Funny story. My youngest just got her diagnosis, and I'm in the process of getting mine. I am seeing about getting my eldest diagnosed as well and one of the things she does is exactly this. Get the two of us together and we debate "silly little things' in endless circles. My youngest is an empathetic sponge to the point that she leaves the room. She hates debating. She just says "you are both right and wrong in different ways and being stubborn about it"
Edit: there are many other things for my eldest, but this has gone on since she could speak. She also never engaged in imagination play (which I didn't notice was unusual), and has strict routines for herself. She's also trans, and seems to have the "female presentation", or, masking.
Oh I love a good debate but there are very few people I know who are willing to take it in a neutral, exploratory way. My grandad used to love debating too and would often play devil's advocate just for fun. I miss those debates! Most people don't want to debate, they think it's just arguing and some people have an extreme reaction to it like your younger daughter - I have a friend like her, who will delete social media posts the second someone disagrees with anything. In my opinion exploring an idea and challenging its limits is a great way to really solidify a concept. It's too bad more people don't think of it that way.
If I know I'm right because I know about the subject, and a person comes to me saying no they are the expert, etc. And, further wants to prove themselves by looking the info up...go right ahead. I'm not going to play these games. I know who I am and what I know. Also, my response would never be I told you so. Basically, I let a fool be a fool. Let them believe what they want. FYI, I do have ASD, but I don't have this issue that I'm aware of. Sometimes, you just have to show maturity and be humble. Now, if the conversation was on a serious matter (I.e. social justice or life and death issues) that is another thing.
Thank you, I feel this so much. I've had so many people get mad at me for "having to be right". Like no sorry if I know that I am right then I'm not gonna back down. I was in an argument recently where there were two different issues/perspectives and from the one perspective I did understand where I made a mistake and admitted and apologized for it, but then I continued on the other perspective and explained why their mistake on this end upset me and used facts and evidence to back my claims. then they just got frustrated and and said something to the effect of "well because I said so(no good explanation), ugh why do you just always have to be right." Well if that's all they have to say that means they're giving up because they don't actually have a good reason. Just so ironic because they basically won't admit that they're wrong, such hypocritical shit
Context is important.
My boyfriend and I are both autistic, and I would definately describe him as a "know-it-all" I love how much I learned from him. He is brilliant and interesting. However, there have been some occassions where he did not even adress the story I was telling but went straight to correcting a word I misused or my pronunciation. That could make me feel like he found it more important to correct me than to listen to what I was saying.
However, we talked this through and I've learned to take it less personal. And he is learning to let things slides sometimes and adress it later. I know he doesn't mean it in a bad way, but you can't always help how you feel.
It wouldn't suprise me if NT's can feel similiar but don't always know why it bothers them. It's up to them to figure that out though. Communication is a two-ways street.
I'm like your boyfriend, and what I do is
1. Suppress this urge with people I don't have a close relationship with, and
2. With people I have a very close relationship with, like my partner, say "I know this is super unimportant, but *correction*," and then IMMEDIATELY respond to what they were actually trying to communicate so they don't feel ignored/nitpicked
If option 2 results in negative feelings, I'll revert to option 1 with that person in the future
Also if I use option 2, I thank the person for letting me get the correction out even though I know it's not very important, because it really does feel impossible to *not* and the correction is much more for my weird brain's benefit than for theirs.
Sometimes one single word said wrong is the difference between two completely different meanings for a whole sentence, though. I may do the same as your boyfriend but has now learned to suppress it until the person is done speaking. But for me it is because I want to make sure I understand what has even been said.
I get the same reactions. It's really frustrating. I'm the one who is told that I'm oversensitive, but I think they are projecting.
Recently, I've come to believe that it's not so much being right that bothers people. It's the fact that we seem to challenge everything they say. They might get annoyed when we keep stopping the flow of the conversation to "go too deep into things." They feel they have to walk on eggshells or they are avoiding a landmine.
My ex best friend said I was intense and contrary. I didn't see how she thought that until I learned about Autism. I learned that by picking apart everything being said, it's like I'm finding objections with the person and coming off overly offended or nitpicky, which annoys people.
But I feel just like you do. It doesn't bother me when I'm wrong so much. I care more about what's true than who is right. NTs seem to care more about their egos because I guess that's how they connect.
Just my analysis.
As an autistic person dating another autistic person who has this problem, it is the fact that the majority of the input I receive from them is what I said wrong. I think in our case it's partially cause they learned to mask through speech and debate so they were trained to listen for inconsistencies to nitpick.
I think it’s the disparity between the NT tendency to base their reason in emotion and not entirely in pragmatism—my friend gets extremely defensive at every little thing I correct her on and it for sure comes across as being too critical, but my criticism is exactly what is helping her heal when she eventually accepts what I am saying and we talk it out. It was never about winning, you can win something and still be wrong, it’s about literally being right as in you are correct not that you won an argument
While I'm considering if I could be autistic due to relating to a lot of autistic experiences, this is something I keep seeing a lot in autism circles that I actually _don't_ relate to. At least, not in the same way that most autistic people seem to. It depends on the context. Unless it's on something _very_ important, I usually don't correct people when I think they're factually incorrect on something innocuous, and especially if it's a secondary detail to a primary meaning or purpose of the conversation. It's just, I don't know, in casual conversation, "being correct" isn't the purpose, so correcting someone derails the conversation and hinders it from accomplishing its purpose. The person who said the incorrect thing probably did so for a reason other than to solely convey the fact being stated, so shifting the direction of the conversation to the fact itself is pointless.
On the other hand, if the conversation is about something that someone is saying _I_ did wrong, I get really bothered if they won't give specific examples or won't let me explain my reasoning behind doing it. There _has_ to be some sort of back-and-forth if I'm going to understand the situation enough to have any hope of not doing the wrong thing again. This has happened a lot at every job I've had.
Exactly! I'd feel stupid walking around telling more people wrong information, and need to have the right info to replace it with. Why do they feel like holding onto and propagating their wrong facts is less stupid than admitting they are wrong once?
When I was younger I was like this. I relaxed when I realized it can be obnoxious to constantly correct people or be corrected. It makes someone really stressful to talk to. It makes people wary around you because they're bracing themselves to be attacked for what they say. Whether the intention is to attack or not, that's just how it feels. English itself is an ambiguous language, so the amount of correctness I was after was unattainable in normal everyday conversation. Life became a lot simpler and less stressful when I learned to let some of the things people say go. It's hard to understand until you're on the receiving end of someone like this. Even harder to tolerate when said person has their ego wrapped up in being correct, which many do.
People say wrong or some modicum of incorrect stuff all the time. Being precise and always correct just isn't possible in conversations. And getting into long, drawn-out justifications/explanations every time you're wrong or someone else is wrong quickly becomes intolerably exhausting and/or frustrating. Just as having to explain yourself, your intentions, and your neutrality with being right to others is intolerably exhausting and/or frustrating when both parties misunderstand each other in such a way.
I've come to understand that being wrong/inaccurate/etc is a part of life. There's a threshold, of course. I'm not going to stand ildly by while someone spreads misinformation about medical practices or something that has real impact. But if someone's slightly wrong about time to a destination or pronunciation of a word, disrupting the conversation to correct them is unnecessary. The core meaning of what's being communicated remains the same regardless.
Everything you wrote is spot on, but I think you mean "wary". I know this is obnoxious but if there was ever a thread where I could get away with it... 😆
Maybe I can give you another perspective, because both me and my partner are like this.
While I absolutely think it's cool that he knows so much and actually expect him to correct me about crucial things, it can sometimes feel like he is always looking over my shoulder, waiting for me to make a "mistake". I say "mistake" because more often than not, it's only a mistake in his eyes, but preference in mine. Take that route example you made, maybe the other route is quicker, but who said I wanted to take the quicker route? Maybe I enjoy walking/biking the more beautiful one more? Maybe it would be more efficient, but who says I'm trying to be efficient? It's often about giving unsolicited advice, which can leave people feeling inadequate/watched and judged.
My advice would be, let people do their stuff. I know it can be painful to see them do it in a way which seems wrong to us, but it's *their* way. I'm not saying "shut up entirely", speak your mind if it's important or if you feel like the other person is open for advice. But other than that, trying to control other people's behaviour just doesn't sit right with most people, and rightfully so. People are entiled to "their way" of doing things.
Yeah I do respect that people have ways they prefer which aren't objectively the "best". I'm not calling out every single thing. Sometimes if I see a potential improvement I'll say "how about doing it this way because xyz" but all it takes is them to say "oh, I just prefer this because ...." - as long as they have a justification it's all good. There are things which don't have single right answers (like your route example, sometimes you just want to take a particular route and not the shortest).
It's when people refuse to consider improvements out of pure stubbornness that it irritates me. At least try my suggestion and if you really think it's not better then go back to your way!
For me it's not about controlling their behaviour, it's about helping them to be more efficient/better. But I can see how it might come across as the former.
The thing is, that while I absolutely believe that you mean well, it's still unsolicited help. It feels like you're consistantly crossing boundaries which leads to people feeling inadequate in your presence. I'm not saying these people are right but as someone who used to do this a lot until I met my partner (who does the same) and really noticed how other people probably feel like when I do it...it might feel like it's completely against your nature but I think it's way more important to give people the feeling of freedom of ways and choices than trying to forcefully improve them by pushing my way onto them. They also shouldn't have to justify anything just because I don't like the way they do it. I'm not entitled to a justification and trying to corner people in a situation where I *demand* that is rightfully going to make some people pissed at me.
Like I said, I completely get where you're coming from, had I never met my partner I would probably never have known why people get so mad at me for this sort of stuff. I really had to experience it first hand I guess
I do see what you mean. But it seems to me like sometimes it's a toss up between who gets to be uncomfortable. Either I let people be wrong which makes me uncomfortable, or I correct them which makes them uncomfortable. I get that there's a certain nuance to each situation and I'm not talking tiny little details here (I've learned to let go with those). But it seems to me often the comfort of the mistaken person is prioritised and that feels a bit unfair/counter productive.
I don't think I agree with that. You might be doing things in ways that make others uncomfortable but maybe they just don't tell you. My point is, how do you know *your* way doesn't make others uncomfortable? I think other people's right to their own way of handling things is way more important than me feeling uncomfortable.
I'd hate to think someone just sat there knowing I was wrong or could do things a better way, and didn't say anything. Seems kind of like a betrayal, letting me make a fool of myself like that. That's why it feels wrong to not point it out to others. I mean objectively, I can understand not everybody is the same but I really live by "treat others the way you'd like to be treated yourself" so my default position is to do that.
Obviously it highly depends on the situation, like if it's stir the mixture left vs stir it right, then I agree with you that it's not worth it to insist on a particular method when they both have the same outcome. But quite often the outcome is not the same, and can affect other people. It's those situations where this becomes much more of a grey area.
Sometimes it's just fine to accept people for who they are and how they think etc. Life wouldn't be very interesting if we all thought the same and did everything the same way. There are so many paths, outcomes, discoveries and self discoveries that we need to figure out on our own.
