“I think about killing my characters off pretty regularly, though often I come up with more creative things to do instead. As far as I know I’m an average amount of susceptible to intrusive thoughts, if that’s what you’re asking, but why are you asking?”
(In the role of a hypothetical interlocutor)
“See this here?” (Pulls out his Asperger’s Club Card) “I have trouble distinguishing what’s socially acceptable to ask from what isn’t, and since you’re such a welcoming host, I hope you also welcome my honest curiosity. I wouldn’t want to lie—or suppress the truth—about which topic interests me right this moment.
As for the reason for my interest, you see, I’m checking whether your deontological barrier against lying can withstand the social inconvenience of (ironically) telling the truth about a phenomenon (fantasizing about killing someone) which is wildly common, but just as wildly lied about.
Your question answered, allow me to make sure I understood you correctly: My question was referring to actual people. Have I inferred correctly that you did in fact fantasize about killing living people (non-fictional) on multiple occasions?”
ETA:
Or if I don’t even trust them with that answer I can just stare at them in silence.
I see. Unfortunately, unlike “pleading the fifth”, not answering when one answer is compromising is kinda giving the answer away. The symmetrical answering policy you’d have to employ in which you stare in silence regardless of whether the answer would be “yes” or “no” is somewhat hard to sell (especially knowing that silence in such a case is typically interpreted as an answer*). Unless you like to stare in silence, like, a lot. And are known to do so.
* “Do you love me?”—silence, also cf. Paul Watzlawick’s “You cannot not communicate.”
You or your character or both have confused “not lying” with “answering all questions put to one”. And for that matter “inviting people who ask rude questions indiscriminately to parties in the first place”.
I’d hoped I addressed this in the edit, “cannot not communicate” and such.
You may find yourself in situations (not at your parties, of course) in which you can’t sidestep a question, or in which attempts to sidestep a question (ETA: or doing the silent stare) will correctly be assumed to answer the original question by the astute observer (“Do you believe our relationship has a future?”—“Oh look, the weather!”).
Given your apparently strong taboo against lying, I was wondering how you’d deal with such a situation (other than fighting the hypothetical by saying “I won’t be in such a situation”).
Questions I really can’t sidestep are usually ones from people who, for reasons, I have chosen to allow to become deeply entangled in my life. If one of my boyfriends or my fiancé decides to ask me if our relationship has a future I will tell him in considerable and thoughtful detail where I’m at on that topic, and because I choose to date reasonable human beings, this will not be an intolerable disaster. Occasionally if I’m really wedged (at a family holiday gathering, parent asks me something intrusive, won’t back off if I say it’s none of their business) I can solve the problem by deliberately picking a fight, which is usually sufficient distraction until I am not in their physical presence and can react by selectively ignoring lines in emails, but I don’t like doing that.
I don’t stare at people in silence a lot, but I do often give the visual appearance of wandering attention, and often fail to do audio processing such that I do not understand what people have said. Simply not completing the steps of refocusing my overt attention and asking people to repeat themselves can often serve the purpose when it’s not someone I have chosen to allow to become deeply entangled in my life; if we’re the only people in the room it works less well, but if I know a person well I’ll only be in a room alone with them if I trust them yea far, and if I don’t know them well and they start asking me weird questions I will stare at them incredulously even if the answer is in fact completely innocuous (“Have you ever committed grand theft auto?”; “are you a reptilian humanoid?”).
(In the role of a hypothetical interlocutor)
“See this here?” (Pulls out his Asperger’s Club Card) “I have trouble distinguishing what’s socially acceptable to ask from what isn’t, and since you’re such a welcoming host, I hope you also welcome my honest curiosity. I wouldn’t want to lie—or suppress the truth—about which topic interests me right this moment.
As for the reason for my interest, you see, I’m checking whether your deontological barrier against lying can withstand the social inconvenience of (ironically) telling the truth about a phenomenon (fantasizing about killing someone) which is wildly common, but just as wildly lied about.
Your question answered, allow me to make sure I understood you correctly: My question was referring to actual people. Have I inferred correctly that you did in fact fantasize about killing living people (non-fictional) on multiple occasions?”
ETA:
I see. Unfortunately, unlike “pleading the fifth”, not answering when one answer is compromising is kinda giving the answer away. The symmetrical answering policy you’d have to employ in which you stare in silence regardless of whether the answer would be “yes” or “no” is somewhat hard to sell (especially knowing that silence in such a case is typically interpreted as an answer*). Unless you like to stare in silence, like, a lot. And are known to do so.
* “Do you love me?”—silence, also cf. Paul Watzlawick’s “You cannot not communicate.”
You or your character or both have confused “not lying” with “answering all questions put to one”. And for that matter “inviting people who ask rude questions indiscriminately to parties in the first place”.
I’d hoped I addressed this in the edit, “cannot not communicate” and such.
You may find yourself in situations (not at your parties, of course) in which you can’t sidestep a question, or in which attempts to sidestep a question (ETA: or doing the silent stare) will correctly be assumed to answer the original question by the astute observer (“Do you believe our relationship has a future?”—“Oh look, the weather!”).
Given your apparently strong taboo against lying, I was wondering how you’d deal with such a situation (other than fighting the hypothetical by saying “I won’t be in such a situation”).
Sorry, I didn’t see your edit before.
Questions I really can’t sidestep are usually ones from people who, for reasons, I have chosen to allow to become deeply entangled in my life. If one of my boyfriends or my fiancé decides to ask me if our relationship has a future I will tell him in considerable and thoughtful detail where I’m at on that topic, and because I choose to date reasonable human beings, this will not be an intolerable disaster. Occasionally if I’m really wedged (at a family holiday gathering, parent asks me something intrusive, won’t back off if I say it’s none of their business) I can solve the problem by deliberately picking a fight, which is usually sufficient distraction until I am not in their physical presence and can react by selectively ignoring lines in emails, but I don’t like doing that.
I don’t stare at people in silence a lot, but I do often give the visual appearance of wandering attention, and often fail to do audio processing such that I do not understand what people have said. Simply not completing the steps of refocusing my overt attention and asking people to repeat themselves can often serve the purpose when it’s not someone I have chosen to allow to become deeply entangled in my life; if we’re the only people in the room it works less well, but if I know a person well I’ll only be in a room alone with them if I trust them yea far, and if I don’t know them well and they start asking me weird questions I will stare at them incredulously even if the answer is in fact completely innocuous (“Have you ever committed grand theft auto?”; “are you a reptilian humanoid?”).
I think of such tactics as Aes Sedai mode :-)