I like to know exactly what is going on.

This is because I am a bit of a control freak. Having spent much of my childhood in circumstances which were chaotic and unsettled has turned me into a person who prefers a rather high degree of consistency. This is not to say I cannot enjoy spontaneity, or that I crumble in the face of the unexpected, but it is rather the case that in my day-to-day endeavors, I am happier if I know what to expect. To this end, I give a lot of thought to why things are the way they are, why I have made the choices I have, what drives me, what I might want to do differently, and occasionally, how my actions affect other people.

Turns out, not everyone does this. This came as a major WTF when it was finally explained to me. Apparently, many people do what they do without giving it a tremendous amount of thought. They don’t chase themselves around in their heads, analyzing the motive and origin of every action  they have ever taken. Weird, right?

So, I like to ask a lot of questions. Questions to which I want very specific answers.

By which I do not mean I want an answer in particular. I want the truth, whatever that might happen to be. I just want it in scrupulous detail.

“Well, was it that you found it confusing, or just annoying?”

“Did it just surprise you that it turned you on, or are you expanding your notions about your sexuality?”

“Was the whole thing gross, or was it only the texture that bothered you?”

Apparently, some people experience this as The Third Degree, and do not much enjoy the treatment. It is not that I am trying to pick them apart, but to peek inside and understand them better. I think I believe if I do this,  I can remove some of that pesky unpredictability from human behavior. For me, this is just about ensuring a high degree of accuracy in communication to facilitate more accurate predictions about the future.  Like any data, the more explicit and specific the information is, the better.