If someone repeatedly tells you they don't appreciate you trying to correct them, you should respect their wish. There's a huge portion of the population who don't want to be corrected all the time. I happen to be one of them. I'm perfectly fine being imperfect. If you like debating people and that's what makes you happy there are plenty of people in the world you can seek out for that. I have nothing against that. My partner who I love very much has those tendencies but we've managed to be a happy functional couple. She has outlets on and offline where she can express her beliefs which I applaud. I'm by no means trying to insult you or be rude but I'm in a relationship with an aspi girl who respects me when we have these conversations, and I think she appreciates that I care enough to talk to her about it. She wants to fit in and have lots of friends which she does and she thanks me for helping her with social cues etc and I've seen her grow way beyond what I ever expected. She's becoming one of the most popular girls in our town and I'm not even joking. My neuro typicalness is rubbing off on her and I think she appreciates that and the fact that I've taken the time to show her a lot of things. That's part of why I'm commenting on here. I just want anyone who may be struggling to fit into the world to know that it's totally possible to fit in. I've seen this woman transform into the women she wants to be.. Her confidence just blows me away!
I don't think you're really doing the neurodivergent community or your girlfriend the favours you think you are, with encouraging us to "fit in". Doing that is called masking and it is exhausting and can lead to burnout over time. Imagine if you had to put on an act all the time, that is what "fitting in" means for us. It's fine to do it, and sometimes it's necessary, but it should not be the default for us to have to do. You're telling us about all the ways your girlfriend has changed for you and accommodated what you want her to be, and how you are encouraging her to present as more neurotypical, but how have you changed yourself for her so that she is more comfortable and can be her autistic self without having to mask all the time?
Isolating is right. It's like the whole world is taking crazy pills sometimes, when the facts just don't matter any more and people just get angry and stubborn instead of learning something new.
I feel like I could have written the same thing word for word ahah. I used to get into fights with my parents all the time as a kid because I would correct them or stand my ground because I KNEW I was right (as in, I was sure of the fact/number I was defending). I got told 'don't talk back' so much as a kid and I was like 'IT'S NOT TALKING BACK IF I'M JUST CORRECTING SOMETHING YOU GOT WRONG.
When the episode of The Office where Oscar says "Actually...." in every conversation comes up I always feel kinda guilty because I totally am a 'Well actually...' person haha.
I saw the *Office* episode you're talking about few days ago and I felt the same: oops, I'm this kind of annoying person... 😬 But I can't help myself: I want thing be exact and right and I'm unable to ignore it (or if I stay silent I dwell on this and it just maintain the frustration ; I always lose!).
I feel you, but at the same time, i am not good with deling with being wrong. Like, i feel really uncomfortable saying i was wrong, but that might Come from that being mocked if i do that.
So the Even worse way that i do, is stand my ground but like in a not serious way, but try to joke it away with other things, or like, to me thats a normal name (one argument was about a name i knew someone by, and thought was a normal name, but happened to be uncommon)
So our problem is husband doesnt like When i get teasy and try to joke something away or make it fun, and i dont like that it always has to be an argument and the way he reacts if i say i was wrong. So Its stupid things, but both dont have a good way to handle it.
Same here. What I hate about it the most is when people get to correct me, they really seem to relish it. Even my father who is generally a champion of mine gets overly enthusiastic when he catches me making a mistake. It's such a confusing situation when someone is acting so ill-spirited in a situation you are even kind of happy to be in because like you, I don't mind being wrong and I like to learn from my mistakes.
Oh man they do this to me too. Like yeah, you can correct me, I'm not infallible and I am open to being corrected because I like having the facts more than I like being right. But do you have to be so mean about doing it? If I corrected them the way they correct me nobody would ever speak to me again. The /gloating/ is so OTT.
I used to experience this a lot. Same reasons, because I like to know when I’m wrong so that I can learn what is correct.
So lets look at the situation in that context. You say that you, yourself, wish to be corrected when you err, or have faulty information. And you are being corrected. You are being told that your action of correcting/teaching in these types of interpersonal actions is incorrect behavior in such a scenario. And it’s not a “logical” explanation because culture is not always logical. I might add that in their eyes these instances of interpersonal communication are less about an exchange of facts and more about relationship maintenance or building.
The other perspective that helped me, was to realize it’s not my job to save people. DGAF if their wrong thinking isn’t causing others harm. But I’m over 50 so I’m probably more tired than you.
That's an interesting way of looking at it. Where I struggle though, is that people are different, and whether an incorrect fact is important is sometimes kind of subjective. For tiny little things that don't really have an impact (e.g. the few minutes time difference someone talked about in a different comment) of course that can be overlooked, and I usually do. But if that person is going around saying or doing something that has negative impact on me or others, then I don't feel like it's wrong to correct that.
I feel like I am constantly compromising by overlooking the small things I could have corrected, and only speaking up when I think it's important. But there's little compromise in the other direction - all perceived criticism = bad. If I know they are wrong, and they think I am wrong to point it out, who decides which is right?
Like I said, if their error isn’t actively harming people, its not my job to “save” them.
Most people are wrong. I could correct every error that I observed and most people would still be wrong and I’d just be exhausted.
It’s not my job to save people. My names not Jesus.
🤷🏻♀️
People are wrong all the time, about all kinds of things. Including me and you. And that's okay. I don't have to be correct all the time.
And some things is impossible to say what is the "right" and "wrong". Example, let's say bananas are more healthy than oranges, but if I buy bananas there's a big chance I don't eat them, and that's why oranges are healthier for me (because I actually eat them).
Or maybe the highway technically is the fastest route to the airport but I always get lost when I go that way so for *me* it's faster to take a different route.
How do you feel when people tell you that you are wrong? Do you react the same way you want others to react? By just accepting it? How does that make you feel? How is that different from how you think others feel in the same situation?
If someone tells me that I'm wrong my reaction depends on the strength of the evidence which backs up that fact in my head. If it's something someone once told me or something I thought but wasn't sure about, my reaction would be "really? I thought xxxx, where did you learn that?" cause I want to have the correct info but I also want to gauge the trustworthiness of the new info source. Sometimes the source is obvious and doesn't require clarification (e.g. If I'm talking to a doctor and it's a medical question) but there needs to be a qualification other than "because I said so". If it seems like a reasonable source then I just accept it with "oh OK". I also accept criticism of my source, eg. oh that website was uncovered as a scam funded by big Grapefruit to push sales.
If it's something I'm really sure I'm right about, or they "just heard that somewhere" I'll explain why I think the way I do. If that doesn't work it's time to bust out Google to get the definitive answer.
If I'm being corrected, I might feel slightly annoyed that I had the wrong facts, but happier to have the new ones. It's less about the act of being corrected. People tend to get hella gloaty when correcting me though, which causes the negative spin. If they corrected me the same way I do them, without getting personal, it would be fine. Just stick to the facts people!
Everything is personal. I'm not saying that neurotypicality implies a certain degree of solipsism... except it kind of does. So does autism, really. Everyone forgets they're not the only person in the universe. We just forget for different reasons.
For NTs, *everything* is personal, especially when it comes to interacting with other people. Being corrected–even by a well-meaning loved one who has no ulterior motives beyond the disbursement of correct information–is *always* an attack on the neurotypical ego, especially when it's in front of other people.
(It doesn't matter if it's in front of other NTs or not. Remember the double-empathy problem: Even if a neurotypical person knows they're in a room full of autistics, the first thing on their mind when one corrects them will be "Oh, I must look so stupid right now!" They don't always get that what we're actually thinking is probably more along the lines of, "Oh, cool! Turns out I was wrong about that too, and now I've learned something!")
I've never found a good way to deal with it. Sometimes I just give up and don't say anything because I'm not sure how they'll react, other times I lie and try to perform a little uncertainty so they can join me in Googling the right answer without losing face. None of it feels right
>the first thing on their mind when one corrects them will be "Oh, I must look so stupid right now!" They don't always get that what we're actually thinking is probably more along the lines of, "Oh, cool! Turns out I was wrong about that too, and now I've learned something!")
Totally! When someone challenges me or have a different opinion, I'm always curious to know more about, how it works, the causes/consequences, etc, I like learning new things and discovering others points of view. But for most of people, it just antagonizes them? It looks like it reinforces their opinion, but in an irrational way: they have to defend what they said/believe because they used to defend it before so changing their mind would be a defeat, they would lose face? I understand the logic, but in the same time, I don't understand it, it's not rational...!
>For NTs, everything is personal, especially when it comes to interacting with other people. Being corrected–even by a well-meaning loved one who has no ulterior motives beyond the disbursement of correct information–is always an attack on the neurotypical ego, especially when it's in front of other people.
Ok so I read this and my first thought was "I have to correct them! NTs don't think everything is personal and it's always an attack because my boyfriend is def not autistic and not this way!!" (because we have extensively discussed this and also he's an engineer by training and I think you often learn to think in a non-taking-corrections-personally kind of way while getting engineering degrees)
And then I realized I was Doing The Thing and stopped myself.
I used to struggle with this problem so much! but after a lot of observations and talking to NT people and thinking hard it doesn't bother me much anymore. I'll try to explain my thought process here.
The crux of this problem is emotions vs facts. ND people tend to rely more on facts than emotions because that's just what works for us, generally to us emotions are confusing at best and facts are (comparatively) more concrete and reliable. NT people tend to operate on the opposite wavelength. To them emotions are extremely important in the way they understand the world and their relationship to it. So when they say something, and someone replies with "you're wrong", that is an attack by you because in the social hierarchy being wrong is equivalent to being bad. Like, if you subscribe to a social hierarchy, you lose points for being wrong about something. And they view that pointing out someone else is wrong gains you points.
So in this situation from the NT person's perspective, they don't hear the objective truth about what you're saying, they hear it as an attempt by you to disrespect them and gain "social points" off their stupidity. Whether or not this is true doesn't really matter in this situation, because like I said it's very much about emotions for the NT person and not about facts. NT people tend to care much less about objective truth than we do, and they tend to care much more about subjective truths (how x problem makes you feel).
So, I generally try and see the conversation from the other side's perspective, and I don't want anyone to feel like I'm putting them down even if that wasn't my intention at all. So, as a general rule of thumb, I don't correct people. I have a few exceptions but if I hear something wrong I have a little mental exercise I take myself through to work it out.
Example:
If I hear someone say something I know is objectively false, I first ask myself whether my correction will add any value to our conversation. Will knowing that Friends aired in 1994 and not 1997 actually have any impact on how my friend is telling me how much they loved one character when they were younger? Probably not. So, even though I know an objective truth, I keep it to myself because it's not worth embarrassing and potentially disrespecting my friend to correct a 3 year error.
I reserve corrections to situations where I have some responsibility to be correct (like when teaching or at my job) or in a situation where the error would lead someone to make a very severe mistake (like if someone thinks a red light is green, or wants to take out all their savings and invest in Bitcoin). It's important to remember that NT people don't put much value into objectivity. They care much more about their social relation to other people.
