Often, describing how I think can be challenging. I know it's different than how most people think, but I don't know exactly how it is different. I'm not in anyone else's head so I couldn't tell you how they think but I know by the strange looks I get that we are not on the same wavelength. I said all that to say this:

I was watching an episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles last night on DVD and the perfect example came up. I'll describe it to you all here in a moment, but what I'm really looking for is a little direction. I assume that I'm not unique in the way I think and therefore, there's probably a name for it. I'm not big on labels but they are helpful to communicate - and my therapist and I are having some difficulties there.

Cameron, a cybernetic organism in a sixteen year old female human body, is talking to the school guidance counselor. He is trying to offer grief counseling to students after a suicide at school. He says to her, "People say that you were the last person to speak to her; is this true?"

Immediately, and before she could respond, I thought to myself, "Is it true that people say this or is it true that she was the last person to speak to her?"

Cameron replies, "Is it true that people say this or is it true that I was the last person to speak to her?"

Guidance counselor: "Is it true that you were the last person to speak to her?"

Me: "How could she know?"

Cameron: "How would I know that."

Anyway, with this fresh in my mind, I recalled many, many instances of spontaneously beating Spock from Star Trek or Data from Star Trek TNG to their lines. That is how I think. Always. Everything is processed logically and then translated into social norms. It happens very quickly, but it happens all the time. By all the time, I do not mean 'it happens a lot', I mean it literally.

I can't always figure it out, but in those cases I use humor as a way to avoid detection.

In the above example, if someone asked me my example question above, "People say that you were the last person to speak to her; is this true?" I'd immediately break it down to the two possibilities I mentioned previously. If I couldn't figure it out fast enough to avoid an awkward pause in the flow of the conversation, I'd probably say something along the lines of, "I don't know" insuring that I added inviting body language and tonality so that the conversation could continue.

'I don't know' incidentally, responds to both possibilities but will almost always cause the person asking the question to rephrase the question and usually, in doing so, clarify it. I would expect either:

"Well, do you think people are saying that about you?"

or

"Well, do you think you were the last person to speak to her?"

Both give me a clearer sense of direction. There's no way I could know the answer to either of these questions, but at least I know what he's asking me now. By the way, this is why I hate social interactions - I never know what people mean and while I can almost always get them to tell me without a great deal of awkwardness felt on their part - it's a fair amount of work.

Got a name for this? A direction to look? Thanks.