Ask and guess cultures

Ask and guess cultures are two different ways of talking: directly, and indirectly.

Essentially, some people would rather directly say what they need and hear what other people need, and are fine with a blunt rejection; other people prefer to spot and drop hints, to spare everyone embarrassment. Either method is fine, but the two clash.

A very common autistic trait is being unable to encode and decode linguistic pragmatics (such as tone of voice and body language), including implicatures (hints). Those of us with this trait are Ask culture, not by choice, but because we lack the ability to unconsciously encode and decode pragmatics.

An Ask MetaFilter comment explains the differences between Ask and Guess cultures, possibly coining the terms. They're expounded upon by a Medium article.