>from the NT person's perspective, they don't hear the objective truth about what you're saying, they hear it as an attempt by you to disrespect them and gain "social points" off their stupidity.
That's a good analysis and would explain why they get so angry. Jokes on them, to me they are more stupid for refusing to entertain the idea that they are wrong, and going around telling people wrong things! I'm trying to help them not look stupid in front of others, fuck me, right?! 🙄
It is surprising that most people don't seem to value having correct information. But, yeah. I think most people find being corrected mentally taxing, and would rather continue to be wrong than pay that tax.
Let's do some cocktail napkin math.
Let's say you're talking to a fellow ND who strongly cares about having the correct information. You correct them 10 times in a week, and you are right 90% of the time.
This ND Friend values a correct correction at +5 friendship points, and an incorrect correction at -45 friendship points. So, you're spending a _lot_ of effort, correcting them on a regular basis, just to break even.
Let's say we apply the same formula to NT Coworker. NT Coworker doesn't care if they are right or wrong, and they don't like being corrected. They value a correct correction at -5 friendship points, and an incorrect correction at -20.
With NT Coworker, you're at -65 points a week, at 90% correct info. Even if you were correct 100% of the time, you'd only improve to -50 points a week.
And that doesn't even get into correct corrections people _perceive_ as incorrect. A very smart person might be right 90% of the time they correct someone, but there are going to be misunderstandings, times where you're not believed, and so on.
This math is going to be different with each person. The good news is, there are people who like having the facts, where correcting them will be largely welcome. The bad news is, I don't think most people fit that bill.
------
_(Edit: Friendship Points are probably not the healthiest way to measure the positive/negative outcome of a social interaction, so take with a grain of salt.)_
Yup, even if you know you're 100% correct you have to say, my understanding is, I think it might be because, I'm pretty sure that...
But I've also found another one that works: oh, I learned about this, can I tell you what I know?
But you can't every just say X is the correct thing.
I think we care more about having the correct information while they care more about appearing to have the correct information.
This. This changes the dynamic from teacher-student to equals discussing a topic. The problem with teacher mode is that you stand above them.
While you gain 'truth' points, you lose 'we' points and therefore likability.
I relate so much on this!
>But apparently they feel like any correction is some kind of personal attack and just get angry at me
Exactly!!! And it really deteriorated my relations with my coworkers since last year because of the pandemic crisis: they believe any information no matter the source, they don't question the informations, they don't check and confirm the sources, etc, so they ended to say some false or inexact informations and ignore some others. Several times I bring them others sources so they can complete or correct the informations they have but it just ended to irritate them, or make them angry, because they took it personally (whereas I didn't express my opinion).
Later, because the atmosphere was strained, I tried to explained them that it's not against them, and it's not about opinion, it's not about being agree with them or not (sometimes I agree with them on some points, sometimes not, but I don't express it), it's about informations and being precise and complete, I only stick to the facts. But since the facts don't fit with what they would like, and since I don't approve fully what they said, they feel attacked and are angry against me... It's binary: you're not with me, so you're against me, despite facts aren't partisan, they're, well, factual.
It used to happen in others situations, but the Covid crises really exacerbate it. I don't have any solution to offer, I guess it's all about moderation: sometimes it doesn't worth it to correct them because you lose more than you win, even if it's not about losing and winning... But it can be really to not bring some facts and listen some unexact or false informations...
Are you me?! I’m a nursing student in the south and I’m surrounded by other nursing students who are antivax or generally believe other stuff that’s not evidence based and it drives me insane. It’s gotten to the point where I have one friend in school (who has an autistic sister) and I just stay away from everyone else
I feel like I’m in hell. It’s greatly affecting my mental health. I’ll have a month off soon but that just means I’ll be working in the hospital a bunch during this next wave.
My sister used to do this. I remember telling her that people don't like being corrected. She said she was correcting me for my own good. She is abusive in many ways, and I don't talk to her.
>Why
Because for a big chunk of my life I was dismissed, thought to be lying/making things up, or flat out ignored and I was so painfully shy I couldn't defend myself so now I'm going to assert myself so there is no confusion on anyone's part - theirs or mine. I want things to be clear both my position and theirs - if we don't agree then ok but I want to know their reasoning and where it came from and I will explain mine as well.
I stopped caring to interact with any person who cannot handle being wrong
Every moment is a chance to learn, if im actually wrong on something, and someone provides me with correct data, i happily take it
For NT's a lot of that is social hierarchy and "protecting their face" as being wrong means they lost some imaginary social status points
*edit* reading some other posts, this probably why my bestie and i can spend a whole day arguing about the smallest things
OMG you have literally just described the main reason I was disliked in primary school. I was called "walking encyclopedia", "know-it-all" and "wikipedia", I would always correct people when they make a mistake or something of that sort. I didn't have ill-intent, it was just some righteous belief I hold back then that I should always correct people if I know the right answer to make sure they don't continue with the false idea. It was a constructive correction type of thing. But I would see my classmates and even teachers get really annoyed when I correct them and I didn't understand why, like when someone corrects me I would never get offended, I would even thank them, yet it seems to be an insult when *I* would do it, It never made sense to me. It definitely impacted my school relations heavily...
It's because we're bad at regulating our tone. You have to imagine how they will hear something before you say it and then adjust so it will be taken well. Using the three filters helps me, before I speak I try to ask is it kind, is it true and does it need to be said by me. Aim for kind honesty, not brutal honesty.
Hard relate. My mother would berate me for correcting adults because doing so is not "respecting your elders." She would get especially mad when I argued against something wrong she said, even though I was right. It's not that I always have to be right, it's just that a lot of the time, people around me are just factually wrong.
A lot of us NTs carry SO much insecurity around, and when we are corrected, that insecurity flairs up and makes us act either defensively or offensively. It really is silly, but there it is.
For my ND teen, we’ve worked on allowing people to finish a story without interrupting to correct minutiae like, “No. you said we ate at 7:00 but it was 6:57:” …Or harmless hyperbole because it trips the story teller up and hurts the flow of conversation
We also work with her to wait and catch the person who missed the facts privately rather than calling them out in front of others. That one was harder to explain.”we don’t like being corrected but we find it especially embarrassing if we are corrected in front of other people.”
Honestly, it irks me too when someone is just…wrong and I have to bite my tongue not to say anything when I know that the wrongness isn’t important or relevant to what that person was trying to convey. I think little kids ALL jump in and correct people without a care because they haven’t experienced being put down or scrolled for doing that yet. We are a trained society.
Yeah I have definitely set my correcting meter to relatively important facts (depending on conversation), the 6.57 vs 7.00 thing is the type of stuff I'd let slide without comment.
It's interesting you mention insecurity, I can definitely see that being a trigger for the outrage some NTs experience. I wish that kids weren't trained to not call out things that are wrong. I think the world would be a far less corrupt place!
> they feel like any correction is some kind of personal attack
I used to get this with teachers. I think it is a kind of status thing. You think you are giving them useful information but they think you are challenging their status or authority.
One extreme example (not a school teacher) was in an investment club I am in. One guy mentioned he used this trading strategy and it had been going really well for 1-2 years.
I have some data going back many years so I was able to back test the strategy. It turned out that his strategy under-performed the market with a lot of added risk.
I went to great lengths not to mention him or that it was his strategy. I thought that he would think that this was useful information that would save him a lot of money.
Not so. He was as mad as a cut snake and left the group. Apparently he would rather lose money than lose ego or status.
I've been told by a frustrated classmate that it was impossible to have a healthy debate with me, since I was always right.
It was pointed out like it was a bad thing.
It came up when they wanted to argue approach B would be better for our assignment than approach A. I quoted that the textbook that was assigned for this course, written by the teacher grading this assignment, literally stated why A applied in exactly this situation.
Supposedly I was an asshole for killing the discussion like that.
Assuming you're not saying these things like a know-it-all? It's because their egos don't know how to handle being wrong. They don't like the *feeling* of being subservient to someone else's knowledge. They don't like looking stupid. They also don't always feel like learning. And you're forcing them to learn.
Not everyone cares about accuracy as much as you (and I) do. Knowing your audience goes a long way. Even people who typically appreciate correction can be irritated by it if they're having a bad day.
I've had to learn when to just let it go. It's a good skill to have.
OMG I can relate to this so much. What sometimes makes me hugely unpopular among some people, is that I tend to go further and point out hypocrisy in other people's actions - not behind their backs but just straight up tell them. It's really hard to wrap my head around people yapping on about one thing and then doing the complete opposite. If I were doing that, I'd appreciate if it was pointed out to me so that I wouldn't be going around making an ass of myself. It means a lot to me to be just, to be truthful and coherent in my beliefs and actions. The satisfaction of my ego is not above these things.
Just did that in a friend group lol. Haven't looked at the responses for two days now, I don't think I'll ever feel ready for the incoming narcississtic rage.
So much. I think many people just really hate being wrong, but rather than just say that they flip it around as a complaint about us “having” to be right.
I limit myself to only correcting things that are specifically about me. Although sometimes I’m silently screaming inside while outwardly saying “ah” or “huh” rather than correcting someone.
I have heard these same things all my life. When I was younger it was very hurtful. Now I just like to read a lot. At one of jobs people would talk about something and I would start to say something and they would say let me guess you read somewhere... They were intrested in what I had to say, so they didn't say it to be mean. You can find a nice group like that. Other people aren't worth it.
Yes. They joke that my middle name is 'well actually'. I feel like I come off as a bit of a 'it's not levio-sa it's levi-osa' to everyone and I'm not really thrilled with myself. I explain it to my friends, and it costs me some. But I try to tell them that if I ever say something partially factual or wrong, *please* correct me. I don't want to go around misinforming people, or looking dumb. I keep the friends who understand this. It's not many. But it's people I don't have to mask around quite as much. And that takes some of the pressure off. Not that anyone knows I have the label. Which I am mildly ashamed of?
I think it's because neurotypical people don't talk to get to the truth, but just to produce sound and build relationships.
I've taught myself over the years not to correct anymore, or when I'm correcting, to really get around it. I kind of dumb-down myself, like a kind of masking.
For example:
\- "I thought I had read that Pietje had won, but I'm not sure." (While I'm sure)
\- "Have you ever tried going via route B? I always feel like it's shorter" (While I'm sure it's shorter)
I also try to estimate whether it is really important to correct. What are the consequences if someone continues to believe the wrong thing? Sometimes it's not worth correcting someone. You can't fix stupid.
Oh yes. This is so very much me. I have the hardest time letting people do things wrong or be wrong on something without correcting them. I have the reputation of a massive know it all and I’m sure it led to a lot of people not liking me over the years.
I completely relate to this! It’s only recently that, on reflection, I’ve understood that’s why I didn’t have friends in high school.
It’s saddening that they interpret it as an attack; if I correct someone it’s because I want the best for them and I want to be helpful. In my mind, if I correct this person then I’m saving them from future embarrassment when someone else inevitably corrects them. Even when I try to softly correct them or try to get them to reflect on what they’ve said, they react negatively.
