Someone put the number in her phone.
She isn’t sure how to navigate through the contact to get the number.
Something I learned as I got older and has drastically improved my relationships is to just answer the question as asked.
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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This is a great tip in general, but especially so from an autistic perspective - we generally communicate much more directly, and you should trust that if we've asked that specific question it's because that's specifically what we want to know lol
Wait, isn't that, like, normal?
For a good portion of the population it is
For the other 60% it isnt
What I often find is people don't ask the question they should have to receive the information they actually want. So I have to read between the lines and understand their perspective and what led them to ask their question in the first place, then I can actually give them the information they were looking for. For instance, the OP, the Grandma doesn't want to know the kid's number. She wants to know the best or most convenient way (from her perspective) to have a voice call with the kid. That might be by having the kid's phone number, but it might not be.
For instance, the OP, the Grandma doesn't want to know the kid's number. She wants to know the best or most convenient way (from her perspective) to have a voice call with the kid
I don't think that's right. Grandma knows how to find his contact to text him, she should be capable of finding it to call him.
I think she actually wants his phone number for something. Maybe she wants to give it to the cute girl in her church for him, maybe she wants to sign him up to a spam call list. Who knows, but I find it the more likely option.
I think it's more likely granny just doesn't know how to use her phone well enough, but what you're saying is totally possible too. See this can be interpreted in so many ways
If not, we should absolutely normalize answering specific questions when asked specific questions.
What's normal for you might not be what is normal for others, so I can't really answer that!
Maybe this will help?
https://neuroclastic.com/autism-autistic-communication-differences/
Makes me wonder if I'm on the spectrum or if ADHD people normally do this too. Or if this is an engineer thing.
The flip side is I normally don't trust other people to ask me precisely what they need and want because all too often they try to solve a problem but don't come up with a great one and would be better off telling me what they're trying to accomplish so I can come up with a more optimal solution. (Also if I am not sure about the best solution, I will try to state what I'm trying to do)
This is sometimes called an xy problem.
Like, someone wants to do some calculations in a spreadsheet. They don't know spreadsheets or Excel, but they know JavaScript. So they try to use JavaScript in their spreadsheet. They get part way and ask you "hey how do I get console.log to print to a cell?". Which is weird. Instead they should be asking "how do I add up the numbers in this column?"
TIL thanks. Strange that I've been in IT all this time and haven't heard the term frequently.
This is a imprecise communication thing.
Language is hard, words are hard and we have far too little patience.
Just send her the digits.
Right? Don't make her try to navigate to where she can see the number.
On Android there's a phone symbol at the top of the messenger that you can just tap to call. I'm not familiar with Apple products, but if they have something similar that could be helpful too.
iMessage just has the FaceTime video call option at the top, which isn’t always a good option, but if you click the avatar bubble (middle top circle) it brings up the menu for call, video call, changing their info and notification settings etc.
It’s there behind an extra step, but it’s just complicated enough for someone who doesn’t tech.
Grandma writes down her grandkids numbers into her address book that she's used for many decades. It worked when she had a rotary phone, it worked when she had a cordless phone and it still works when she has an iPhone. If she ever decides to get some other brand of phone she will have no problem calling her gandkids because she has a system that works independently of whatever new technology comes around.
Meanwhile her grandchild will find it difficult to adapt to a phone from another company because they'll have to figure out how to export their contacts and import it into the phone, and then adapt to a different interface. They will likely just continue use phones from Apple no matter how much the charge for them, regardless of their reliability or quality. Too much hassle to change.
Now it's debatable which way of using the phone is better, but there are some real advantages to how grandma does it.
So just give her the damn number, so she can write it in her address book and she can dial in that number when she wants to call you. Her way of using a phone is not necessarily worse than your way of using it.
Grandma has gone full platform agnostic and I'm here for it
GIVE HER THE NUMBER
yeah op, what are you hiding??
Order number.
iMessage works on emails too, maybe if this were an sms
Yeah this actually shows that the grandchild doesn’t know how iMessage works.
There is no button to call, onley facetime so that means gram is writing to her via email account and not a phone number account, that means you are the one who is wrong because she doenst have your number
On all my iMessage chats it’s only the video call button.
I think grandma wants the actual number so she can write it down/give it to someone else and maybe doesn’t know how to get to the contacts app.
There's a chance this grandma wiped grandchild's butt when grandchild was a baby. Perhaps also tried to catch the occasional random baby puke in her hands, instead of letting it spill on the floor. Or on someone else's car seat. Grandchild should have just typed those numbers in.
Thought my mom (77) how to disassemble her notebook and clean the fans and just got her to use my nextcloud for chatting and sharing stuff. I'm really proud of her. Then again she had roommates who built a computer from relais in the 60's and still has her basic programming class certificate from like '82. Just shows how important it is to keep up to date and your brain will thank you.
Just give it to her.
Maybe she’s used to using her grand children’s iCloud’s lol
My 86 year old mother refuses to learn to use a smart phone, and still doesn't know how to send or read texts.
Hahaha.... that's going to be me in a few years