I am very comfortable with words, and as a result
- I am comfortable accessing information in written form (so formal education, where everything important is reduced to words, worked quite well for me)
- I am comfortable expressing myself in words (again, great for formal education)
- I seek precision in words (e.g. like to check dictionary references and etymology)
- I get a little kick out of language related discoveries (e.g. that passion meant “suffering”)
- I probably make use of a larger-than-average vocabulary
It also means
- I can distracted / irritated by background conversations (was not a problem in formal education because only one person was supposed to speak at a time)
- I can sometimes get stuck trying to find the most precise word
- I get irritated when someone uses a word imprecisely (e.g. people who can not speak are not necessarily “non verbal” - e.g. maybe they can use words in written form)
- I can sometimes focus too much on the literal words and may miss social / body language cues (e.g. if I offer someone something to drink, and they decline because the social convention is to decline the first offer, I will take their “no” at face value and not push them to accept a drink; and could be seen as “impolite”)
- I can get confused with insincere questions; like, don’t ask “How are you doing?” unless you actually want to know how I am doing. If you mean to say “Good morning”, just say “Good morning”.
Some further notes
- Background conversations (a TV playing nearby, other people nearby talking loudly enough to be audible) are distracting because my highly sensitive “language processor” tries to track it, but it doesn’t seem to be a problem with songs, I can usually tune it out, and actually playing my comfort songs actually helps me concentrate
- I wonder if it is something to do with the lack of uncertainty; i.e. I know how the song is going to play out (not necessarily precisely remembering lyrics), but I suspect that even for an unfamiliar song I don’t feel distracted
- Even though it’s verbal and I don’t necessarily catch the body language even if I was face-to-face, I find audio-only conversations hard (so a phone call can be stressful). I wonder this is just because of straining to hear the words well?
- Unless it’s a demonstration (e.g. how to disassemble something) I prefer to read rather than watch videos, but I think this is more to do with being able to adjust reading speed easily (slow down or speed up without having to point and click, and even then it’s in quantums like x1.25, x1.5) and being able to re-read or skim forward easily than about the format
PLACEHOLDER: Possibly replace “highly verbal” with a better term? Being highly verbal, not having a precise term irks me
