The Envelope and the Stamp

One aspect of life that folks with Asperger's Syndrome struggle with mightily is inference. Most Aspies -- and this certainly describes moi -- tend to be excessively literal people. We have great trouble reading into what other people MAY be suggesting and, generally, our read is incorrect.

I constantly find myself bewildered with other people's directions. Most of the time, people give general directions and I take these generalities as being very precise. So, I follow the instructions to a T and wind up in the wrong place or trying to put something together in the wrong way.

Here's an example of what I'm referring to, pulled from my everyday life. Yesterday, my wife needed to run an errand or two. Before leaving, she told me she had left the medical insurance coupon on the TV tray with the envelope and a stamp. Because she had shared this information with me, I inferred that she wanted me to write out the check, place the check in the envelope and affix the stamp to the envelope.

Of course, when I later looked on the TV tray, I picked up the coupon and envelope on the top of the heap. The coupon was for last month and the envelope didn't look right, but I was following her explicit instructions. Once she arrived back home, she became frustrated because I had put the stamp on the wrong envelope.

It seems the correct coupon and envelope were underneath the ones I had selected. In addition, my wife announced that she didn't even know WHY I had decided to take care of it when she had planned to do it herself on her return. As she pointed out, she didn't ask me directly to do it.

In my defense, I explained that I had inferred that she wanted me to handle it because she had told me where everything was. There was no reason for me to know the location of the items if no action was needed on my part. So, since she had gone out of her way to convey this information before departure, it seemed logical to me that I needed the information to act accordingly.

Many times during our years together, the shoe has been on the other foot. My wife will tell me about something, but because there is not an explicit request for action on my part, I sort of shrug my shoulders and go about my business. Later, my wife becomes irritated because I didn't act on the information (e.g., I'm told there are wet clothes in the washer, but no explicit request is made for me to transfer them to the dryer and later my wife becomes upset that the clothes are still wet).

The problem in each of these scenarios is trying to figure out what is and is not inferred. Throughout my life, I seem to have the innate ability almost always to guess wrong. I see implications where none exist and completely miss them when they are glaringly obvious to everyone else.

This inability to understand inference is very frustrating and has lead to conflict with my spouse, relatives, friends, co-workers and supervisors. Even more frustrating is the fact that people seem to think that my inability to understand inference is borne out of laziness, arrogance or simply not paying attention.

It's not any of these. It springs from the weird neurology in my brain that makes inference next too impossible to discern.