With other neurodivergents, I feel like we explain what we mean in more detail. If not that, the other one recognizes the lacking detail, asks about it, and it gets cleared up.
When I talk to neurotypicals, or read or hear them discuss among themselves, this doesn’t happen as much. When I ask, it’s often seen as rude.
Here’s some examples of what I mean:
There’s a lot of ackshually, x is a fruit/berry/not a berry/ etc. When in fact, the terms each have two definitions: a culinary one and a botanical one. A strawberry is a berry in the culinary sense, but not the botanical one. A tomato is a fruit in the botanical sense, but not the culinary one. Ive repeatedly been called a know-it-all for bringing this up, and ironically usually by the person correcting others by saying, eg., a tomato is a fruit.
‘Do(n’t) you trust me?’ I may 100% trust your intentions, but I don’t 100% trust your judgment. This has nothing to do with you; I never 100% trust anyone’s judgment, including my own. This happens the other way around, too, when I ask someone for feedback about a decision I’m making, and they say they trust me and thus won’t give input. Like, thank you for trusting my intentions, but I don’t want you to blindly trust my judgment. That’s why I’m asking for feedback.
Another one is respect. Sometimes, to respect someone means to accept them as an authority figure, and sometimes it means to treat them with basic human dignity. It’s hardly ever specified which it is.
I could go on here, so please feel free to add your own, I’m curious!
Do you also find this to be an issue with as well as among neurotypicals or am I way off here? Thanks for you replies!
For me I think it helps to think of error correction. When two computers are exchanging information it’s not just one way, like one machine just sends a continuous stream to the other and then you’re done. The information is broken up into pieces, and the receiving machine might say “I didn’t receive these packets can you resend.” And there are also things like checking a hash to make sure the copied file matches the original file.
How much more error correction do you think we should have in human conversation, when your idea of the “file transfer protocol” is different than the other participant? “I think you’re saying X, is that correct?” Even if you think you completely understand, a lot of times the answer is “no, actually… blah blah.”
You brought up the idea of neurodivergents providing more detail, which can be helpful. But even there, one person may have a different idea about which details are relevant, or what the intended goal of the conversation is.
Taking a step beyond that, I recognize that I am not a computer, and I’m prone to making errors. I may think I’m perfectly conveying all the necessary information, but experience has shown that’s not always true. Whether or not the problem is on my end or the other person’s, if I’m trying to accomplish a given objective, it’s in my personal interest to take extra steps to ensure there’s no misunderstanding.