the people I know don’t listen and often hear the opposite of what I say. That’s why I have to repeat myself a lot.
You say “relationship”, I hear “birthday”.
You say “practical”, I hear “eager”
You say “plan”, I’m not paying attention to what you said but will respond to you as if you asked a question about what I suddenly want to talk about and expect you to follow along rather than expecting an answer or steering us back on track
Is this a thing? I feel like I often have to repeat my very clear and simple words and even then people remember them differently than I do? I thought I was just insane
I mean it could be but it’s important that we don’t assume that. I mean I’m just dumb.
Yeah, it is a thing, but beware also the times when you misremember both their words and your own. I, certainly, have been guilty…
At the same time, it may help to remember that people are often listening to, and I presume ‘remembering’ a sort of semantic meaning of what you said, not the words. Add to that a little mishearing, some assumption, and different expectations between you and them, and that can shift the meaning a lot from what you meant, while to them it seems they just approximately remembered.
I have repeated that I am overstimulated and everyone needs to get the fuck out of my way too many times over the decades. I don’t people anymore. It’s simple really.
It pisses me off that sometimes I use different words to describe something and people just have trouble understanding what I mean. Are most people crazy?
I can’t tell you how often I’ve had to say, “I picked my words very precisely.”
Yes but you picked them in your ‘language’, not that of the listener. Neuro-typical/divergent communication is a bit like translating across languages. Words by themselves don’t always translate directly.
That said, I concede, many people don’t listen carefully and jump to conclusions based on what they expect you to say.
