It’s been a while since I last posted about how I perceive my autism. This time, a deeper dive into one of its biggest pitfalls — probably the biggest one for me.
non verbal communication
You know, that mysterious 80% of all communication that apparently happens through small muscles in our face and body. Those micro-gestures that, when combined, somehow carry meaning — together with the remaining 20% that actually comes out as sound waves.
As I’ve stated before: that 80%… is almost completely lost on me.
I see it, but I don’t understand it. It’s like watching a movie where everyone’s speaking in a language I can hear perfectly, but can’t translate fast enough to keep up.
And “not fast enough” is the perfect analogy here. I actually have to parse all those images and micro-videos in my head, and then try — the hard way — to determine what those gestures might mean.
What comes completely natural to others doesn’t come natural to me. And that can, and will, cause all kinds of communication issues.
Inside my factory
So, what’s going on inside my factory — and in the various departments involved?
The main player here is the Eye Department, led by Mr. Clark. (Yes, that’s his first name. :P)
Picture an insanely large open office space, desks neatly lined up, coworkers everywhere doing their job with military precision. And yes, I can actually hear you right now:
“If that department is so large, how come you still have issues decoding those tiny gestures?”
Good question.
I’ll get to that — promise. 😛
Everyone in the Eye Department seems relaxed. There’s hardly any stress.
Multiple teams work side by side, all running SCRUM with stand-ups, retros, and far too many sticky notes.
Each team has its own name — because of course they do:
- Team Beaker: Geometry analysis 1
- Team Statler: Geometry analysis 2
- Team Waldorf: Geometry analysis 3
- (…yes, more analysis teams — you’ve probably figured out the naming theme by now :P)
- Team Animal: Text recognition
- Team Oscar: Color detection
- Team Miss Piggy: Non-Verbal Communication Detection (NVCD)
Everything looks perfectly organized.
Everyone is doing their job.
So… how can things still go wrong?
Well, Team Miss Piggy technically has a Product Owner and a Scrum Master — but, ehm… only one intern.
Its name? 404 – Not Found. 😛
The intern who’s been moved around every department in the factory, fitting nowhere.
Where a “normal” — whatever normal even means in this context — has at least ten teams working on NVCD,
I have… two overhead staff and one intern.
See the problem?
NVCD archive
All incoming data from the other teams is constantly forwarded to Team Miss Piggy, and poor 404 has to pick up all the work.
They often have to run upstairs to another floor — the NVCD Archive.
Now, imagine this: a complete floor, fully fitted with lighting, power outlets, networking, cabinets — the works.
But almost all the cabinets are empty.
They were installed during the construction of the factory, but somehow… they never got filled.
So every time 404 runs upstairs, 404 already knows the answer — there’s no reference to compare anything against. No data. Nothing.
Nothing?
Well… not entirely nothing.
Archie, Clark, 404, Roger, and the rest of my factory staff have compiled a long list of probabilities and plastered them on Post-its all over the walls of this floor.
It’s better than nothing.
The drawback?
404 has to look up the right Post-it, only to discover that it references other Post-its, and even then, there’s still a fairly large chance that the one they found isn’t the correct one anyway.
After 48 years, I’d say I’ve become somewhat fair at decoding at least part of the non-verbal communication stream.
But it still takes a lot of effort — and the error rate remains high.
Or, put in other words:
Decoding non-verbal communication comes naturally to you.
For me, it’s a PhD study — day in, day out.
Team Miss Piggy is still hiring, by the way. Applications welcome — just don’t expect onboarding documentation.
Acceptance
It took me a long time to accept that I will never become proficient at decoding non-verbal communication. Up until my official diagnosis, I believed that if I threw enough brain muscle at a problem, I could eventually solve it — become good at it through sheer effort and persistence.
But realizing that this will never be the case for non-verbal communication hit me really hard.
I think I’m okay with it now, finally.
Closing words
This is a general message to everyone — maybe aimed just a tiny bit more at the XX part of humanity. 🙂
The world would be such a better place if everyone simply used that 20% of communication more effectively.
Use words to express what you think or feel, instead of raising your eyebrow by 2 mm and then hoping the other person decodes that 2 mm correctly.
Brain out!