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rinueI think I experience time differently than other people. There is is a lot of evidence this is not true. For instance: movies and books. In narratives people tell, they slow some parts down, and they skip other parts. (I do not skip parts, but I sometimes erase them when they weren't interesting and if I am not careful I can wind up on the wrong day of the week. Google calendar is helpful with this.) Also, when people describe how they experience time, they describe it similarly to the way I do, particularly if the people in question are older people, or on vacation, or full-time artists - the sorts of people who are never stuck in morning rush hour. I have read psychiatric literature about the variation in how recent or distant tragedy feels, or the ways people will continue the same conversation they were on the last time they saw each other, years ago. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that I experience time exactly the same way that everyone else does.
On the other hand, things go better for me when I assume that I don't - or more accurately, things go badly when I express how recent or how long ago things actually seem to me, because even if I use normal human mechanisms for experiencing time, they are subjective and do not line up with the ways things are recent or not recent to other people. It is particularly rough because the times I tend to slip up and not remember that I am talking to to someone with a different-spaced timeline are the times when I am upset or fighting with someone, and it seems to them that I am deliberately distorting things or am crazy. Also, these are the times when my experience of the past is likely to be very out of whack compared to the way I think it is for other people (although I don't know for sure that it is) because one of the things that most determines the weight of things in time - the gravity of them compared to me now - depends on two things: how much I want or need something and how unresolved something is. There are probably a lot of those things relevant to the conversation if I am upset or fighting. Another side effect is that if I am having difficulty with someone, or am worried about someone, I don't notice how often I am calling or how many days in a row I try to hang out with them, and if I'm in a good place with someone and they are doing well and we are both happy I forget to call them for weeks. I think other people might try to do this the other way around, and that seems like a better way.
It is very hard. Normally if I am upset I really want to make people understand why I am upset so that it can get fixed - which seems like placing blame, but I don't normally want to find out that someone did something wrong; I normally want to find out I have misunderstood what something meant, or what information everyone had at the time. Only when I try to explain, time is always a factor, and my time is different from their time, and I try to lock down causality, or places where we are running on different gauges, but instead everyone gets very mad and tells me to fix stuff myself, which I can't. Because for me probably different stuff is wrong, and it probably happened at a different time. Also I probably pick the wrong times to talk about it, because I am bad at that. I just want to get things fixed or definitively broken so that they can go into the past at their right distance.
On the one hand, I think I have progressively gotten better at this as I've gotten older. I don't come unstuck and seem to remember things from the future, for instance, and my first thought when I wake up isn't "when am I?" I generally get the year right and don't have to think for more than a few seconds to remember how old I am, which may also be because it has become more important to me for childbearing reasons. On the other hand, I think being better at time is much much worse for me because it's hard to convince someone to make the effort to figure it out if it seems like I can choose not to do it - I am just a frustrating asshole indulging myself at someone else's expense. Also, I think maybe I used to seem crazier in a way which was charming, and now I seem less crazy but without any associated advantages. I am using the term "crazy" loosely, because I don't think there is a pathology which fits what I am describing. Probably a better word is "eccentric" - I just avoid it because it sounds precious and irresponsible, and because a lot of the self-defined eccentrics I know are pretty mannered about it. It seems affected.
I think I was teased about this when I was a kid. It is possible I am teased about it now. I have always had a hard time noticing teasing and interpreting it correctly. It took me forever to grasp double entendres, and I've never laughed when someone tripped (unless it was Buster Keaton). I have a pretty good chance of understanding that I'm being teased if it is highly absurd, or if it is a nickname, or if it involves tickling. Otherwise, it is hard for me to tell the difference between teasing and criticism, even with context and smiling or yelling. It is like being red-green color blind.
On the other hand, things go better for me when I assume that I don't - or more accurately, things go badly when I express how recent or how long ago things actually seem to me, because even if I use normal human mechanisms for experiencing time, they are subjective and do not line up with the ways things are recent or not recent to other people. It is particularly rough because the times I tend to slip up and not remember that I am talking to to someone with a different-spaced timeline are the times when I am upset or fighting with someone, and it seems to them that I am deliberately distorting things or am crazy. Also, these are the times when my experience of the past is likely to be very out of whack compared to the way I think it is for other people (although I don't know for sure that it is) because one of the things that most determines the weight of things in time - the gravity of them compared to me now - depends on two things: how much I want or need something and how unresolved something is. There are probably a lot of those things relevant to the conversation if I am upset or fighting. Another side effect is that if I am having difficulty with someone, or am worried about someone, I don't notice how often I am calling or how many days in a row I try to hang out with them, and if I'm in a good place with someone and they are doing well and we are both happy I forget to call them for weeks. I think other people might try to do this the other way around, and that seems like a better way.
It is very hard. Normally if I am upset I really want to make people understand why I am upset so that it can get fixed - which seems like placing blame, but I don't normally want to find out that someone did something wrong; I normally want to find out I have misunderstood what something meant, or what information everyone had at the time. Only when I try to explain, time is always a factor, and my time is different from their time, and I try to lock down causality, or places where we are running on different gauges, but instead everyone gets very mad and tells me to fix stuff myself, which I can't. Because for me probably different stuff is wrong, and it probably happened at a different time. Also I probably pick the wrong times to talk about it, because I am bad at that. I just want to get things fixed or definitively broken so that they can go into the past at their right distance.
On the one hand, I think I have progressively gotten better at this as I've gotten older. I don't come unstuck and seem to remember things from the future, for instance, and my first thought when I wake up isn't "when am I?" I generally get the year right and don't have to think for more than a few seconds to remember how old I am, which may also be because it has become more important to me for childbearing reasons. On the other hand, I think being better at time is much much worse for me because it's hard to convince someone to make the effort to figure it out if it seems like I can choose not to do it - I am just a frustrating asshole indulging myself at someone else's expense. Also, I think maybe I used to seem crazier in a way which was charming, and now I seem less crazy but without any associated advantages. I am using the term "crazy" loosely, because I don't think there is a pathology which fits what I am describing. Probably a better word is "eccentric" - I just avoid it because it sounds precious and irresponsible, and because a lot of the self-defined eccentrics I know are pretty mannered about it. It seems affected.
I think I was teased about this when I was a kid. It is possible I am teased about it now. I have always had a hard time noticing teasing and interpreting it correctly. It took me forever to grasp double entendres, and I've never laughed when someone tripped (unless it was Buster Keaton). I have a pretty good chance of understanding that I'm being teased if it is highly absurd, or if it is a nickname, or if it involves tickling. Otherwise, it is hard for me to tell the difference between teasing and criticism, even with context and smiling or yelling. It is like being red-green color blind.
