me not understanding what just happened.
Maybe it is the few I have to be around.
I don't know since there are only a couple of people I am around on a regular basis.

 

[Suzanne]

You are lucky.
I find if I don't take the hint and ask to have it explained, most get angry leaving me not understanding what just happened.
Maybe it is the few I have to be around.
I don't know since there are only a couple of people I am around on a regular basis.

Indeed, it is the sort of people one frequents that makes the difference. I am mostly around those of my faith.

It is not all plain sailing for me, because even though some know I have aspergers, they do come out with things like: wow, you are a very obsessive person, aren't you? Or: you do take a lot of things literal? But all in the negative.

 

[Progster]

Agreed. People are socially conditioned to not be direct with people, that it's impolite or confrontational, but really it's a sign of insecurity, lack of confidence or just plain cowardice. I'd much rather people were open and direct with me.

 

[Tom]

I understand the point, which is aspies generally like (and sometimes need) things addressed clearly, but insisting on it strikes me as a form of arrogance.

Imagine insisting someone in France speak English. Indirectly dealing with things, hints and such is the 'Lingua Franca' of many NT societies/cultures. I guess it developed as a way to minimize confrontation, which is not a bad idea really. I think one is doing well if you understand the hint enough to act on it without having to ask for a explanation/translation.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

I understand the point, which is aspies generally like (and sometimes need) things addressed clearly, but insisting on it strikes me as a form of arrogance.

Imagine insisting someone in France speak English. Indirectly dealing with things, hints and such is the 'Lingua Franca' of many NT societies/cultures. I guess it developed as a way to minimize confrontation, which is not a bad idea really. I think one is doing well if you understand the hint enough to act on it without having to ask for a explanation/translation.

Yeh, what's up with the french?

May as well find piece if you can. Knowing and learning an approximation of the rules and developing a sort of harmless public personality worked for me.
I'd prefer to apologise if it kills a 'moment'or a conflict.

The habit i always work on is knowing the other persons perspective.
At first in an anxious,butt hurt kind of way
Now in a more relaxed way

 

[Gracey]

Take a hint ...?

Far easier if I have some context to work with otherwise I may have four or five literal meanings to choose from and only one shot at guessing correctly.

The context will come from asking for clues, meanings, further explanation.

I wouldn't start a car journey and guess at my destination.
I wouldn't go shopping and guess at what shop I need to visit and what I need to buy.

I like as much information as possible to direct me in understanding and my appropriate-ish response/script.

If I don't have that information I try to keep my trap shut and wind my neck in ... I believe the technical term for that is 'observation'

 

[OkRad]

.... developing a sort of harmless public personality........

THAT I like. I can shoot for that. I learned a long time ago that I am not one who can demand or even expect my rights or opinions to matter. So it's best just to be benign. That is OK. It's not a bad thing to be harmless and it's not a bad thing even to be ineffective and weak. Not that you are FridgeMag.......But I am. I hated it and would be all GRRRRR all the time. Now, when I let that go I can go back into m y own space and think about Homer and people leave me alone.

Once in a while, people intrude---why are you so quiet? You are supposed to do it THIS way! (Everyone else is doing B, too, but they choose ME to single out and say --no, you HAVE TO DO A). I do get singled out because as Suzanne said if you can't spell it out, they think you are daft.

But no, I would not tell anyone I was not NT and I am not good at taking hints. I also KNOW something is up but have no idea and then I beat it fast, even if it's a good thing. I CANN"T STAND CONFUSION and no matter if I was just about to findn the love of my life or win the lottery, I can't take the confusion which prededes. it.

 

[Beguiling Orbit]

Sigh. It's an NT world, innit? I've accepted that NTs are not going to be direct and that I'm usually not going to see, much less take, their clever little hints. When I do occasionally manage to spot one in the wild, I am pleased. Even then, I sometimes don't "take" it, just to prove a point (hee hee). I've turned it into a game. By doing so, I don't get so angry. I consider it their problem, not mine.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

I do get singled out because as Suzanne said if you can't spell it out, they think you are daft.

Maybe im happy to be thought of as daft. Maybe thats the difference.

