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Saturday 5 January 2013

What You See Is What You Get

I am talking about the common expressive phrase "what you see is what you get," which has a meaning similar to "say what you mean and mean what you say."
I say what I mean and I mean what I say.
Some people call it "brutal honesty."  Some people just call it "honesty."  Sometimes, it can be considered "rude," although I rarely can delineate these times from the rest.
I have been known to tell people that I do not like them.  I have been known to take thoughts that should remain "internal" and vocalize them externally.  I don't do this to frustrate or to anger; I do this because this is how I understand the world.
Language is used for communication and I have great respect for language, thus great respect for communication.  So the idea of communicating in an unclear way is completely foreign to me.  I am twenty years old and I simply do not understand the reason some people feel the need to lie or to mold their truths in a new way.
Recently, I realized that not all people communicate the way I do.  I do not mean that not all people communicate verbally -- of course I know this, I know many non-verbal people -- but rather that not all verbal people use language solely to tell truths.  A woman in class complains about another student's obnoxious personality, but as soon as the student in question arrives, the woman is as kind to her as she would be to a sibling or a best friend.  Why?  Has her plane of existence shifted and she is now in a dimension where she enjoys the company of this person?
For a lot of people, this is easy to understand.  I explained my situation to my mother who told me that this is just how some people are.  But for me, this is a complicated concept to fully comprehend.
Is this the fault of autism?
I don't know.
I just know it confuses me.

1 comment:

  1. I believe the situation you describe came about because that woman was annoyed and wanted to talk about her feelings to an audience, but, also, wanted the other student to like her, maybe so the other student would give her things or invite her along on outings or just say nice things to her. That behavior is common, but it's still extremely rude. NTs generally consider it an indication of insincerity. Smart NTs understand that if someone will talk about someone else behind xyr back, that person will have no reservations about talking about you behind your back, but some people think they must be the exception and befriend people like that anyway.

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