When someone schedules a meeting, my first reaction is often: Why?
If the goal is to ask a simple question, wouldn’t an email or quick chat be faster and more respectful of everyone’s time?
Meetings feel like a costly way to reach what could’ve been a quick decision. If it’s just a social gesture like “having coffee” under a professional excuse, I don’t understand why it needs to involve multiple people.
Sensory Friction
Meeting rooms are rarely comfortable. I vividly remember the smells: stale humidity, sweat, cheap perfume. The lighting is often too harsh or too dim. Some projectors even cause flashing red, green, or blue artefacts — which no one else seems to see. I suspect it’s related to visual sensitivity or rapid eye movement.
Then there’s the sound. Even light background noise (such as a radiator turning on, footsteps outside, heavy breathing, or the beamer fan) can force me to manually concentrate just to hear what’s being said. If the noise persists, my focus derails entirely.
Being Present, Unplugged, But Still Observing
Large meetings with vague topics present a different kind of challenge. If the discussion lacks structure or relevance, I experience a predictable cycle:
First, boredom. Then, confusion. Then, shame about falling behind. Eventually, my brain checks out entirely.
Physically, I stay present: I nod, I keep eye contact. But cognitively, I drift. That doesn’t mean I’m completely disconnected, though.
Even while disengaged from the content, I often switch into observer mode, watching how others interact, tracking micro-patterns in speech, tone, and posture. I might not follow the discussion point, but I notice who’s leading, who’s hesitant, who dominates or avoids eye contact.
The Food Coma Experience
My ability to participate in or follow work meetings drops sharply if they happen after a proper meal. I often experience a “food coma”, marked by cognitive fog and sleepiness, which makes it even harder to track conversations, remember details, or contribute meaningfully.
This happens even when I’ve eaten a healthy or moderate meal and seems unrelated to calories alone. It does not occur when I have small snacks throughout the day or after physical activity. Where possible, I schedule important meetings before lunch.
Time Blindness and Hyperfocus
There were times I missed meetings altogether because I lost track of time. Once, my entire team left for a meeting, and I only noticed when they returned an hour later. I had been so focused that I didn’t register their absence or the silence around me. The meeting vanished from my awareness like it never existed, even the notification reminders seemed to register as ‘pop-unders’ rather than pop-ups in my awareness.
Even when I did remember a meeting, I’d often struggle with logistics: Where was it? Had I written it down? I’d unlock my computer, forget why, re-check the calendar, and inevitably arrive late.
And getting to the right meeting room was often a challenge. The rooms were identified by city names and were spread across multiple floors, and I often forgot which was which. I’d search for the room on the intranet, only to be flooded with hundreds of unrelated documents: mostly meeting minutes and archives. The internal search system was poorly designed, and that extra friction often made me even later.
The Alien Meeting Effect
Sometimes, I sit in a meeting and feel like I’ve stepped into a parallel dimension. Everyone else seems to understand what’s happening. I hear the words, I understand each of them, but I still don’t get the meaning.
Unlike written text, I can’t pause, reread, or reflect. The conversation keeps moving. And sometimes, I don’t even know what to ask because I don’t know what’s wrong. That feeling of speaking the same language but not understanding the context is deeply isolating.
The Alien Meeting Effect (Part II)
Sometimes, the alien feeling flips.
It’s not that I don’t understand — it’s that the answer is so clear to me I wonder how nobody else sees it.
The difference is in the stakes.
When urgency is high, my clarity suddenly counts.
Like the time the IT room’s air conditioning failed. Temperatures rising, servers at risk, everyone waiting for suppliers. For me, it felt like watching a squirrel cool itself — transferring heat into the environment. My mind jumped branches: industrial fans, underground parking, ducting, airflow. Emergency logic. I acted, and people listened, because the alternative was meltdown (literal and figurative).
When urgency is low, the same clarity feels… alien.
Take the “window debate.” People complained the meeting room was stuffy. Some blamed the thermostat, others argued about the AC. Meanwhile, I could see the pattern instantly: the airflow would balance if we opened the opposite side window. But when I suggest it, it sounds too simple to take seriously. (Note: the window is a generic example; it was quite difficult to describe an accessible real situation for this text.)
