Nefarious Fellow

it took me asking three more times before she finally told me she wanted me to leave the fans where they are instead of moving them to my room or something. and I said oh! I had no intention of doing so but thank you for letting me know what the expectation is.

"You left your dish in the sink." > the hidden request is "please clean your dish, preferably right now." since it's phrased as an observation, I don't immediately intuit the request and instead think my housemate thinks I forgot about it. so I reply "oh, I know." housemate thinks i'm sassing her and gets annoyed with me. only then do I realize she was asking me to do something about the dish in the sink.

"There's hot soup on the stove." > said to me while I was preparing a sandwich. the hidden request is "please eat the soup." since it's phrased as a statement of fact, I don't immediately intuit the request and instead think my mom thinks I didn't see the soup. I did see it, but I wanted a sandwich instead. so I reply, "I saw it, thank you." mother thinks I'm being rude and gets annoyed with me. only then do I realize she was asking me to do something about the soup (and furthermore is offended I am eating a sandwich instead).

"Your bread is on the counter." > the hidden request is "please remove your sliced bread from the counter and store it elsewhere." since it's phrased as an observation, I don't immediately intuit the request and think my roommate thinks I meant to store the bread elsewhere and forgot. when I reassure her I know it's there, she gets annoyed. only then do I realize she wants me to do something about the bread on the counter.

"You can turn up the heat, you know." > said to me while I was scrambling eggs slowly over low heat. this one really confused me because of course I knew I could turn up the heat, but I had no reason to as I was only cooking for myself. when I ignored the statement because I was focused on my task and had nothing to say, my mother added, "the eggs will cook faster if you do." sure, I'm aware of this too, but I don't want to cook them faster. I won't get the texture I want. when I reply, "I don't want to, though," mom thinks I'm being rude and gets irritated, then asks me how long I'm going to take. only then do I realize she was telling me to cook faster (because she wanted the stove), instead of simply informing me I could.

"There are donuts in the break room." > a more benign example, but similar outcome. once again I hear this as a piece of information being given to me, and thank my coworker for telling me. when I don't immediately leave my desk to get donuts because I'm finishing a task, my coworker hovers and says, "well? aren't you getting some?" only then do I realize there was actually a hidden invitation, and I was supposed to respond to the hidden part and say, "I'll come get them in a minute," or "no thank you I don't want any."

as I said, I've learned over time this is something many allistic (non-autistic) people do (as well as high masking autistic folks who have learned the social rules and wear themselves out following them rigidly). despite what I've learned, my default autistic response is pretty much always to take the words at face value (especially when I'm distracted or multitasking), before remembering I have to translate them. and while I can make a decent educated guess in most cases, sometimes I just cannot and simply ask, "what are you asking me?"

unfortunately, many allistic people suffer from an inability to take words literally just as much as they struggle to speak literally, which can further obfuscate communication. this is why I emphasize gentle reassurance that you are not criticizing them, but asking them to help you, a person in need, by clarifying their intent. people generally like to be helpful and I have had moderate success with this approach.

Here's one from my life recently. I was visiting family in Indiana and we were preparing for a small gathering at my MIL's house. My husband and I were helping to get things ready on her property and we had this exchange. (Helpful to know "the gate" is the most logical/direct path in this scenario, and "the driveway" is more out of the way.)

Her: There's a lot of mud and holes in the lawn over by the gate, so let's have people use the drive way to walk through instead of the gate.

Me (thinking this is about mud/safety=problem): Oh, it's actually not that muddy! I just went through the gate fine...the mud isn't by there.

Her: Well but still, I'm afraid someone may fall on the holes/ridges by the gate. So let's tell people to take the driveway.

Me (still thinking this is about mud/safety=problem and thinking I'm being helpful for ensuring folks can use the quickest way): Really? I didn't see any ridges over there either. Seems fine to me.

Her (now clearly exasperated): SIGH. Listen! I just would prefer if guests use the drive way instead of the gate to walk in.

Me (now FINALLY hearing that this is a want/preference of hers and she's using safety as an excuse because she can't just state her preference and doesn't really care about the safety...and cue me trying to say this next part as upbeat as possible): OOOOOH well if you wanted that all along, I just wish you would have said it! I thought I was helping you solve a problem. Got it. We will tell everyone to avoid the gate and walk through the drive way. No problem.

She was quite pissed off at me after that, commented to my husband that she must have pissed me off (lol, no) and she stewed for a bit thinking I said a bitchy version of "you should have just said that from the start" and I literally had to circle back to her and say point blank: "reminder! I am autistic! I didn't understand what you meant, I thought I was being helpful to solve a problem."

Of course I apologized bc that's what I've been conditioned to do, but I don't feel the miscommunication was on me. We could have saved a bunch of time talking and like 2 hours of her simmering mad at me if she possessed the ability to just say, "Hey I'd really prefer it if people use the driveway and avoid the gate area." [Also she later disclosed secret reason #2 she wanted the gate avoided: she was concerned that someone may not latch it and her dogs would get out. Why wasn't that said?!?!? I'll never know.]

for example, say I invite a friend to do something specific: "would you like to go on a walk with me today?" and the response is "I can't, my leg hurts." I think what's happening is they'd like to hang out if only it was a different activity where leg pain won't be an obstacle. therefore if I simply remove the obstacle and accommodate them, we can hang out!

after three or four attempts to find something we can both do together, each getting a different excuse, I start to put together that my friend just doesn't want to hang out but thinks it's rude to say so. and now i seem rude because I couldn't take an "obvious" no for an answer. but it wasn't obvious to me. my friend kept giving reasons why they couldn't and all the reasons were solvable, instead of just saying "I'm not up to hanging out today."

we both end up feeling disrespected, me because I wanted a straightforward answer and didn't get one, my friend because they wanted me to accept their refusal the first time and I came off pushy instead.

I literally taught her that replying to me with the simplest "no" possible is very very welcomed. I feel safer with blunt truths than longer statements which attempt to hide some truth in "niceness." And she's done it since that convo! When we hang out, I know she really wants to be there 🤪