Is “wooden personality” a thing? Those people who don’t get sarcasm and other forms of figurative language have it.
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It is called “concrete thinking”. If you said you were up a creek without a paddle they’d be looking for water.
They do not abstract.
I had one child that was a bit aspi and was very concrete.
At a traffic light once many years ago we were next to a Beautyrest Mattress box truck that advertised “Better Sleep Through Science.”
She looked at the truck for a long time, then turned and asked, why do they want me to sleep through science?
Once I explained it, she understood. But concrete to the core.
I watch her now almost 10 years later, as she negotiates work and friendships, and uses a good portion of her good brain to figure out things that just come naturally to us. She had 2 years of social processing training and that helped.
She seems to save all her conundrums for me and we sit and drink tea and she will bring things up to process with me. She works very hard to figure it out and make the right choice, but it isn’t natural to her.
I have one just like that. Never gets a joke. Phi Beta Kappa, Summa, brilliant lawyer, but concrete and literal to the max.
You made me smile. You say concrete, I say literal. My husband is quite that way. Better Sleep Through Science - oh my! I think my husband would’ve made that excuse to sleep through science class back in the day.
He goes into a Burger King right next to a Taco Bell and asked them why they took tacos off the menu. I know it’s not the same thing, thinking wise, but at 60 one would think you’d know what fast food joint you were in. He’s never been one to notice his surroundings. It’s weird but I love him just the same.
Yet many Asians define Americans as loud, crude and obnoxious. Which is generally true compared to even other western nations.