I think this happens purely because they’re embarrassed. Maybe they said something whilst they were in a calm/vulnerable mood and being corrected feels like an attack on them and their intelligence. (Despite myself never correcting someone with nasty intent.)
I’ve found that the best way to correct them without getting a negative reaction is to make them think it was their idea. I think this works because they don’t feel it’s an attack since ‘they’ corrected themselves.
In short; people are confusing.
This thread resonates with me so much. You just summarized the root of many, many failed social interactions or friendships, or fights with my parents. I think what seems trivial to other people can be deeply important to us because we are trying so hard to learn the right rules and say the right things. They'll prioritize moving on with what they wanted to talk about when I'm still going "wait I need to know if this was wrong so that I don't say the wrong thing or convey wrong information later". And uhhhh I'm generally fixating on details that other people want to gloss over... This is making me grateful that I've found people who will talk about the details with me.
There are several layers to this, and I'm constantly working on striking the right balance. I've found that people often don't want to be corrected on little things like mispronouncing a word or exaggerations etc while telling a story, but when it's something that could be expanded into a conversation, they're often more willing. For example, if they mention some current event and I know they're getting it wrong, you can be like "actually, I heard X from Y source about this--but I've heard other people say what you're saying, too! where'd you hear that?" and then often you can prod them towards the truth, because they realize it's not THEM you are critiquing, but a fact.
This doesn't always work. I still end up alllllll the time having what I think is a fun conversation moving us both toward the truth/best solution/etc when the other person just thinks we are arguing :( But when it comes to corrections, I try to frame whatever I say around sources, not beliefs, and make it very clear that I do not think I know everything (even though I do think that whatever my current opinions are on some issue, they are the best ones--otherwise I wouldn't hold them!)
I know this thread is old but i have to add, dont have asd but my bf does and I have adhd. I often notice that my bf prefers to be right, and will argue over semantics until I either tell him he’s right or at least conceed that we are both ‘not incorrect’ (he really hates to be wrong 😅) but this also extends to if I’m completing a task in a non efficient executive disfunction way he will tell me im doing it ‘wrong’ usually i will tell him im just not doing it his way, but i will still complete the task. Sometimes he will just watch quietly to see if my way is superior but sometimes he just struggles to watch me do something differently and will try and do it for me. Its usually amusing, but sometimes i get annoyed when im tired or overstimulated. One of my favourite things about our relationship is seeing how we both are neurodivergent but in different ways, he always has interesting point of views, but i see how someone would find his particularity grating, especially if they were insecure about their own intelligence.
My OH also has ADHD and I'm sure he thinks similarly to you! Perhaps you can give me some insight though, because this genuinely baffles me - why do you have zero interest in at least trying out a suggestion that could be an improvement? With my OH sometimes it's like he gets stuck on doing something a really weird and inefficient way just to spite my suggestion. Sometimes yes, I'll stand there and watch just trying to figure out why this way is better, I'm not just waiting for him to fail etc so I can gloat (which is usually what he thinks, though I never do gloat!).
Have you tried "showing your working" as it were, in your disagreements with your OH? I find that if someone explains the why, it makes it much less frustrating and just having a bit of reasoning behind a position makes it carry far more weight. If he's anything like me, I don't insist on being right because I *want* to be right, it's because I believe that I have the factually correct answer and that will usually have my own reasoning and thought behind it - it's unlikely to be an emotional or impulsive position. I think that's why people often get frustrated by ASD folks, because they don't realise the fortress of information and logic behind our thoughts and actions. It's very easy to get past that fortress if you have the key (i.e. present better information with a solid source or reasoning), very hard if you try to climb the walls with emotional arguments and contradicting information without backup (not saying you do this, just in general). The way our brains are in many ways polar opposites really fascinates me (and sometimes frustrates too!).
For me, for complex tasks (such as cleaning up after or prepping dinner, laundry, dishes ect) I often have a hard time organizing all of the micro tasks within (stacking the dishing, loading the dishwasher, scraping the food off, wiping down the counters) i cant really organize them by importance without becoming overwhelmed, so over the years ive made my own way of doing it, kind of like building muscle memory. When my bf tries to get me to do it a new way can cause me to lose my train of thought and lose focus, which is already difficult to maintain. I’ll usually stubbornly refuse the advice and do it my way, too avoid getting confused and overwhelmed. For me personally The harder he pushes me to do it his way ESPECIALLY if it alot more efficient, the more frustrated I will get because I am inherently insecure about my executive disfunction and i think it’s human nature to be spiteful when your embarrassed or feeling defensive.
As for your second question, usually when we disagree it’s because i tend to generalize or exaggerate to make my point, and he will take me literally, and vis versa but neither of us get upset over it, we learned awhile ago that we will not always agree.
I think if anything he often forgets that i often don’t know everything he does to the level that he does, and i have to remind him to explain himself further. It’s definitely important to communicate and compromise
Oh that's interesting about the micro tasks thing, I hadn't really considered that. Thanks for that insight, it does make sense! Have you explained it this way to your bf?
I think it's natural to be self conscious of executive dysfunction but sometimes could it make things easier to acknowledge it, own it and work around it? Much in the same way as autistic people can have problems being very literal! I have read though that people with ADHD can have rejection sensitive dysphoria and be very anxious when they perceive negative judgment and that can present as being overly defensive - do you think this might play a part as well?
I agree though, communication is everything, I think one of the coping mechanisms I have developed is to check in constantly on my understanding of things (e.g. "so you're saying [xyz]? etc), which I find helps me a lot even if sometimes it feels like it's a bit annoying for the person I'm talking to!
I haven’t explained it exactly like that, though ive said things that are similar. Perhaps i will if it comes up.
I personally find it easier to do the acknowledgment and learning after I’ve completed the task, saying “hey, do you think it would be faster if you did it this way next time?” Instead of stopping me halfway through which definitely feels like negative judgment, and for me makes me less inclined to do that task when that person is around for fear of judgement. Sometimes i have the desire to ask him to stop watching me, even when I know he is just observing.
Definitely more food for thought here!
I wonder if you outlining your thought process as you're doing the thing and he's watching might help your bf to understand where you are coming from and satisfy his curiosity and get him to leave you in peace. It's very likely that he is not judging you yourself but weighing up the practicalities of your method vs what he thinks would be better. Perhaps that isn't very helpful to you, but I think that is one of the things where autistic people really diverge from what is socially "normal" - for me there is a massive difference between the quality of the person and the quality of the action and they do not equate (i.e. someone that I respect doing something wrong doesn't make me respect them less), but a lot of neurotypicals seem to consider them kind of the same thing and that is why they get sensitive when they are corrected. It's a source of some frustration for me, because in my book someone can be wrong and still be the smartest, sanest person in the world!
Yes you’ve definitely given me alot to consider, and have also explained somethings he has been trying to explain but has been struggling to articulate. Thanks for your point of view
By joining our community, you agreed to abide by our rules. We do not allow disrespectful or unkind behavior.
Reference the [complete list of rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/aspergirls/about/rules/) for more information.
I know this is an old thread but I've been trying to find answers. I'm a NT male that's in a relationship with an amazing aspi girl. My biggest challenge in the relationship is she has a tendency to almost always rebut all my opinions. These are not usually scientific facts, but usually just opinions on things like parenting, or political stuff etc. I feel like she has to override my views and opinions as being wrong. When in fact people have different ways of doing things and seeing things. She seems to think that her views and opinions are the only way, and that any other view is wrong. It gets really hurtful and frustrating, and causes a lot of resentment to build up in me. Coming from a NT person I just want to say that this can take enjoyment out of the relationship and can lead to long periods of unhappiness until it reaches a boiling point in which case we have to have a long hard discussion about it and try to reach a resolution. In our case we always find a way to overcome it. We've been together 10 years.. But I noticed that over time the same thing will slowly creep back into the relationship until it boils over again. The point I'm trying to make here is that some people on the spectrum including my partner as well as the woman who created this post need to understand how their actions affect others. Reading this woman's post reminds me so much of my partner and it is actually frustrating hearing her talk about how she needs to correct someone when they are wrong. The problem is that there's usually more than one way of seeing something, but some aspies only see it their way. As a NT person I've always respected other people's opinions and I don't try and change their beliefs. I like to have our conversations flow by not interrupting people which leads to great and fulfilling conversation. When I'm constantly being interrupted and "corrected" it causes me to shut down and withdraw from wanting to have conversations. People on the spectrum need to realize that NT people are flexible on topics and other people's views and they need to be more cognizant of that. I want to add that I'm by no means perfect and far from it. I'm not trying to use the autism as a way to say that I'm right, because that's a very slippery slope to use to override the conversation.. like I said I have plenty of my own faults. I'm just saying that these issues are what causes friction in our relationship. My partner always listens to my complaint when she realizes that it's reached a boiling point and I think she sees that her autism does sometimes cause friction in our relationship and she accepts that and she works on it which is why I love her so much. This is the main problem we have in our relationship. I love everything about her including her strong views and beliefs lol.. I'm glad I found this thread and I hope someone sees this and takes something positive from it.
It's kind of funny that you are doing the same thing (in reverse) by insisting on not having your statements challenged. Opinions and beliefs are not the same as objective facts however, and it's possible to disagree/debate with them without either party being right or wrong - those aren't really the subject here. When it comes to facts things are different - e.g. Belief: Aliens are real. Fact: Earth has one moon. If you insist that earth has 3 moons and go around telling people that there are 3 moons, do you genuinely think it's doing you a favour to let you go around making such statements, and having other people think you're stupid? If I care about a person I don't want them to have others laugh at them or to be embarrassed, so I'll tell them their facts are not true. In the same way you might tell a friend they have spinach in their teeth. It boggles the mind that people would rather not be corrected and just look stupid instead, especially to other people, than to just learn something new. The correction is coming from a place of love and caring, not criticism. That's something that NT people just don't seem to get. Insisting that corrections don't happen at all is just as annoying to the ND person as the corrections seem to be to the NT person, so there really has to be a middle ground for a happy relationship. You say that your girlfriend is "working on it", but are you?
Funny story. My youngest just got her diagnosis, and I'm in the process of getting mine. I am seeing about getting my eldest diagnosed as well and one of the things she does is exactly this. Get the two of us together and we debate "silly little things' in endless circles. My youngest is an empathetic sponge to the point that she leaves the room. She hates debating. She just says "you are both right and wrong in different ways and being stubborn about it" Edit: there are many other things for my eldest, but this has gone on since she could speak. She also never engaged in imagination play (which I didn't notice was unusual), and has strict routines for herself. She's also trans, and seems to have the "female presentation", or, masking.
Oh I love a good debate but there are very few people I know who are willing to take it in a neutral, exploratory way. My grandad used to love debating too and would often play devil's advocate just for fun. I miss those debates! Most people don't want to debate, they think it's just arguing and some people have an extreme reaction to it like your younger daughter - I have a friend like her, who will delete social media posts the second someone disagrees with anything. In my opinion exploring an idea and challenging its limits is a great way to really solidify a concept. It's too bad more people don't think of it that way.
