List one NT thing you do not understand.

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i don't like the custom of shaking hands when you meet someone new. it's kind of unsanitary and since i'm a nailbiter, i try to be conscious of what i touch.

I agree with Boomshika---I don't particularly care for shaking hands either. Besides the awkwardness of the touch, I have mild Psoriasis on my hands and I often have a steroid cream on them---so hand shaking isn't a great thing.

I really can't understand the long-standing phenomenon of a (presumably NT) woman seeing another woman wearing an identical outfit and then getting angry with that other woman. It makes absolutely 0 sense to me.

This is not an NT thing, it is a gender thing.

NT males think this is bollocks too.

I wouldnt be upset if some other man (NT or otherwise) showed up in jeans and a t shirt.

For a women, who sometime spend a little more time planning their attire this would by some accounts be devastating

Marriage counselling website perhaps

...I still don't understand it. And I'm female.

Sorry, I didnt bother to check your profile............

Female AND diagnosed Aspie............so NT women's clothing issues unfathomable

I don't understand why people insist you take off your hat when you're indoors.
I know I'm not Christian, but people want me to remove it anyway, eg when we're having a Tute at Uni...

I don't get body language. I mean I can understand it after awhile but no one I know of it terribly consistent about it's usage. One day someone is a wooden plank and the next they're dancing with themselves permanently. And I'm the weird one.

Keeping everything exaggeratedly positive in social situations, even if someone is actually really upset, and sometimes silencing them with humour and put downs if they do show they're upset.

What's the point of being uber-smiley and nice if it's just a behavioural "veil"? What's the value in acting bubbly when actually you're hurt or angry? It's meaningless.

I really hate it when people tell me what I think or feel, or try to emphasize a point by relating it to what they think I think or feel. They are almost always wrong. And even when I tell them exactly what I think and feel, they refuse to believe it.

Eventually I had to scream at one of my ex-wives that damn it, if there is anyone who can lay claim to being an expert on my thoughts, feelings, and motivations, and could answer simple and direct questions about them, it is ME!

However, the most annoying thing I don't understand is the sense of entitlement NTs seem to have. I don't care if you've had a bad day, aren't feeling well, or whatever. I don't care if you feel overwhelmed and put upon, I feel that way a lot myself, and it does not excuse poor behavior on my part, and I will not accept that it excuses poor behavior on your part. Especially in a work environment.

I never understood makeup until this one time I saw a girl I went to school with years later in college. She had just the right rouge, eye shadow, earrings etc. She was always slightly fat, boring and aloof in school. That night she looked hot. It was a total ugly duckling to swan transformation. The NT guys I was with all commented on how great she looked and made comments verging on the inappropriate later on (out of earshot).

Makeup can be done right. Thank god I'm a guy and don't have to screw with it.

People wear make up to make themselves look younger, cover up their bruises or pimples or dark circles under their eyes, to look prettier, but what I don't understand is people who wear make up when they are already pretty and have nothing to hide on their face. Maybe they want to look prettier or they have low self esteem issues about their looks so they think they aren't pretty.

I have experienced that too. So much for Theory of Mind...

Sometimes it's like when people know you are different, they don't think we can judge ourselves what is inside us, they can do it much better, as the "normal" ones. Fortunately most NTs I have met are not like that.

Another thing is when they expect one to feel bad about something, per definition, without asking if that's the case. Eg. in the first part of my theology study, I had Latin and Greek lessons, which I liked (have always loved languages, and have had obsessions with certain ones). But they expected me to dislike it, because most others did!
When I was finished with those lessons, they'd say to me: so now you've got rid of the troublesome / hard work with the languages?
Doh! I didn't find it troublesome or hard, but they expected it without knowing or even asking! They couldn't even imagine that anyone actually could like it!

So no. NTs don't "know" what others think. They just believe they do (hence the Theory of Mind).
Or they only use it for people like themselves.
I have this theory I've mentioned before, that ToM may just be projection with a more "acceptable" name.

Oh, yeah. I think they start to feel nervous if no one is talking. Like they think "why isn't she talking? What should I say? This is awkward." instead of just thinking about something else. It took me a while to realize that.

Anyway, mine is:
I'm an artist. I draw because I love how things look. (Seems kinda.. obvious..) But apparently that's not good enough. Most NT artists want there to be all sorts of layers of meaning in art. D: But to me, visual metaphores and that kind of thing are really hard to figure out and when I know they're there, it detracts from the visual pleasure of the art. It's like a secret contest. "Who's DEEP enough to figure this out!"
Can't you find something interesting and meaningful in a drawing without the artist having to have some agenda behind it?

I agree: it's not actually theorizing what another person may actually be thinking at all, but assuming that the person must be thinking a certain way because that is how they would think in that situation. They still stick to this even when there is in fact evidence to suggest the contrary.

Example: there is a roomful of people. Most are talking to somebody else, but one is on their own. Now, if this person isn't doing anything, is gazing wistfully at the others, and looking bored and unhappy, then the NT in question could have fairly strong grounds for thinking that they would like someone to talk to. But suppose the person is engrossed in a book, and paying no attention at all to the other people. When the NT approaches the person and speaks, they answer politely, but show no apparent desire to put their book down and become involved in a conversation with them. Why would they continue to pester and interrupt them, convinced they must be lonely, when everything about the situation is telling them the opposite? Simple. Because they would be, and they cannot conceive of anyone thinking in a fundamentally different way to them.

It seems ironic that we are supposed to lack theory of mind, yet we seem to have no problem whatsoever accepting the fact that others think differently, even if we may not understand why.

I know exactly what you're talking about. I detest people who act like that. They're shallow. It seems so insecure to me, like they're afraid of negative emotions and thus have to either dismiss with lame cliches or mock/ridicule.