Reading social situations

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Hi,
I wanted to ask how long it took some of you to read certain social situations that you have encountered?

Whether someone was not interested in you or whether they were setting boundaries or if they really like you?

I still have trouble with this today but am much better at it than when I was younger. It was around mid- highschool age that I became more socially aware and skilled. Still what you mentioned......not knowing if someone is interested in what you're saying, or understanding boundaries in particular situations are still sometimes problems for me.......

I started becoming aware as well by my late teens but not much.

For example, I re-connected with a childhood friend for a time at 18 and she kept blowing me off when I would call by asking me to call back in the next 15 minutes because she this this or that to do. It took me three times before realizing that she did not want to talk to me and that she was giving me the run around. In fact, it helped me realized the first clue that someone is not interested like that.

Things did not start to click until I was in my early 20's since I had the mind of a teenager and most adolescents start to reason at the next 5 years of their lives go by. I know mine did.

I am 31 now and think like I am 25-26. I can now very read cues when someone is either not interested in me by different hints of excuses. I can also tell the different between a broken promise when a fly by night comment about getting together.

I can even read them in the case of my friends and other people by watching how they interact with my friends by their body language, the pitch of their voice, and whether they talk with my friends much at all.

-A broken promise is something that someone says they are going to do constantly by saying as if they are committed and then changing their mind at the last minute or do not follow through, whereas a fly by night is where someone says something like, "Yeah, let's do lunch next week, call me."

I still have problems with this, but if I do realise, I don't think I react in the appropriate way either. Still need to unlearn a few things. When I noticed a woman in a group conversation was making excuses and did hand wave like I was shooing a fly off. That was probably not appropriate.

I started to deliberately practice when I was about 20. I'm 30 now, and I've come a long way. I'm not quite "there," and even when I'm doing well sometimes I burn out and shut down for awhile, but I think it's going to pay off soon.