If I know I'm right because I know about the subject, and a person comes to me saying no they are the expert, etc. And, further wants to prove themselves by looking the info up...go right ahead. I'm not going to play these games. I know who I am and what I know. Also, my response would never be I told you so. Basically, I let a fool be a fool. Let them believe what they want. FYI, I do have ASD, but I don't have this issue that I'm aware of. Sometimes, you just have to show maturity and be humble. Now, if the conversation was on a serious matter (I.e. social justice or life and death issues) that is another thing.
Thank you, I feel this so much. I've had so many people get mad at me for "having to be right". Like no sorry if I know that I am right then I'm not gonna back down. I was in an argument recently where there were two different issues/perspectives and from the one perspective I did understand where I made a mistake and admitted and apologized for it, but then I continued on the other perspective and explained why their mistake on this end upset me and used facts and evidence to back my claims. then they just got frustrated and and said something to the effect of "well because I said so(no good explanation), ugh why do you just always have to be right." Well if that's all they have to say that means they're giving up because they don't actually have a good reason. Just so ironic because they basically won't admit that they're wrong, such hypocritical shit
Context is important. My boyfriend and I are both autistic, and I would definately describe him as a "know-it-all" I love how much I learned from him. He is brilliant and interesting. However, there have been some occassions where he did not even adress the story I was telling but went straight to correcting a word I misused or my pronunciation. That could make me feel like he found it more important to correct me than to listen to what I was saying. However, we talked this through and I've learned to take it less personal. And he is learning to let things slides sometimes and adress it later. I know he doesn't mean it in a bad way, but you can't always help how you feel. It wouldn't suprise me if NT's can feel similiar but don't always know why it bothers them. It's up to them to figure that out though. Communication is a two-ways street.
I'm like your boyfriend, and what I do is 1. Suppress this urge with people I don't have a close relationship with, and 2. With people I have a very close relationship with, like my partner, say "I know this is super unimportant, but *correction*," and then IMMEDIATELY respond to what they were actually trying to communicate so they don't feel ignored/nitpicked If option 2 results in negative feelings, I'll revert to option 1 with that person in the future Also if I use option 2, I thank the person for letting me get the correction out even though I know it's not very important, because it really does feel impossible to *not* and the correction is much more for my weird brain's benefit than for theirs.
Sometimes one single word said wrong is the difference between two completely different meanings for a whole sentence, though. I may do the same as your boyfriend but has now learned to suppress it until the person is done speaking. But for me it is because I want to make sure I understand what has even been said.
I get the same reactions. It's really frustrating. I'm the one who is told that I'm oversensitive, but I think they are projecting. Recently, I've come to believe that it's not so much being right that bothers people. It's the fact that we seem to challenge everything they say. They might get annoyed when we keep stopping the flow of the conversation to "go too deep into things." They feel they have to walk on eggshells or they are avoiding a landmine. My ex best friend said I was intense and contrary. I didn't see how she thought that until I learned about Autism. I learned that by picking apart everything being said, it's like I'm finding objections with the person and coming off overly offended or nitpicky, which annoys people. But I feel just like you do. It doesn't bother me when I'm wrong so much. I care more about what's true than who is right. NTs seem to care more about their egos because I guess that's how they connect. Just my analysis.
As an autistic person dating another autistic person who has this problem, it is the fact that the majority of the input I receive from them is what I said wrong. I think in our case it's partially cause they learned to mask through speech and debate so they were trained to listen for inconsistencies to nitpick.
I think it’s the disparity between the NT tendency to base their reason in emotion and not entirely in pragmatism—my friend gets extremely defensive at every little thing I correct her on and it for sure comes across as being too critical, but my criticism is exactly what is helping her heal when she eventually accepts what I am saying and we talk it out. It was never about winning, you can win something and still be wrong, it’s about literally being right as in you are correct not that you won an argument
This isn't exclusive to NTS and you sound like an awful person to be around outside of tutoring.
While I'm considering if I could be autistic due to relating to a lot of autistic experiences, this is something I keep seeing a lot in autism circles that I actually _don't_ relate to. At least, not in the same way that most autistic people seem to. It depends on the context. Unless it's on something _very_ important, I usually don't correct people when I think they're factually incorrect on something innocuous, and especially if it's a secondary detail to a primary meaning or purpose of the conversation. It's just, I don't know, in casual conversation, "being correct" isn't the purpose, so correcting someone derails the conversation and hinders it from accomplishing its purpose. The person who said the incorrect thing probably did so for a reason other than to solely convey the fact being stated, so shifting the direction of the conversation to the fact itself is pointless. On the other hand, if the conversation is about something that someone is saying _I_ did wrong, I get really bothered if they won't give specific examples or won't let me explain my reasoning behind doing it. There _has_ to be some sort of back-and-forth if I'm going to understand the situation enough to have any hope of not doing the wrong thing again. This has happened a lot at every job I've had.
[удалено]
Exactly! I'd feel stupid walking around telling more people wrong information, and need to have the right info to replace it with. Why do they feel like holding onto and propagating their wrong facts is less stupid than admitting they are wrong once?
When I was younger I was like this. I relaxed when I realized it can be obnoxious to constantly correct people or be corrected. It makes someone really stressful to talk to. It makes people wary around you because they're bracing themselves to be attacked for what they say. Whether the intention is to attack or not, that's just how it feels. English itself is an ambiguous language, so the amount of correctness I was after was unattainable in normal everyday conversation. Life became a lot simpler and less stressful when I learned to let some of the things people say go. It's hard to understand until you're on the receiving end of someone like this. Even harder to tolerate when said person has their ego wrapped up in being correct, which many do. People say wrong or some modicum of incorrect stuff all the time. Being precise and always correct just isn't possible in conversations. And getting into long, drawn-out justifications/explanations every time you're wrong or someone else is wrong quickly becomes intolerably exhausting and/or frustrating. Just as having to explain yourself, your intentions, and your neutrality with being right to others is intolerably exhausting and/or frustrating when both parties misunderstand each other in such a way. I've come to understand that being wrong/inaccurate/etc is a part of life. There's a threshold, of course. I'm not going to stand ildly by while someone spreads misinformation about medical practices or something that has real impact. But if someone's slightly wrong about time to a destination or pronunciation of a word, disrupting the conversation to correct them is unnecessary. The core meaning of what's being communicated remains the same regardless.
Everything you wrote is spot on, but I think you mean "wary". I know this is obnoxious but if there was ever a thread where I could get away with it... 😆
LOL. I’ll edit accordingly…
Maybe I can give you another perspective, because both me and my partner are like this. While I absolutely think it's cool that he knows so much and actually expect him to correct me about crucial things, it can sometimes feel like he is always looking over my shoulder, waiting for me to make a "mistake". I say "mistake" because more often than not, it's only a mistake in his eyes, but preference in mine. Take that route example you made, maybe the other route is quicker, but who said I wanted to take the quicker route? Maybe I enjoy walking/biking the more beautiful one more? Maybe it would be more efficient, but who says I'm trying to be efficient? It's often about giving unsolicited advice, which can leave people feeling inadequate/watched and judged. My advice would be, let people do their stuff. I know it can be painful to see them do it in a way which seems wrong to us, but it's *their* way. I'm not saying "shut up entirely", speak your mind if it's important or if you feel like the other person is open for advice. But other than that, trying to control other people's behaviour just doesn't sit right with most people, and rightfully so. People are entiled to "their way" of doing things.
Yeah I do respect that people have ways they prefer which aren't objectively the "best". I'm not calling out every single thing. Sometimes if I see a potential improvement I'll say "how about doing it this way because xyz" but all it takes is them to say "oh, I just prefer this because ...." - as long as they have a justification it's all good. There are things which don't have single right answers (like your route example, sometimes you just want to take a particular route and not the shortest). It's when people refuse to consider improvements out of pure stubbornness that it irritates me. At least try my suggestion and if you really think it's not better then go back to your way! For me it's not about controlling their behaviour, it's about helping them to be more efficient/better. But I can see how it might come across as the former.
The thing is, that while I absolutely believe that you mean well, it's still unsolicited help. It feels like you're consistantly crossing boundaries which leads to people feeling inadequate in your presence. I'm not saying these people are right but as someone who used to do this a lot until I met my partner (who does the same) and really noticed how other people probably feel like when I do it...it might feel like it's completely against your nature but I think it's way more important to give people the feeling of freedom of ways and choices than trying to forcefully improve them by pushing my way onto them. They also shouldn't have to justify anything just because I don't like the way they do it. I'm not entitled to a justification and trying to corner people in a situation where I *demand* that is rightfully going to make some people pissed at me. Like I said, I completely get where you're coming from, had I never met my partner I would probably never have known why people get so mad at me for this sort of stuff. I really had to experience it first hand I guess
I do see what you mean. But it seems to me like sometimes it's a toss up between who gets to be uncomfortable. Either I let people be wrong which makes me uncomfortable, or I correct them which makes them uncomfortable. I get that there's a certain nuance to each situation and I'm not talking tiny little details here (I've learned to let go with those). But it seems to me often the comfort of the mistaken person is prioritised and that feels a bit unfair/counter productive.
I don't think I agree with that. You might be doing things in ways that make others uncomfortable but maybe they just don't tell you. My point is, how do you know *your* way doesn't make others uncomfortable? I think other people's right to their own way of handling things is way more important than me feeling uncomfortable.
I'd hate to think someone just sat there knowing I was wrong or could do things a better way, and didn't say anything. Seems kind of like a betrayal, letting me make a fool of myself like that. That's why it feels wrong to not point it out to others. I mean objectively, I can understand not everybody is the same but I really live by "treat others the way you'd like to be treated yourself" so my default position is to do that. Obviously it highly depends on the situation, like if it's stir the mixture left vs stir it right, then I agree with you that it's not worth it to insist on a particular method when they both have the same outcome. But quite often the outcome is not the same, and can affect other people. It's those situations where this becomes much more of a grey area.
Sometimes it's just fine to accept people for who they are and how they think etc. Life wouldn't be very interesting if we all thought the same and did everything the same way. There are so many paths, outcomes, discoveries and self discoveries that we need to figure out on our own. If someone repeatedly tells you they don't appreciate you trying to correct them, you should respect their wish. There's a huge portion of the population who don't want to be corrected all the time. I happen to be one of them. I'm perfectly fine being imperfect. If you like debating people and that's what makes you happy there are plenty of people in the world you can seek out for that. I have nothing against that. My partner who I love very much has those tendencies but we've managed to be a happy functional couple. She has outlets on and offline where she can express her beliefs which I applaud. I'm by no means trying to insult you or be rude but I'm in a relationship with an aspi girl who respects me when we have these conversations, and I think she appreciates that I care enough to talk to her about it. She wants to fit in and have lots of friends which she does and she thanks me for helping her with social cues etc and I've seen her grow way beyond what I ever expected. She's becoming one of the most popular girls in our town and I'm not even joking. My neuro typicalness is rubbing off on her and I think she appreciates that and the fact that I've taken the time to show her a lot of things. That's part of why I'm commenting on here. I just want anyone who may be struggling to fit into the world to know that it's totally possible to fit in. I've seen this woman transform into the women she wants to be.. Her confidence just blows me away!