A bit like 'I don't mind and they don't matter'

There was a line in police squad the pre-airplane tv show.

Frank Drebin was asked if he was going back to the office. He said :

'No,that's just what they're expecting us to do'

Which sort of explains me a little, deliberately ojt of context, but understandable to the initiated
Much like yourself.

 

[paloftoon]

. . .

I am open about having aspergers and actually, it came from one of my elders ( priest), who suggested that I say straight away that I have aspergers. His brother has aspergers.

Each person and their environment is different. The best judge to make this decision is you yourself. For some people, it's better to be open to everyone around you about your condition or "condition." For others or in certain contexts, it's better to keep quiet or initially keep quiet about your condition. You best can make that decision. Context matters tremendously.

 

[paloftoon]

I understand the point, which is aspies generally like (and sometimes need) things addressed clearly, but insisting on it strikes me as a form of arrogance.

Imagine insisting someone in France speak English. Indirectly dealing with things, hints and such is the 'Lingua Franca' of many NT societies/cultures. I guess it developed as a way to minimize confrontation, which is not a bad idea really. I think one is doing well if you understand the hint enough to act on it without having to ask for a explanation/translation.

I can see why you see it as potentially arrogance. I guess you have to know the person to truly know if it's arrogant or not. It's all about context.

People have definitely seen me as arrogant before. People that really know me know that I like to avoid dishonesty to an extreme, and I have a natural tendency to show my closest friends that I can be more of a friend than we both ever thought possible.

Too many people expect other people to know what's going on. However, NT or not, many people don't know what's going on. The flip side is, even if they do know what's going on, their obsessions might take over too much and they might only see themselves as the only right one. I feel that at least if you attempt to give someone directness as polite and respectfully as possible, that then there's not really an excuse for a person to not understand what's going on.

I have been on an end where I have been honest in an unintentionally demeaning way when someone was asking me to figure out why I was not interested in him. The ironic thing was, that person was looking for others to be with during the time he was obsessed with me.

 

[pax]

I wish people would just say what they mean. It would save a lot of time and bad feelings.

 

[WildCat]

I can't say that I like it either, but as the majority of the population has agreed upon communicating in a certain way I've got no say in the matter. Just have to do the best I can and adapt for the time being.

Of course, the rules get broken from time to time, in which case I have no problem returning the favor in kind...

 

[musicalman]

Hmm, interesting discussion.

I really don't like taking hints either. In fact when I met my girlfriend about 6 years ago, and we became pretty close friends, I told her one night that if we ever did get in some form of serious relationship, that we'd have to be honest with each other because I can't figure out hints. I didn't go into the fact that I might have Aspergers, though she eventually found that out too. She, fortunately, was the type of person who didn't seem to mind my inability to take hints. She's pretty social but she's used to hanging with sort of qwerky people too. Besides, she didn't seem like the overly hinting type. Sadly we really don't see each other much because we drifted apart to live our own lives. But we're still friends and I can't remember a single time when we've had to discuss some episode of hint-giving, so we do communicate pretty well. Actually on occasion we've joked that the only reason we're not in an official relationship before is because she got annoyed with me or something. I know this isn't the case though, since she calls me occasionally without any encouragement on my end. I try to surround myself with people who do communicate directly though, so hinting is not as much an issue for me. Like someone mentioned in this thread, I also have a presentable? public persona and understanding of some NT social tendencies and can at least spot a hint coming more often than not, even if I can't explain it.

Now there are those who don't like hints and who instead "call it as they see it," "will be totally honest," "say it how it is" etc. And even though I don't like hints, I don't like the opposite approach either, and it is the bluntly honest approach that more often than not gets me into arguments and trouble.

