Dave Plummer

So I'm very easily distracted.

I fall asleep with noise canceling headphones or I can't fall asleep, that kind of thing.

But once I get locked in, I'm very hard to distract.

So it's kind of a paradox.

It's hard to get into that state.

That I don't know what anybody else is thinking.

So I know what I would think about this interaction if I was in your position and I was you.

Yeah.

And that's the best I can do.

But I think most neurotypical people have a sense of, well, Lex probably feels this way or that way because he's acting this way and his reactions are this and his facial expressions say this.

And that's all kind of lost on me.

So I run a little proxy NPC game for everybody I deal with.

It can be, yeah.

Telephone is especially hard because I rely on a lot of other cues.

And when somebody is just on the phone and I just have their voice, there's so much that's implied between people that I miss.

And so I'm much better on FaceTime, where if somebody makes a joke, they might smile after.

Where on the phone, I don't know if you're being sarcastic or serious and that kind of thing.

Yeah, there's lots of times with my wife, too, where, well, there's a certain literalism that comes with autism.

And we spent years where she would say something, and I'd say, but that doesn't make sense.

She'd go, you know what I mean.