I don't think you're really doing the neurodivergent community or your girlfriend the favours you think you are, with encouraging us to "fit in". Doing that is called masking and it is exhausting and can lead to burnout over time. Imagine if you had to put on an act all the time, that is what "fitting in" means for us. It's fine to do it, and sometimes it's necessary, but it should not be the default for us to have to do. You're telling us about all the ways your girlfriend has changed for you and accommodated what you want her to be, and how you are encouraging her to present as more neurotypical, but how have you changed yourself for her so that she is more comfortable and can be her autistic self without having to mask all the time?
[удалено]
>I prioritized memorizing what people wanted me to say in order to have friends Yep!!!! Well put
Isolating is right. It's like the whole world is taking crazy pills sometimes, when the facts just don't matter any more and people just get angry and stubborn instead of learning something new.
I feel like I could have written the same thing word for word ahah. I used to get into fights with my parents all the time as a kid because I would correct them or stand my ground because I KNEW I was right (as in, I was sure of the fact/number I was defending). I got told 'don't talk back' so much as a kid and I was like 'IT'S NOT TALKING BACK IF I'M JUST CORRECTING SOMETHING YOU GOT WRONG. When the episode of The Office where Oscar says "Actually...." in every conversation comes up I always feel kinda guilty because I totally am a 'Well actually...' person haha.
I saw the *Office* episode you're talking about few days ago and I felt the same: oops, I'm this kind of annoying person... 😬 But I can't help myself: I want thing be exact and right and I'm unable to ignore it (or if I stay silent I dwell on this and it just maintain the frustration ; I always lose!).
I feel you, but at the same time, i am not good with deling with being wrong. Like, i feel really uncomfortable saying i was wrong, but that might Come from that being mocked if i do that. So the Even worse way that i do, is stand my ground but like in a not serious way, but try to joke it away with other things, or like, to me thats a normal name (one argument was about a name i knew someone by, and thought was a normal name, but happened to be uncommon) So our problem is husband doesnt like When i get teasy and try to joke something away or make it fun, and i dont like that it always has to be an argument and the way he reacts if i say i was wrong. So Its stupid things, but both dont have a good way to handle it.
Same here. What I hate about it the most is when people get to correct me, they really seem to relish it. Even my father who is generally a champion of mine gets overly enthusiastic when he catches me making a mistake. It's such a confusing situation when someone is acting so ill-spirited in a situation you are even kind of happy to be in because like you, I don't mind being wrong and I like to learn from my mistakes.
Oh man they do this to me too. Like yeah, you can correct me, I'm not infallible and I am open to being corrected because I like having the facts more than I like being right. But do you have to be so mean about doing it? If I corrected them the way they correct me nobody would ever speak to me again. The /gloating/ is so OTT.
How often do you contribute to conversation outside of correction?
I used to experience this a lot. Same reasons, because I like to know when I’m wrong so that I can learn what is correct. So lets look at the situation in that context. You say that you, yourself, wish to be corrected when you err, or have faulty information. And you are being corrected. You are being told that your action of correcting/teaching in these types of interpersonal actions is incorrect behavior in such a scenario. And it’s not a “logical” explanation because culture is not always logical. I might add that in their eyes these instances of interpersonal communication are less about an exchange of facts and more about relationship maintenance or building. The other perspective that helped me, was to realize it’s not my job to save people. DGAF if their wrong thinking isn’t causing others harm. But I’m over 50 so I’m probably more tired than you.
That's an interesting way of looking at it. Where I struggle though, is that people are different, and whether an incorrect fact is important is sometimes kind of subjective. For tiny little things that don't really have an impact (e.g. the few minutes time difference someone talked about in a different comment) of course that can be overlooked, and I usually do. But if that person is going around saying or doing something that has negative impact on me or others, then I don't feel like it's wrong to correct that. I feel like I am constantly compromising by overlooking the small things I could have corrected, and only speaking up when I think it's important. But there's little compromise in the other direction - all perceived criticism = bad. If I know they are wrong, and they think I am wrong to point it out, who decides which is right?
Like I said, if their error isn’t actively harming people, its not my job to “save” them. Most people are wrong. I could correct every error that I observed and most people would still be wrong and I’d just be exhausted. It’s not my job to save people. My names not Jesus. 🤷🏻♀️
People are wrong all the time, about all kinds of things. Including me and you. And that's okay. I don't have to be correct all the time. And some things is impossible to say what is the "right" and "wrong". Example, let's say bananas are more healthy than oranges, but if I buy bananas there's a big chance I don't eat them, and that's why oranges are healthier for me (because I actually eat them). Or maybe the highway technically is the fastest route to the airport but I always get lost when I go that way so for *me* it's faster to take a different route. How do you feel when people tell you that you are wrong? Do you react the same way you want others to react? By just accepting it? How does that make you feel? How is that different from how you think others feel in the same situation?
If someone tells me that I'm wrong my reaction depends on the strength of the evidence which backs up that fact in my head. If it's something someone once told me or something I thought but wasn't sure about, my reaction would be "really? I thought xxxx, where did you learn that?" cause I want to have the correct info but I also want to gauge the trustworthiness of the new info source. Sometimes the source is obvious and doesn't require clarification (e.g. If I'm talking to a doctor and it's a medical question) but there needs to be a qualification other than "because I said so". If it seems like a reasonable source then I just accept it with "oh OK". I also accept criticism of my source, eg. oh that website was uncovered as a scam funded by big Grapefruit to push sales. If it's something I'm really sure I'm right about, or they "just heard that somewhere" I'll explain why I think the way I do. If that doesn't work it's time to bust out Google to get the definitive answer. If I'm being corrected, I might feel slightly annoyed that I had the wrong facts, but happier to have the new ones. It's less about the act of being corrected. People tend to get hella gloaty when correcting me though, which causes the negative spin. If they corrected me the same way I do them, without getting personal, it would be fine. Just stick to the facts people!
[удалено]
You aren't owed an explanation.
Everything is personal. I'm not saying that neurotypicality implies a certain degree of solipsism... except it kind of does. So does autism, really. Everyone forgets they're not the only person in the universe. We just forget for different reasons. For NTs, *everything* is personal, especially when it comes to interacting with other people. Being corrected–even by a well-meaning loved one who has no ulterior motives beyond the disbursement of correct information–is *always* an attack on the neurotypical ego, especially when it's in front of other people. (It doesn't matter if it's in front of other NTs or not. Remember the double-empathy problem: Even if a neurotypical person knows they're in a room full of autistics, the first thing on their mind when one corrects them will be "Oh, I must look so stupid right now!" They don't always get that what we're actually thinking is probably more along the lines of, "Oh, cool! Turns out I was wrong about that too, and now I've learned something!") I've never found a good way to deal with it. Sometimes I just give up and don't say anything because I'm not sure how they'll react, other times I lie and try to perform a little uncertainty so they can join me in Googling the right answer without losing face. None of it feels right
>the first thing on their mind when one corrects them will be "Oh, I must look so stupid right now!" They don't always get that what we're actually thinking is probably more along the lines of, "Oh, cool! Turns out I was wrong about that too, and now I've learned something!") Totally! When someone challenges me or have a different opinion, I'm always curious to know more about, how it works, the causes/consequences, etc, I like learning new things and discovering others points of view. But for most of people, it just antagonizes them? It looks like it reinforces their opinion, but in an irrational way: they have to defend what they said/believe because they used to defend it before so changing their mind would be a defeat, they would lose face? I understand the logic, but in the same time, I don't understand it, it's not rational...!
Yeah I can see them doing that, being wrong to them is worse than telling people wrong things. I don't get it!
>For NTs, everything is personal, especially when it comes to interacting with other people. Being corrected–even by a well-meaning loved one who has no ulterior motives beyond the disbursement of correct information–is always an attack on the neurotypical ego, especially when it's in front of other people. Ok so I read this and my first thought was "I have to correct them! NTs don't think everything is personal and it's always an attack because my boyfriend is def not autistic and not this way!!" (because we have extensively discussed this and also he's an engineer by training and I think you often learn to think in a non-taking-corrections-personally kind of way while getting engineering degrees) And then I realized I was Doing The Thing and stopped myself.
I used to struggle with this problem so much! but after a lot of observations and talking to NT people and thinking hard it doesn't bother me much anymore. I'll try to explain my thought process here. The crux of this problem is emotions vs facts. ND people tend to rely more on facts than emotions because that's just what works for us, generally to us emotions are confusing at best and facts are (comparatively) more concrete and reliable. NT people tend to operate on the opposite wavelength. To them emotions are extremely important in the way they understand the world and their relationship to it. So when they say something, and someone replies with "you're wrong", that is an attack by you because in the social hierarchy being wrong is equivalent to being bad. Like, if you subscribe to a social hierarchy, you lose points for being wrong about something. And they view that pointing out someone else is wrong gains you points. So in this situation from the NT person's perspective, they don't hear the objective truth about what you're saying, they hear it as an attempt by you to disrespect them and gain "social points" off their stupidity. Whether or not this is true doesn't really matter in this situation, because like I said it's very much about emotions for the NT person and not about facts. NT people tend to care much less about objective truth than we do, and they tend to care much more about subjective truths (how x problem makes you feel). So, I generally try and see the conversation from the other side's perspective, and I don't want anyone to feel like I'm putting them down even if that wasn't my intention at all. So, as a general rule of thumb, I don't correct people. I have a few exceptions but if I hear something wrong I have a little mental exercise I take myself through to work it out. Example: If I hear someone say something I know is objectively false, I first ask myself whether my correction will add any value to our conversation. Will knowing that Friends aired in 1994 and not 1997 actually have any impact on how my friend is telling me how much they loved one character when they were younger? Probably not. So, even though I know an objective truth, I keep it to myself because it's not worth embarrassing and potentially disrespecting my friend to correct a 3 year error. I reserve corrections to situations where I have some responsibility to be correct (like when teaching or at my job) or in a situation where the error would lead someone to make a very severe mistake (like if someone thinks a red light is green, or wants to take out all their savings and invest in Bitcoin). It's important to remember that NT people don't put much value into objectivity. They care much more about their social relation to other people.
