Now, how do I fix this?

[elfs]

Oh, gods, this is so Omaha and me:

Your nerd has built an annoyingly efficient relevancy engine in his head. It's the end of the day and you and your nerd are hanging out on the couch. The TV is off. There isn't a computer anywhere nearby and you're giving your nerd the daily debrief. "Spent an hour at the post office trying to ship that package to your mom, and then I went down to that bistro -- you know -- the one next the flower shop, and it's closed. Can you believe that?"

And your nerd says, "Cool".

Cool? What's cool? The business closing? The package? How is any of it cool? None of it's cool. Actually, all of it might be cool, but your nerd doesn't believe any of what you're saying is relevant. This is what he heard, "Spent an hour at the post office blah blah blah..."

You can be rightfully pissed off by this behavior -- it's simply rude -- but seriously, I'm trying to help here. Your nerd's insatiable quest for information and The High has tweaked his brain in an interesting way. For any given piece of incoming information, your nerd is making a lightning fast assessment: relevant or not relevant? Relevance means that the incoming information fits into the system of things your nerd currently cares about. Expect active involvement from your nerd when you trip the relevance flag. If you trip the irrelevance flag, look for verbal punctuation announcing his judgment of irrelevance. It's the word your nerd says when he's not listening and it's always the same. My word is "Cool", and when you hear "Cool", I'm not listening.

Information that your nerd is exposed to when the irrelevance flag is waving is forgotten almost immediately. I mean it. Next time you hear "Cool", I want you to ask, "What'd I just say?" That awkward grin on your nerd's face is the first step in getting him to acknowledge that he's the problem in this particular conversation.

Comments

Most people can filter what other people say to them without being rude

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

It's called "being a good listener", and it's one of the traits that human beings value in each other. The things I was talking to him about weren't trivial as far as I'm concerned, either. It's normal for people to talk about how their days are, what needs to be done around the house, and what they plan to be doing that involves the other person. Brushing those things off as insignificant is not the act of someone who should be in a relationship.

Re: Most people can filter what other people say to them without being rude

[mo-hair.livejournal.com]

omg- this, this, and even more THIS! i run the household around here, and do not feel that when i need a serious chunk of time to catch dh up on the kids' goings on that it is irrelevant!! if i need to bitch about my part time job, it is not irrelevant! if we don't share both the vital parts of our experiences, as well as some of the minutiae, then how do we continue to even know each other??

i have dh look me in the eye when i am about to mention something i need him to remember. and we got palm treos so we can sync our schedules and he can textually keep up with out lives. text communication seems to work better for him. his mantra is, if it's not in the phone, it doesn't exist. when he forgets to add something that can work to my advantage :-)

Re: Most people can filter what other people say to them without being rude

[elfs.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, it can take time for a geek to context switch, especially when that context switching requires more brainpower than he's currently got. When that happens, the current context needs to be written down somewhere, and waiting for that can be really frustrating for the verbally adept who have "something really important to say right now."

A man walking in with a gun is a good reason to throw away a context. A kid bleeding/screaming/barfing is a good reason to throw away a context. "I want to talk about politics/dinner/us because it's really important to me" is not, because nothing bad will happen to either one of us if you wait the two or so minutes it takes for me to save what I'm doing, including writing down all the stuff that's currently loaded up in my skull that, if lost, would take an hour to rebuild.

All human beings have an engagement threshold: not a measure of the relative importance of something, but the measure of addressing that something right now, relative to what else is going on at the moment. Nerds are just people for whom the engagement threshold is somewhat configurable and whose intellectual pursuits require that it be so if they're to accomplish anything at all.

I find the language of "I'm categorically different, so treat me special" to be offensive; "I'm a human being and therefore I'm different; try to treat my idiosyncrasies with respect and I'll try to do the same for you" is a much better way to word things. Yeah, I fall into the category "nerd"; that doesn't give me an excuse; it gives both myself and my friends an interesting and sometimes painful burden, but it's nothing human beings haven't dealt with for centuries.

Re: Most people can filter what other people say to them without being rude

[talek.livejournal.com]

I find the language of "I'm categorically different, so treat me special" to be offensive; "I'm a human being and therefore I'm different; try to treat my idiosyncrasies with respect and I'll try to do the same for you" is a much better way to word things.

Amen. The first phrasing implies that the speaker is unwilling to make any (further?) effort to find a working middle ground, and that the listener is solely responsible for any friction (by not being accommodating enough). Yes, I know that many people will claim that they have already put in the effort to the best of their ability/capability... but that doesn't make the phrasing any less offensive (or their claim necessarily true).

It's much the same as "I didn't do it, so I shouldn't have to fix it", or the eternal wail of "it's not my fault!". In many situations, it simply doesn't matter who (if anyone) is to blame; we all, as adults, have to clean up after.

Re: Most people can filter what other people say to them without being rude

[pteryxx.livejournal.com]

And that's why those of us with problems processing spoken information are not 'valued' by many normals such as yourself. If someone doesn't make eye contact with you because they're blind, you cut them slack, don't you? But no amount of effort will ever make parsing daily speech as easy for me as it is for you. It is not necessarily a matter of laziness or disrespect. I honestly cannot hear spoken conversation unless I focus on absolutely nothing else, and it is hard work to do so.

When my SO and I talk about things that need to be done around the house, plans involving the other person, and such, we preface it with 'Let's take a moment to check in' or 'Let's plan the weekend.' That is all it takes to alert me to turn my monotasking focus onto the conversation. Then both of us can relax, him with confidence that what was discussed was attended to, and me with confidence that I can switch focus to another task without being randomly attacked for not paying attention.

And I will have you know, with all due respect, that my SO and I have been monogamous for 21 years. When you say "Brushing those things off as insignificant is not the act of someone who should be in a relationship." obviously, you intend to say they should not be in a relationship with YOU. If you are not willing to meet the other person halfway, in whatever area you disagree, then you are both better off separate.

Re: Most people can filter what other people say to them without being rude

[tagryn]

From what dakiwiboid describes, the SO in question was turning off unless they decided was something important to *them*, which is pretty far short of halfway. That's not being a nerd, that's being a selfish a$$; I've known both, and there is a difference. The analogy would be between someone's who blind and someone who can see but decides you are not worthy of their time, so pretends you're not there.

Re: Most people can filter what other people say to them without being rude

[blackcoat.livejournal.com]

Yes. And I agreed that the second behavior was bad. The first behavior, on it's own however, is what I do. And I don't think it's any worse then requiring that I drop whatever it is that I'm working on to give someone else my full attention, and hang on their every word.

Re: Most people can filter what other people say to them without being rude

[blackcoat.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That is what I was trying to say, and obviously failing at it.

It's not that I feel that my SOs small, irrelevant (to me!) conversations are *BAD*. Or even that I shouldn't make time for them. But, I can't figure out what is, and isn't, relevant at any given time. And so, I need for them to tell me "this is important, and I need you to listen to me." Chances are remarkably good that I'll drop whatever it is that I'm doing, and listen. Or I'll reply with "I need five minutes."

Re: Most people can filter what other people say to them without being rude

[blackcoat.livejournal.com]

Sure. Those things are normal. And I don't mind spending time on them with an SO. And it's not 'my' bar for setting what's important to 'you'.

But, interrupting whatever it is that I'm doing, and then talking to me about something that I find trivial, and not caring if what 'I' was doing was important to 'me'. is rude, and not the actions of someone who should be in a relationship.