USE YOUR WORDS.
It's not like most of you have valid excuses. For example, being autistic would grant you leniency because, hello?!?!?! They have problems communicating what is in their head to the world around them. Or being a fucking vegetable because you absolutely cannot talk.
Here is an actual conversation I had with my step father this past weekend. As if I don't want to bash his brains in enough as it is, he made me want to throw my phone out of the fucking plane.
Step Father: Hello.
Me: Hey, it's Berryfine. I wanted to let you guys know the plane just landed and I made it home.
Step Father: How was the flight?
Me: Faster than I expected. I'm here an hour early. Is Mom around?
Step Father: No, she's in bed.
Me: Is she feeling okay?
Step Father: Just wiped out with everything going on.
Me: What is going on?
Step Father: You know, just everything that's happening right now.
Me: Apparently, I'm not following you. What is going on?
Step Father: With your grandmother and then your grandfather.
Me: Oh, I thought maybe something else had happened.
The rest of the conversation is just irrelevant (as is most interaction with him) but it drives home my point. Clearly, I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about.
- Why did I have to ask more than once?
- And why did he think his answer cleared anything up?
Background: my grandmother has lung cancer and her prognosis is very bad. Add dementia to that and she's really not doing well. The day I flew home, my aunt informed me that the night before my grandfather had a seizure. Since I had been out of contact with my mother for over 24 hours and had left my grandparents 5 hours prior, I was unsure if there had been a new development. Would it have been so fucking difficult to say, "You mother is tired after spending the day worrying about your grandparents. Especially following your grandfather's seizure." Concise, clear and doesn't waste my fucking time.
I guess I am just struggling to understand why when you have a question or comment to share with someone, people seem to have so much trouble doing it. It's like I need to send them to journalism school or something. Tell me pertinent facts- who, what, when, where, how- when valid. Don't add stupid shit I don't care about. Don't leave out the most important things and then sound put out because I don't understand. The best part is, my little sister does the same damn thing but she is the one who gets most annoyed with my step father when he does it. This isn't a one time thing either, he talks in CIRCLES 90% of the time. He very rarely answers the actual question you asked. Then gets pissed when you decide you are done with the conversation because it's going nowhere.
What do you think? Do you interact with people who can't just get their point across? Or are you the one people have trouble following? I'd love to hear some justifications for belaboring a point or failing to address an actual question.
* Lest you think this is a family issue, I can state with certainty that one of my coworkers is a fucking idiot do to her inability to answer a direct question. What makes that worse? She went to Cornell.
**President Obama does this a lot too. Supposedly he's a great speaker (maybe it's his conviction in his tone) but half the time I stop listening to him because he didn't answer the actual question.
*** This is especially annoying in phone messages. If you don't tell me in the first 10 seconds, I delete it and don't call you back. That should answer a lot of my friends questions on why I never get back to them.
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