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Does this annoy you too?

Whenever a random stranger asks: "How are you doing today?"...

  • I find it pleasant and polite.

    Votes: 7 25.9%
  • It annoys me. That's ritual insincerity, not a question.

    Votes: 9 33.3%
  • Indiffent- Don't mind, don't care.

    Votes: 8 29.6%
  • Never thought about it until now, but you have a point.

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • I'm not American, and no one even does that in my country.

    Votes: 2 7.4%

  • Total voters
    27
I don't really see why it would be annoying for someone to be polite and while most people may in fact only be asking out of some presumed obligation, others are genuinely concerned about the other individual's well being. Now if it was said with a sarcastic tone or a taunting tone or something, then I would find it somewhat annoying but not really worth feeling like the rest of my day was ruined or anything.
 
I don't really see why it would be annoying for someone to be polite and while most people may in fact only be asking out of some presumed obligation, others are genuinely concerned about the other individual's well being. Now if it was said with a sarcastic tone or a taunting tone or something, then I would find it somewhat annoying but not really worth feeling like the rest of my day was ruined or anything.
Agreed.
I don't know why so many Aspies make a problem out of this. It's just another way of saying "hello".

It's like when I was listening to an audiobook about an autistic girl, before they were going out her sister said "I'll be two minutes", so the autistic girl literally counted to 120, then went and started yelling abuse at her sister for lying to her, as the sister was more than 120 seconds.
I mean, living with someone that literal would admittedly get on my nerves. You don't really know how long it's going to take to get ready, so saying "I'll be two minutes" isn't exactly a truth or a lie, it's just a figure of speech, meaning "I won't be long". Even if they were far longer getting ready than I assumed, I still wouldn't say they told a lie. I'd probably just yell "hurry up!" or something, if it was literally getting too long.
Like one time when I was in a restaurant, I asked for a glass of water when the waiter brought the meals to our table, and he said, "certainly, two secs" and went off to get me a glass of water. I didn't stare at my watch and go "wait, he's been longer than two seconds, he's a liar! He lied to me! How could he?" Instead I just started eating my dinner knowing he was coming back with a glass of water for me, which he did, probably about three minutes later. By then my mind was on the conversation I was having with the others at my table.
 
I don't know why so many Aspies make a problem out of this. It's just another way of saying "hello".
There are two reasons that I can tell for why some of us have a problem. Both involve how our brains operate - not a decision by us to "be difficult":

1) There are Aspies, and other Auties, who simply don't understand non-literal language. Asked "how are you", they think that a question is being asked, with expectation for a truthful response. If they are told that waiting will be "two minutes", they anticipate that it will take that long.

While most of these people do learn that certain phrases are use insincerely or as exaggeration, they are masking each time that they fight to understand it against their natural thinking. Resentment at being forced to use the NT system follows.

2) It's more complicated for people like me; don't expect that the following description will truly explain the issue. We are perfectly capable of comprehending all manners of expression, but we don't necessarily like them. For me specifically, there is a lot of thinking about the various meanings of words. Often, I love to play with them and use puns. At the same time, I can hate non-literal usage, even though I understand what's being said.

I'd very much like to know how many others are in this second category. Is it even related to autism?
 
Immediately after I left the previous comment, I overheard my brother saying to our mother: "I'm not going [to an event] tonight; my stomach's out of shape." I knew what he meant, but really wanted to make a joke about how the shape of his stomach hasn't changed. My mind didn't want his "wrong" statement to pass unnoticed. Since I know that such teasing annoys him greatly, I managed to keep quiet. Instead, I did a bunch of stimming and briefly covered my ears to alleviate the anxiety caused by shutting up.
 
2) It's more complicated for people like me; don't expect that the following description will truly explain the issue. We are perfectly capable of comprehending all manners of expression, but we don't necessarily like them. For me specifically, there is a lot of thinking about the various meanings of words. Often, I love to play with them and use puns. At the same time, I can hate non-literal usage, even though I understand what's being said.
I probably was referring to this one.

I only overanalyze things when general anxiety is involved, which has nothing to do with taking things literally or not liking non-literal phrases. I seem to be good at noticing patterns, and if I can see a pattern that doesn't make sense, like me being treated differently from others or something, I get all wound up and need closure. But that is part of RSD and GAD.
The GAD brain automatically overanalyzes situations that has caused distress, and the reason it had caused distress is usually due to a bad experience in the past, such as trauma from bullying or abuse. So bad experiences allows us to see those patterns and freak out that history could be repeating itself. Before I was bullied on another site in 2022-2023, I didn't really get so sensitive to name-calling or other spiteful behaviour on forums and didn't notice patterns of how I'm treated Vs how others are treated, etc. probably because some from the other site are here and their minds have been poisoned against me from the bullies on the other site which makes it harder for me to get over and makes them show me up with snarky comments. Bullying can do a lot of emotional damage, especially for us folk with high anxiety levels.
 
When, exactly, did it become polite to lie?
When I was a kid I went to a religious school and for some time I believed liars didn't go to heaven. And yet people lie all the time. It feels like the entire world just runs on lies and more lies. It's gross.
 

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