Not long ago I got in a big argument with someone on Twitter because he was very unprofessionally expressing his negative views of Trump which I don't care to dig up or write down. I ignored him until he started intruding on conversations I was having with other people and making political comparisons between our conversational topics and trump. I asked him why he felt the need to speak in this way and he told me he calls it as he sees it, and nothing more than that. In my opinion, which he didn't at all take well to, there is no need for that kind of language about anything. I'll just put it out there, my family supports Trump but politics is one of those fields I will never understand well enough to defend anyone. I never did well in history class or any class like it in school and had to memorize the textbook almost phrase-by-phrase and repeat it like a parrot on exams, which got me barely passing grades. I'd like to fix my inability to engage, but with recent political climate I simply can't find the energy to devote to it and I have little hope of productive discussion. I made the mistake of trying to reign him in a bit, and that in turn led pretty soon to himself, as well as some like-minded individuals, telling me that I am simply a Trump defender and I am only upset because they are insulting my idol or something, and that I should stick to what I'm good at and stop trying to do something I clearly am not fit or have no reason to do. They simply would not get my point. All I was trying to say was that, regardless of the "call it as I see it" approach, regardless of how much they might hate Trump, there is a time and method of honestly but politely expressing your opinion, and I did not appreciate slander being introduced into my conversations which were not at all political in nature. I tried to be as polite as I could, I didn't throw any name-calling back at them, and I couldn't even if I'd wanted to, but they weren't getting it. Maybe I shoulod've more directly said I was an aspie, but I didn't want to say it outright because I didn't think they'd understand.

The trouble with some people, it seems, is that any time you tell them you don't like an aspect of social communication that they have figured out, they seem to, at least at times, believe you lack intelligence or sense. They can't be blamed I don't think, they just think differently and it was largely not our or their choice. In the end, I've resigned myself to the fact that whether we understand another person's mind or not, everyone has one and it is formed from a million different personal and subconscious connections as we've lived our own independent lives. So to one person, a hint might be crystal clear because they just connect the dots differently, or a blunt remark to me might not be blunt to them for the same reason. Despite that, since that fateful evening on Twitter, I have been skittish around talking to people I haven't established myself fully with. This was 2 months ago and I still am a little nervous before I announce to the Twitterverse, or another public site, that I am around and have things to say.

One of these days I'll learn how to filter and tame my reactions and toughen up or something. I am still too soft to do that. I have at times been tempted to try to be smug and try to suppress my reactions, and maybe it will come natural, but I have my doubts that it would work. I don't want to make it a regular habbit in any case, because some people don't realize they are phased by something, or even worse they act like they aren't, until one day they can't do it anymore. That's a pattern I've fallen into myself more than a few times, but I'm getting off track so I'll stop now. Hopefully my train of thought and opinions have at least made a bit of sense and have provided some enjoyment to someone. Lol

 

[Desiree W]

Exactly. Another this is, people want people to read between the lines. Having to act like a mind reader can give someone a headache. Just say what you mean and mean what you say. I think things would be a lot better with effective communication.

 

[Lula1989]

It may be bad for me to say, but I find the most indirect, beating around the bush people are females. Maybe it's because our emotions get in the way more due to hormones and our self makeup.. but I find it 30 x's easier to work with a man than woman. I know when they are upset/happy, because they say so. Their criticism has less infliction, therefore I don't have the words with a different tone, leaving me confused. I also think being direct and a female I come off a lot as being a b*. I was having a conversation with a girl I work closely with every hour, who is open with me, and she said a lot of times my facial expressions (or lack of), directness, and monotone voice makes me come off as rude, but she said she knows me well enough to know it's completely opposite.

 

[pjcnet]

It may be bad for me to say, but I find the most indirect, beating around the bush people are females. Maybe it's because our emotions get in the way more due to hormones and our self makeup.. but I find it 30 x's easier to work with a man than woman. I know when they are upset/happy, because they say so. Their criticism has less infliction, therefore I don't have the words with a different tone, leaving me confused. I also think being direct and a female I come off a lot as being a b*. I was having a conversation with a girl I work closely with every hour, who is open with me, and she said a lot of times my facial expressions (or lack of), directness, and monotone voice makes me come off as rude, but she said she knows me well enough to know it's completely opposite.

This is very plausible, although there will still be a lot of exceptions and it's therefore probably better to say that a higher proportion of females beat around the bush compared to males. I'm all for equal rights and opportunities, but it will also always be a fact that men and women are different in various ways, yet many men may be reluctant to make the same point for fear of being called sexist (I'm not however).