My life is a series of misunderstandings

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Yes this is true...unless they have a motive for misreading me that overrides rationality.

I've known too many people described as intelligent (or who describe themselves as intelligent) who are unwilling to test and revise some of their assumptions. Intelligence doesn't prevent people from emotionally attaching themselves to factually wrong conclusions. It may make such a thing less likely, but I would hesitate to assume that it doesn't happen based on my personal experience. In fact, some people of any intelligence level are more likely to dig in and believe in their misconceptions even more intensely when presented with data that contradicts their views. This is something I have observed, and has been documented in research.

I also cannot reject the empirical fact that I broadcast far less with my facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice than other people do, nor can I reject the high likelihood that this interferes with other people's ability to read my intent and emotions. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me is when they refuse to revise their assumptions, and so many people do. It does not make much sense to assume that every autistic person has the same degree of nonverbal broadcasting and that differences in reading us are reflected solely in NTs' ability or inability to read other people.

I also do not believe that intelligence reflects an ability to read people. I think that IQ, for example, doesn't really measure social or emotional awareness, and someone can be very intelligent but not have much social or emotional awareness.

I will add here that BPD is associated with a heightened sense of affective empathy - often to the point of actively interfering with cognitive empathy (hence the BPD tendency to read too much into what people say and make wild accusations). It may be that BPD means being better able to read autistic people since there's sometimes so little to read that they paradoxically achieve higher accuracy than they would with NTs.

I've seen it happen, especially with people who feel like they have been "wronged" in some way. Hormones can also lead intelligent people to make faulty assumptions.

It is my strong suspicion that people ascribe far too much emotional power to hormones.

"Intelligence doesn't prevent people from emotionally attaching themselves to factually wrong conclusions."

Well, whatever does prevent people from doing that, that's what I'm talking about. If not 'intelligence' I don't know what to call it. I define intelligence as an ability to understand me, so it's fine.

Smart bpds don't make wild accusations. They just really need to work people out (so they don't trust someone who then tries to rape them, I guess).

Just a quick clarification:

Are you referring to intelligence as a matter of personal merit or a matter of cognitive happenstance?

I don't know what that means. I'm talking about the ability and willingness to deal with new information.

Often I find that when people talk about intelligence, it's a matter of praise and seems to imply that intelligent people are somehow better than others for having cognitive abilities that those others may lack.

Similarly, a perceived lack of intelligence is often treated as a matter of volition, a conscious choice to obstinately refuse to learn new things, that someone who may lack many of the cognitive abilities apparently associated with intelligence somehow chose to lack them to spite and frustrate others around them.

I've also seen people argue that intelligence mitigates or even eliminates other deficits or impairments. That being "intelligent" automatically means having minimal impairments, which is likely not the case - not that intelligence doesn't ever help with some impairments, but that it has limits.

It is also often rather vaguely defined, as I've found a lot of people consider intelligence to mean "You agree with me fairly often" and others use it to mean "you challenge me when we discuss things" and so on. I don't know what you mean by intelligence, but then I don't really know what most people mean by intelligence and tend not to divide people into "intelligent" and "unintelligent" or "stupid" categories.

So I was curious as to whether, when you define someone as intelligent, you assume that intelligence is a matter of nature, nurture, or a combination.

"So I was curious as to whether, when you define someone as intelligent, you assume that intelligence is a matter of nature, nurture, or a combination."

I don't think about it (you're raised by your parents in an environment they choose so it's all extended phenotype anyway). When I say smart people can understand me better, and bpds can understand me better, I'm fairly sure that the bpd became that way in reaction to being forced to accept a distortion of reality from someone they trusted. But non-smart bpds are the worst of all (hi mum!).

Fair enough.

By the definitions you use, every person I know who has BPD is smart.

I've read a lot of theorizing over what causes BPD, from having a neurologically thin skin and lack of effective emotional regulation to "the personality disorder version of PTSD" to several other explanations. I haven't asked anyone to theorize why they might have BPD, though, as it seems kind of unseemly.

The two girls who really liked me were extremely high-functioning bpd - but only I knew. I think that for bpds, getting diagnosed is like losing the game. Why are yours smart?

dianthus: have you taken that test? Please do.

They meet your criteria. They don't make wild accusation, among other things.

So, these two girls - did they tell you that they were BPD or did you conclude it from observation?

I have already written about my interpretation of the smoothie test in a previous post, to take the test again would be disingenuous.

They didn't know. Both had been in trouble with the law but they could get the better of everyone they met so it wasn't a big problem. First thing that tipped me off was they had monsters in their peripheral vision but could see completely clearly out the front at whatever they were directly engaging with. Also they could effortlessly become whoever anyone wanted them to be. Very cool.

dianthus: I missed that. What was your interpretation?

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