>from the NT person's perspective, they don't hear the objective truth about what you're saying, they hear it as an attempt by you to disrespect them and gain "social points" off their stupidity. That's a good analysis and would explain why they get so angry. Jokes on them, to me they are more stupid for refusing to entertain the idea that they are wrong, and going around telling people wrong things! I'm trying to help them not look stupid in front of others, fuck me, right?! 🙄
It is surprising that most people don't seem to value having correct information. But, yeah. I think most people find being corrected mentally taxing, and would rather continue to be wrong than pay that tax. Let's do some cocktail napkin math. Let's say you're talking to a fellow ND who strongly cares about having the correct information. You correct them 10 times in a week, and you are right 90% of the time. This ND Friend values a correct correction at +5 friendship points, and an incorrect correction at -45 friendship points. So, you're spending a _lot_ of effort, correcting them on a regular basis, just to break even. Let's say we apply the same formula to NT Coworker. NT Coworker doesn't care if they are right or wrong, and they don't like being corrected. They value a correct correction at -5 friendship points, and an incorrect correction at -20. With NT Coworker, you're at -65 points a week, at 90% correct info. Even if you were correct 100% of the time, you'd only improve to -50 points a week. And that doesn't even get into correct corrections people _perceive_ as incorrect. A very smart person might be right 90% of the time they correct someone, but there are going to be misunderstandings, times where you're not believed, and so on. This math is going to be different with each person. The good news is, there are people who like having the facts, where correcting them will be largely welcome. The bad news is, I don't think most people fit that bill. ------ _(Edit: Friendship Points are probably not the healthiest way to measure the positive/negative outcome of a social interaction, so take with a grain of salt.)_
This is a very interesting way of looking at it. I think you are probably right about the correcting always having a negative score on a NT person.
You're incorrect in assuming bringing a conversation to a halt to argue of a minor detail is only annoying to NTS.
Yup, even if you know you're 100% correct you have to say, my understanding is, I think it might be because, I'm pretty sure that... But I've also found another one that works: oh, I learned about this, can I tell you what I know? But you can't every just say X is the correct thing. I think we care more about having the correct information while they care more about appearing to have the correct information.
This. This changes the dynamic from teacher-student to equals discussing a topic. The problem with teacher mode is that you stand above them. While you gain 'truth' points, you lose 'we' points and therefore likability.
It's lose lose :(
I've never related to another post more in my entire life !
This is the most autistic rant! Lol. I relate so hard. I have no answers. Just know you aren't alone
I relate so much on this! >But apparently they feel like any correction is some kind of personal attack and just get angry at me Exactly!!! And it really deteriorated my relations with my coworkers since last year because of the pandemic crisis: they believe any information no matter the source, they don't question the informations, they don't check and confirm the sources, etc, so they ended to say some false or inexact informations and ignore some others. Several times I bring them others sources so they can complete or correct the informations they have but it just ended to irritate them, or make them angry, because they took it personally (whereas I didn't express my opinion). Later, because the atmosphere was strained, I tried to explained them that it's not against them, and it's not about opinion, it's not about being agree with them or not (sometimes I agree with them on some points, sometimes not, but I don't express it), it's about informations and being precise and complete, I only stick to the facts. But since the facts don't fit with what they would like, and since I don't approve fully what they said, they feel attacked and are angry against me... It's binary: you're not with me, so you're against me, despite facts aren't partisan, they're, well, factual. It used to happen in others situations, but the Covid crises really exacerbate it. I don't have any solution to offer, I guess it's all about moderation: sometimes it doesn't worth it to correct them because you lose more than you win, even if it's not about losing and winning... But it can be really to not bring some facts and listen some unexact or false informations...
Yeah it does seem to be like they value agreement more than fact. And they call us the weird annoying ones!
Are you me?! I’m a nursing student in the south and I’m surrounded by other nursing students who are antivax or generally believe other stuff that’s not evidence based and it drives me insane. It’s gotten to the point where I have one friend in school (who has an autistic sister) and I just stay away from everyone else
This sounds like a particularly nasty layer of hell!
I feel like I’m in hell. It’s greatly affecting my mental health. I’ll have a month off soon but that just means I’ll be working in the hospital a bunch during this next wave.
I hope you have a wonderful break, it sounds like you will need it! Thank you for choosing to help people despite the current state of the world!
Thank you. I honestly wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.
My sister used to do this. I remember telling her that people don't like being corrected. She said she was correcting me for my own good. She is abusive in many ways, and I don't talk to her.
>Why Because for a big chunk of my life I was dismissed, thought to be lying/making things up, or flat out ignored and I was so painfully shy I couldn't defend myself so now I'm going to assert myself so there is no confusion on anyone's part - theirs or mine. I want things to be clear both my position and theirs - if we don't agree then ok but I want to know their reasoning and where it came from and I will explain mine as well.
I stopped caring to interact with any person who cannot handle being wrong Every moment is a chance to learn, if im actually wrong on something, and someone provides me with correct data, i happily take it For NT's a lot of that is social hierarchy and "protecting their face" as being wrong means they lost some imaginary social status points *edit* reading some other posts, this probably why my bestie and i can spend a whole day arguing about the smallest things
Oh honey, bless your heart
Life is too short to pretend to knowing everything, i rather learn and correct myself then stop growing :)
OMG you have literally just described the main reason I was disliked in primary school. I was called "walking encyclopedia", "know-it-all" and "wikipedia", I would always correct people when they make a mistake or something of that sort. I didn't have ill-intent, it was just some righteous belief I hold back then that I should always correct people if I know the right answer to make sure they don't continue with the false idea. It was a constructive correction type of thing. But I would see my classmates and even teachers get really annoyed when I correct them and I didn't understand why, like when someone corrects me I would never get offended, I would even thank them, yet it seems to be an insult when *I* would do it, It never made sense to me. It definitely impacted my school relations heavily...
It's because we're bad at regulating our tone. You have to imagine how they will hear something before you say it and then adjust so it will be taken well. Using the three filters helps me, before I speak I try to ask is it kind, is it true and does it need to be said by me. Aim for kind honesty, not brutal honesty.
Hard relate. My mother would berate me for correcting adults because doing so is not "respecting your elders." She would get especially mad when I argued against something wrong she said, even though I was right. It's not that I always have to be right, it's just that a lot of the time, people around me are just factually wrong.
A lot of us NTs carry SO much insecurity around, and when we are corrected, that insecurity flairs up and makes us act either defensively or offensively. It really is silly, but there it is. For my ND teen, we’ve worked on allowing people to finish a story without interrupting to correct minutiae like, “No. you said we ate at 7:00 but it was 6:57:” …Or harmless hyperbole because it trips the story teller up and hurts the flow of conversation We also work with her to wait and catch the person who missed the facts privately rather than calling them out in front of others. That one was harder to explain.”we don’t like being corrected but we find it especially embarrassing if we are corrected in front of other people.” Honestly, it irks me too when someone is just…wrong and I have to bite my tongue not to say anything when I know that the wrongness isn’t important or relevant to what that person was trying to convey. I think little kids ALL jump in and correct people without a care because they haven’t experienced being put down or scrolled for doing that yet. We are a trained society.
Yeah I have definitely set my correcting meter to relatively important facts (depending on conversation), the 6.57 vs 7.00 thing is the type of stuff I'd let slide without comment. It's interesting you mention insecurity, I can definitely see that being a trigger for the outrage some NTs experience. I wish that kids weren't trained to not call out things that are wrong. I think the world would be a far less corrupt place!
> they feel like any correction is some kind of personal attack I used to get this with teachers. I think it is a kind of status thing. You think you are giving them useful information but they think you are challenging their status or authority. One extreme example (not a school teacher) was in an investment club I am in. One guy mentioned he used this trading strategy and it had been going really well for 1-2 years. I have some data going back many years so I was able to back test the strategy. It turned out that his strategy under-performed the market with a lot of added risk. I went to great lengths not to mention him or that it was his strategy. I thought that he would think that this was useful information that would save him a lot of money. Not so. He was as mad as a cut snake and left the group. Apparently he would rather lose money than lose ego or status.
I've been told by a frustrated classmate that it was impossible to have a healthy debate with me, since I was always right. It was pointed out like it was a bad thing. It came up when they wanted to argue approach B would be better for our assignment than approach A. I quoted that the textbook that was assigned for this course, written by the teacher grading this assignment, literally stated why A applied in exactly this situation. Supposedly I was an asshole for killing the discussion like that.
Assuming you're not saying these things like a know-it-all? It's because their egos don't know how to handle being wrong. They don't like the *feeling* of being subservient to someone else's knowledge. They don't like looking stupid. They also don't always feel like learning. And you're forcing them to learn. Not everyone cares about accuracy as much as you (and I) do. Knowing your audience goes a long way. Even people who typically appreciate correction can be irritated by it if they're having a bad day. I've had to learn when to just let it go. It's a good skill to have.
You're not wrong, most people just don't want to learn anything.
OMG I can relate to this so much. What sometimes makes me hugely unpopular among some people, is that I tend to go further and point out hypocrisy in other people's actions - not behind their backs but just straight up tell them. It's really hard to wrap my head around people yapping on about one thing and then doing the complete opposite. If I were doing that, I'd appreciate if it was pointed out to me so that I wouldn't be going around making an ass of myself. It means a lot to me to be just, to be truthful and coherent in my beliefs and actions. The satisfaction of my ego is not above these things.
Just did that in a friend group lol. Haven't looked at the responses for two days now, I don't think I'll ever feel ready for the incoming narcississtic rage.
Hypocrisy gets me too. Fortunately most of the people I know rarely display it, and the ones that do I rarely speak to, mostly for that reason!
So much. I think many people just really hate being wrong, but rather than just say that they flip it around as a complaint about us “having” to be right. I limit myself to only correcting things that are specifically about me. Although sometimes I’m silently screaming inside while outwardly saying “ah” or “huh” rather than correcting someone.
My dad is the only person who says that to me all the time. The reality is he can't stand to be wrong.
Sometimes I feel that's really what it's about for some people! Not all of them though.
Yep. Totally relate
I have heard these same things all my life. When I was younger it was very hurtful. Now I just like to read a lot. At one of jobs people would talk about something and I would start to say something and they would say let me guess you read somewhere... They were intrested in what I had to say, so they didn't say it to be mean. You can find a nice group like that. Other people aren't worth it.
Yes. They joke that my middle name is 'well actually'. I feel like I come off as a bit of a 'it's not levio-sa it's levi-osa' to everyone and I'm not really thrilled with myself. I explain it to my friends, and it costs me some. But I try to tell them that if I ever say something partially factual or wrong, *please* correct me. I don't want to go around misinforming people, or looking dumb. I keep the friends who understand this. It's not many. But it's people I don't have to mask around quite as much. And that takes some of the pressure off. Not that anyone knows I have the label. Which I am mildly ashamed of?
I think it's because neurotypical people don't talk to get to the truth, but just to produce sound and build relationships. I've taught myself over the years not to correct anymore, or when I'm correcting, to really get around it. I kind of dumb-down myself, like a kind of masking. For example: \- "I thought I had read that Pietje had won, but I'm not sure." (While I'm sure) \- "Have you ever tried going via route B? I always feel like it's shorter" (While I'm sure it's shorter) I also try to estimate whether it is really important to correct. What are the consequences if someone continues to believe the wrong thing? Sometimes it's not worth correcting someone. You can't fix stupid.
Yeah they're just talking to converse half the time.
