Sometimes it feels like the differences between men and women are insurmountable. I say "Shall I call a plumber?" and John hears "You are an incompetent husband. Don't even walk this way with a wrench."
I love the dialogue by Dave Barry where he describes just such a mismatched meaning. The wife says "Do you want to stop for a hamburger?" and he says "No." The conversation halts because he believes he correctly, concisely and completely answered the question, being an expert on his own stomach. But she starts fuming at his lack of consideration for her feelings by not asking if she wants to stop, which obviously she does.
There is a Ted talk by an autistic savant who is similar to my own son in his ability to tell you what day of the week your birthday falls, or list prime numbers. I enjoyed his effort to describe something as difficult as how he thinks. Then I read some of the comments. One man launched into a criticism of the talk, describing it as feeble. I am surprised by the commenter's arrogance. Does he actually believe that he can judge the speaker's life experience after a twelve minute crash
course? I have been listening to Benjamin for ten years and am still intrigued. We are trying to articulate things not easily expressed in words. Temple Grandin, another autistic adult wrote a book Thinking in Pictures in which she says that words are not her first language.
When he was six, Benjamin said that four prismed was 128, and five prismed was 225. Huh? We were late for school but I was interested.
"What is three prismed?"
"54."
"Sixteen." I was stumped. Benjamin tried to draw a picture of what he was seeing in his mind, which looked vaguely like the four dimensional figures I saw in Solid Geometry thirty five years ago. We scurried out the door and I called my mathematician uncle.
"Ah, I know. He is cubing a number and then doubling it." Cool.
He has since told me that rectangling a number means squaring it and then doubling it. Four rectangled is 32.
If I stay inquisitive I learn more than if I believe I already understand. Curiosity is perhaps a better default than complacency. When I believe that I know the sum total of someone's meaning, based on the Cliff notes they manage to jam into the spare spots of my attention between checking email and putting away groceries, I miss out.
I am sensitive to hijacked conversations, probably because I do it too. I forget to keep listening. John is a quicker study though and lances many misunderstandings off at the root. The other day he was doing laundry. Not an isolated occurrence but not an every day one either. I asked why.
"Are you saying I am behind on laundry?" I asked.
"I would never say that." Wise man. But I wonder if his wisdom is random, or based on past experience.
