The "Shy Gorillas"

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Soon as I saw your avatar I knew you were a shy gorilla.

It took me like 5 minutes to work out what you meant then haha.

I remember in high school it usually took a physical gesture before I realised someone liked me. Like there was a guy who was sort of friends with me but then one day he brought all his old comic books to school and just gave them all to me. We did end up becoming pretty good friends but whenever something like that happened it was really awkward. I was like 'Oh, this person likes me and wants to be my friend.... but why???'

The description of "shy gorillas" suits me well. I have been battling paranoia for years. I go through phases sometimes where it gets really bad. I also think I can read people, but whenever I say to someone, "You seem like you're feeling [insert emotion]", they will tell me I'm reading them wrong. This actually feeds into my paranoia because I wonder if I actually am reading them correctly and they're lying to me about it.

I can relate to the diplaced feelings that arise out of missed social cues, etc. Sometimes the understanding gels later and you feel like a horse's _____.

In social contexts such as social bantering in a work place, I'm one to miss the punchlines and stand there frozen - due to not knowing how to roll with it now, in this changed scenario. I know I missed something and it develolps into an obsession to know what I've misssed. I then become distracted away from thinking or focussing on work as it snowballs into why I cannot "roll with it."

It develops into a fear or anxiety in venturing into these unknown territories for me. The confidence that I had now wilts, as it's all or nothing in this strange perception of mine.

Neither would a friggin' gorilla. I don't know what they're talking about.

I agree. Heightened faculties normally don't f**k with your ability to survive.

I think it's important not to underestimate the great apes and the similarity of some intelligence types they share with us. Sayings like "Monkey see, monkey do" or to say that someone is merely "aping" behaviour creates this perception that imitation is a base and primitive ability that humans of low intelligence are sometimes reduced to for lack of higher intelligence. That fact is though that the ability to imitate through mirror neurons is very rare in the animal kingdom and humans and other primates are among the only animals who are believed to have them. Here's one way to explain mirror neurons; When you perform an action, let's say its' something exotic and unfamiliar to me, there are certain neurons in your head firing in association with that action. Even if I've never performed the action myself and I am witnessing it for the first time those same neurons fire in my head in preparation for me to imitate. I think that's pretty cool!
Also we know apes have self awareness because they pass the so called mark test where a blob of paint is sneakily rubbed on their face then they are later shown a mirror. Apes over a certain age know they are looking at themselves and try to rub the paint off their own face.

That's the thing - are Schizoids really paranoid, or are we just good at spotting sociopaths from a mile away?

I like the Wikipedia article on SPD. It has a fascinating list of "covert" and "overt" manifestations of Schizoid symptoms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_p ... y_disorder

This sounds a lot like me... I am diagnosed with ADHD and have social anxiety too. I also tested in the gifted iq range. I don't think I am very far removed from the autism spectrum.

Social awareness with impairments often does seem to translate to social anxiety. Perhaps women are more vulnerable to this because they classically have higher levels of social understanding and awareness?

To me it seems to suggest that theory of mind (correctly or incorrectly applied) can actually worsen social anxiety.