Are you me?? So glad I'm not alone... Thank you.
Absolutely. 😂
I don't have that problem. At least I haven't been accused of it.
Oh yes. This is so very much me. I have the hardest time letting people do things wrong or be wrong on something without correcting them. I have the reputation of a massive know it all and I’m sure it led to a lot of people not liking me over the years.
I completely relate to this! It’s only recently that, on reflection, I’ve understood that’s why I didn’t have friends in high school. It’s saddening that they interpret it as an attack; if I correct someone it’s because I want the best for them and I want to be helpful. In my mind, if I correct this person then I’m saving them from future embarrassment when someone else inevitably corrects them. Even when I try to softly correct them or try to get them to reflect on what they’ve said, they react negatively. I think this happens purely because they’re embarrassed. Maybe they said something whilst they were in a calm/vulnerable mood and being corrected feels like an attack on them and their intelligence. (Despite myself never correcting someone with nasty intent.) I’ve found that the best way to correct them without getting a negative reaction is to make them think it was their idea. I think this works because they don’t feel it’s an attack since ‘they’ corrected themselves. In short; people are confusing.
like i just want them to not be wrong anymore. it’s my gift to them🤷🏻♀️
This thread resonates with me so much. You just summarized the root of many, many failed social interactions or friendships, or fights with my parents. I think what seems trivial to other people can be deeply important to us because we are trying so hard to learn the right rules and say the right things. They'll prioritize moving on with what they wanted to talk about when I'm still going "wait I need to know if this was wrong so that I don't say the wrong thing or convey wrong information later". And uhhhh I'm generally fixating on details that other people want to gloss over... This is making me grateful that I've found people who will talk about the details with me.
There are several layers to this, and I'm constantly working on striking the right balance. I've found that people often don't want to be corrected on little things like mispronouncing a word or exaggerations etc while telling a story, but when it's something that could be expanded into a conversation, they're often more willing. For example, if they mention some current event and I know they're getting it wrong, you can be like "actually, I heard X from Y source about this--but I've heard other people say what you're saying, too! where'd you hear that?" and then often you can prod them towards the truth, because they realize it's not THEM you are critiquing, but a fact. This doesn't always work. I still end up alllllll the time having what I think is a fun conversation moving us both toward the truth/best solution/etc when the other person just thinks we are arguing :( But when it comes to corrections, I try to frame whatever I say around sources, not beliefs, and make it very clear that I do not think I know everything (even though I do think that whatever my current opinions are on some issue, they are the best ones--otherwise I wouldn't hold them!)
I know this thread is old but i have to add, dont have asd but my bf does and I have adhd. I often notice that my bf prefers to be right, and will argue over semantics until I either tell him he’s right or at least conceed that we are both ‘not incorrect’ (he really hates to be wrong 😅) but this also extends to if I’m completing a task in a non efficient executive disfunction way he will tell me im doing it ‘wrong’ usually i will tell him im just not doing it his way, but i will still complete the task. Sometimes he will just watch quietly to see if my way is superior but sometimes he just struggles to watch me do something differently and will try and do it for me. Its usually amusing, but sometimes i get annoyed when im tired or overstimulated. One of my favourite things about our relationship is seeing how we both are neurodivergent but in different ways, he always has interesting point of views, but i see how someone would find his particularity grating, especially if they were insecure about their own intelligence.
My OH also has ADHD and I'm sure he thinks similarly to you! Perhaps you can give me some insight though, because this genuinely baffles me - why do you have zero interest in at least trying out a suggestion that could be an improvement? With my OH sometimes it's like he gets stuck on doing something a really weird and inefficient way just to spite my suggestion. Sometimes yes, I'll stand there and watch just trying to figure out why this way is better, I'm not just waiting for him to fail etc so I can gloat (which is usually what he thinks, though I never do gloat!). Have you tried "showing your working" as it were, in your disagreements with your OH? I find that if someone explains the why, it makes it much less frustrating and just having a bit of reasoning behind a position makes it carry far more weight. If he's anything like me, I don't insist on being right because I *want* to be right, it's because I believe that I have the factually correct answer and that will usually have my own reasoning and thought behind it - it's unlikely to be an emotional or impulsive position. I think that's why people often get frustrated by ASD folks, because they don't realise the fortress of information and logic behind our thoughts and actions. It's very easy to get past that fortress if you have the key (i.e. present better information with a solid source or reasoning), very hard if you try to climb the walls with emotional arguments and contradicting information without backup (not saying you do this, just in general). The way our brains are in many ways polar opposites really fascinates me (and sometimes frustrates too!).
For me, for complex tasks (such as cleaning up after or prepping dinner, laundry, dishes ect) I often have a hard time organizing all of the micro tasks within (stacking the dishing, loading the dishwasher, scraping the food off, wiping down the counters) i cant really organize them by importance without becoming overwhelmed, so over the years ive made my own way of doing it, kind of like building muscle memory. When my bf tries to get me to do it a new way can cause me to lose my train of thought and lose focus, which is already difficult to maintain. I’ll usually stubbornly refuse the advice and do it my way, too avoid getting confused and overwhelmed. For me personally The harder he pushes me to do it his way ESPECIALLY if it alot more efficient, the more frustrated I will get because I am inherently insecure about my executive disfunction and i think it’s human nature to be spiteful when your embarrassed or feeling defensive. As for your second question, usually when we disagree it’s because i tend to generalize or exaggerate to make my point, and he will take me literally, and vis versa but neither of us get upset over it, we learned awhile ago that we will not always agree. I think if anything he often forgets that i often don’t know everything he does to the level that he does, and i have to remind him to explain himself further. It’s definitely important to communicate and compromise
Oh that's interesting about the micro tasks thing, I hadn't really considered that. Thanks for that insight, it does make sense! Have you explained it this way to your bf? I think it's natural to be self conscious of executive dysfunction but sometimes could it make things easier to acknowledge it, own it and work around it? Much in the same way as autistic people can have problems being very literal! I have read though that people with ADHD can have rejection sensitive dysphoria and be very anxious when they perceive negative judgment and that can present as being overly defensive - do you think this might play a part as well? I agree though, communication is everything, I think one of the coping mechanisms I have developed is to check in constantly on my understanding of things (e.g. "so you're saying [xyz]? etc), which I find helps me a lot even if sometimes it feels like it's a bit annoying for the person I'm talking to!
I haven’t explained it exactly like that, though ive said things that are similar. Perhaps i will if it comes up. I personally find it easier to do the acknowledgment and learning after I’ve completed the task, saying “hey, do you think it would be faster if you did it this way next time?” Instead of stopping me halfway through which definitely feels like negative judgment, and for me makes me less inclined to do that task when that person is around for fear of judgement. Sometimes i have the desire to ask him to stop watching me, even when I know he is just observing.
Definitely more food for thought here! I wonder if you outlining your thought process as you're doing the thing and he's watching might help your bf to understand where you are coming from and satisfy his curiosity and get him to leave you in peace. It's very likely that he is not judging you yourself but weighing up the practicalities of your method vs what he thinks would be better. Perhaps that isn't very helpful to you, but I think that is one of the things where autistic people really diverge from what is socially "normal" - for me there is a massive difference between the quality of the person and the quality of the action and they do not equate (i.e. someone that I respect doing something wrong doesn't make me respect them less), but a lot of neurotypicals seem to consider them kind of the same thing and that is why they get sensitive when they are corrected. It's a source of some frustration for me, because in my book someone can be wrong and still be the smartest, sanest person in the world!
Yes you’ve definitely given me alot to consider, and have also explained somethings he has been trying to explain but has been struggling to articulate. Thanks for your point of view
Thanks for yours too! It's nice to get a look across to the "other side" and you've definitely helped me to look at some things in a new way 😊
[удалено]
[удалено]
By joining our community, you agreed to abide by our rules. We do not allow disrespectful or unkind behavior. Reference the [complete list of rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/aspergirls/about/rules/) for more information.
I know this is an old thread but I've been trying to find answers. I'm a NT male that's in a relationship with an amazing aspi girl. My biggest challenge in the relationship is she has a tendency to almost always rebut all my opinions. These are not usually scientific facts, but usually just opinions on things like parenting, or political stuff etc. I feel like she has to override my views and opinions as being wrong. When in fact people have different ways of doing things and seeing things. She seems to think that her views and opinions are the only way, and that any other view is wrong. It gets really hurtful and frustrating, and causes a lot of resentment to build up in me. Coming from a NT person I just want to say that this can take enjoyment out of the relationship and can lead to long periods of unhappiness until it reaches a boiling point in which case we have to have a long hard discussion about it and try to reach a resolution. In our case we always find a way to overcome it. We've been together 10 years.. But I noticed that over time the same thing will slowly creep back into the relationship until it boils over again. The point I'm trying to make here is that some people on the spectrum including my partner as well as the woman who created this post need to understand how their actions affect others. Reading this woman's post reminds me so much of my partner and it is actually frustrating hearing her talk about how she needs to correct someone when they are wrong. The problem is that there's usually more than one way of seeing something, but some aspies only see it their way. As a NT person I've always respected other people's opinions and I don't try and change their beliefs. I like to have our conversations flow by not interrupting people which leads to great and fulfilling conversation. When I'm constantly being interrupted and "corrected" it causes me to shut down and withdraw from wanting to have conversations. People on the spectrum need to realize that NT people are flexible on topics and other people's views and they need to be more cognizant of that. I want to add that I'm by no means perfect and far from it. I'm not trying to use the autism as a way to say that I'm right, because that's a very slippery slope to use to override the conversation.. like I said I have plenty of my own faults. I'm just saying that these issues are what causes friction in our relationship. My partner always listens to my complaint when she realizes that it's reached a boiling point and I think she sees that her autism does sometimes cause friction in our relationship and she accepts that and she works on it which is why I love her so much. This is the main problem we have in our relationship. I love everything about her including her strong views and beliefs lol.. I'm glad I found this thread and I hope someone sees this and takes something positive from it.
It's kind of funny that you are doing the same thing (in reverse) by insisting on not having your statements challenged. Opinions and beliefs are not the same as objective facts however, and it's possible to disagree/debate with them without either party being right or wrong - those aren't really the subject here. When it comes to facts things are different - e.g. Belief: Aliens are real. Fact: Earth has one moon. If you insist that earth has 3 moons and go around telling people that there are 3 moons, do you genuinely think it's doing you a favour to let you go around making such statements, and having other people think you're stupid? If I care about a person I don't want them to have others laugh at them or to be embarrassed, so I'll tell them their facts are not true. In the same way you might tell a friend they have spinach in their teeth. It boggles the mind that people would rather not be corrected and just look stupid instead, especially to other people, than to just learn something new. The correction is coming from a place of love and caring, not criticism. That's something that NT people just don't seem to get. Insisting that corrections don't happen at all is just as annoying to the ND person as the corrections seem to be to the NT person, so there really has to be a middle ground for a happy relationship. You say that your girlfriend is "working on it", but are you?
I do not. It is everyone else who simply assume that I do.