And then there are the “aha” moments — when an idea pops into my head fully formed, like a shortcut from nowhere. The solution feels solid, like an instinct, but retracing the reasoning is tricky without going through the whole maze of associations step by step. In those cases, I often hold back during the group discussion. Instead, I’ll share the idea later in a one-on-one, where I can unpack the thought process without the spotlight of the meeting.
That’s the paradox:
- In crisis, my leaps look like brilliance.
- In calm, they look like irrelevance.
- In between, they look like half-formed intuition unless I translate them carefully.
Notes That Break the Flow
I’m not the best person for live meeting notes. My brain works best when I can either fully engage with the discussion or reflect afterwards. Real-time transcription pulls me out of the flow, and I risk missing key points or context. Trying to do both is like trying to write a poem while someone reads a maths problem aloud.
I’ve since learned to set clearer expectations, not just for myself but for others too. Avoiding the note-taker role is necessary for everyone’s benefit. But I was using the wrong reason to avoid the task: I used to refuse to take notes by claiming I was under a heavy task load. That strategy might have spared me, but it didn’t protect the system, especially when others were also struggling silently.
My neurodivergence discovery has led me to prepare a few scripts that I may use in the future:
- “Live note-taking doesn’t work well for me — I tend to process things deeply and non-linearly, and writing at the same time pulls me out of the conversation flow.”
- “I’m wired a bit differently — more big-picture than real-time summarising. Writing notes during discussion breaks my focus and affects how I track the conversation. I’ve learned that others usually do better at capturing the flow live.”
- “I have some traits that overlap with dyslexia — writing while listening in real time takes so much cognitive effort that I miss both. I can help clean up or clarify notes afterwards, but I’m not great at taking them during the meeting.”
(Dyslexia tends to be publicly understood and less likely to invite judgment.)
This is more honest and ethical than what I used to do.
False Confidence, Real Consequences
And then there are the meetings where I think I’ve understood everything perfectly, only to discover later that I was completely misaligned with what others expected.
That’s the most disorienting outcome of all. I might leave the room confident, act on what I heard, and only days later realise I was on a completely different track. The disconnect isn’t about missing details — it’s about processing reality through a different framework.
This happens in written communication, too: I’ll read an email, respond with what feels like full understanding, only to find out I missed the point.
Two Positive Exceptions
Not all meetings were difficult. I once had a manager who consistently opened every meeting with clear context, the reasons we were there, and what was expected from each person.
His communication style was structured, transparent, and direct — which made it easy for me to engage and stay oriented. I never had to guess what the meeting was really about or whether I had missed something between the lines.
Under his leadership, I rarely experienced confusion or overwhelm. I didn’t even feel the need to challenge his decisions — not because I agreed blindly, but because his clarity left no gaps for misunderstanding. Everything made sense.
In addition, meetings held in English as a second language for everyone were more straight to the point and direct, and they rarely left me feeling like an alien.
Closing Reflection
I didn’t know I was neurodivergent. I didn’t have the words for why meetings felt so overwhelming, why I missed them, or why my brain shut down during them. I just assumed I was doing something wrong, that I was lazy, careless, too sensitive, or not trying hard enough (but hidden as “just too busy with more urgent topics”).
The truth is, I wasn’t failing. I was trying to operate in a communication system that didn’t match how my brain processes information.
Only after discovering my neurodivergence did these patterns start to make sense.
I don’t struggle with communication itself. I struggle with how it’s structured, how it’s delivered, and how many invisible expectations are never made explicit. That difference used to feel like shame.
The Mask That Worked Too Well
Throughout all of this, I was masking.
I behaved like everyone else in the room: attentive, polite, engaged. I nodded when others did. I asked occasional questions. I mirrored the expected rhythm of meetings.
But internally, I was translating, compensating, and mentally exhausted.
None of the struggles were visible. I was playing a role. And because the performance was convincing, no one knew it was costing me so much.
And after all that effort, it’s no wonder the system sometimes crashes.
In the noisy open space, after masking through meetings and juggling to keep up with the real work, the tiniest disruption could tip me over. Once, just someone switching the lights on without warning was enough to trigger a complete meltdown by surprise.
… And because I didn’t know these were meltdowns, I kept blaming myself. My colleagues forgave me — but I didn’t. That cycle of self-blame and fear of “crashing” again fed directly into the people-pleasing I describe elsewhere — a pressure that shaped more than just meetings.