Are you autistic and do you take things literally?

Question

I have Asperger Syndrome, yet sometimes I wonder whether "normal" people take things overly literally. For example, some questions - it seems people respond more to the exact words of the question and don't read between the lines.

Example: "Did you like the movie, Titanic?" A 'normal' person may say 'Yes. (or No), What about you?' But the Aspie will say "Yes, I liked it because of this, this, etc"......they will expand in detail,

whereas the neuro typical person will stop and wait for the other person to respond.....and the conversation will never go beyond small-talk. To me this seems like a literal way to react.......responding to the exact words rather than getting longwinded and perhaps increasing the chances of an interesting tangent.

What do you think - if you are autistic, do you find that normal people have an odd way of responding to things? Or are you 'normal' and find it odd that autistic people tend to go off into tangents?

Answer 1

It is often said that people with Asperger's syndrome tend to take things literally. By that they mean that many aspies don't understand sarcasm, metaphors, 'polite' offers that people don't really mean and jokes and therefore take them literally.

Of course aspies don't always take things literally and neurotypicals sometimes take things literally too.

As for your example, yes, the way most people respond to such questions is literal and short, while some aspies would answer with a lot of extra details that nobody literally asked for. The problem with that is that sometimes the second person is not interested in hearing all the details, but the aspie may not realize that and hence the conversation ends up like a monolog.

I'm an aspie and the way I feel about people's responses really depends on the subject. Often a short, literal response is enough, but sometimes a longer answer/discussion can be fun.

Answer 2

What the real question is, how do you tell when it's time for you to stop talking. and have a give and take dialog instead of a one sided monologue. talk to someone you know and ask for tips of facial and body clues to know when someone is bored of what you're saying, or would otherwise like to comment, but is being polite, and waiting for you to stop speaking so that they can start.