People with AS and high emotional intelligence

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I think I do ok perceiving emotions... But I also have trouble controlling them. I am very sensitive. Lol.

I am tired, so I cannot read and properly think about your post, but it sounds very much like what I am confused about with myself!

Hi, ive had to trail far and wide to get this information. It seemed everywhere I looked on googleabout having autism and emotional intelligence just kept repeatedly telling me that autistic people have low or lacking in emotional intelligence. Apparently according to some test on a website I have average emotional intelligence. Which confused the hell out of me. Because I sstruggle with self awareness and awaress of others in their motivations and subtext, sarcasm is a real pain in the bum for me :/ im awkward in social situations and have a moderate to servere anxiety disorder.

But I have a theory... I think with how an autistic brain is supposed to work in differencw from neuro-typicals is that the autistic model of the brain is supposed to be overly logical. And I think we find ways of compensating our lack of instictive emotional intelligence. We study and learn and simulate how we're supposed to be. And of course over time this becomes like second nature to us. But what throws us and others around us out is when we find ourselves in a situation we dont know the social norms for, and we act in our approximate of what we think we should be. And this doesnt come off as nature or correct.

As a kid and indeed, as a young adult growing up (29 now) I have always been labelled by my peers as being odd and weird. I dont get why, but there you go lol. But I do know that in most cases I am detached from my learned social norms behaviour. So when im talking to someone and theyre talking about something I have absolute no interest in, I give the customary nods and murmurs of agreement and ask various questions, but I dont have any interest in the answer. And inside I zone out and think about things that interest me instead. Unfortuently this doesnt always work and I end up interuppting them and changing the subject to something I find interesting. So its all swings and roundabouts I guess.

But I have found that if I allow myself to withdraw from social interaction, I find it harder to interact with others in any capacity, I change completely and become very withdrawn into myself and spend alot of time on my own, indoors, not talking to anyone if I can really help it lol. But when I have regular social interaction in an environment I feel comfortable and confident in, I find it easier to deal with other social environments and people. I become more outgoing and less anxious in social situations. But at the same time I do find I need to balance that with an equal number of hours/days or my own personal downtime because I get easily overwhelmed and things start going wrong with my behaviour and saying things I shouldnt which can sometimes get me into trouble a little.

I am the same way. I have a hard time responding appropriately. However, I do understand, for the most part, what people are about (how they feel and what their motives are). I have a hard time with verbal self-expression and non-verbal is nearly impossible.

I don't fully understand this EQ thing. I haven't had it tested, either (I'm officially diagnosed). It seems like I have huge discrepancies in my emotional intelligence.

It's as if my emotional intelligence is high in certain aspects and low in others. When it comes to purely dealing with my own emotions I think I'm pretty good in the sense that I can deal well with emotion and don't let it take over, nor do I have anger management issues or other things like that that indicate an inability to deal with emotions. Furthermore, I'm definitely not 'childish' in dealing with situations. My English is lacking here, but I mean that I'm pretty mature in how I deal with situations and other people's feelings. People've also said that, that I behave wise and maturely.

My emotional intelligence is low on the other hand when it comes to social understanding. I can do smalltalk if I use certain tricks but not for too long. I lack social understanding and insight. It's hard to read people's intentions (towards me) and I feel I can hardly tell what people think of me unless things are pretty obvious. I also need to work on self awareness.

I sometimes think about this subject, it puzzles me. I seem quite advanced in one way, but behind in another. But then again I'm no psychologist so I'm probably just rambling on about something of which I know nothing

Wow, this post EXACTLY portrays how i feel!

i think the term "emotional intelligence" is an oxymoron.

I have an average EQ and a much lower-than-average SQ.

I have a very high EQ.