Aspergers but good at reading people. Intense world theory

Post Reply New Topic

I used to think that I was good at reading people. According to my wife who is like a über NT, I have no idea most of times. It turned out that I was just very good at observing and analyzing. I still understand non speaking toddlers better than NTs. I guess it is more like understanding dog's needs...

I've read people before, but I think it's not so much the ability to read them as much as what you interpret from your readings.

I used to pride myself on having a good moral compass, but for some reason, I've not let my compass guide me to safety as of recent... "Oooh, they're not that trustworthy by the way they treat people," I read, "but they have something I want, so live and let live!" Cut to me being emotionally drained by that person and wondering whether I have any good sense at all. It's happened time and time again, always in different ways, and yet stemming from the same ignorant "forgiveness".

How do other people do it? It seems like some just conquer even the scuzziest of people.

Cenabee, when I was young I believed that the one with the most toys at the end won.

That was wrong. Going with the flow is much easier.

Anagram, yeah it is kind of like hearing the beat of a new song, but only being able to do the same old "dad" dance

I feel the discernment of tone of voice and posture, and knowing the specific context within which a certain voice, posture, or utterance is used, is indispensable when one desires to "read" another person.

Frequently, I sense that people are feeling down when the are actually feeling sort of "meh."

I think I'm good at reading people, but then I wouldn't really know if I wasn't.

What for NTs seems to happen at the speed of unnoticed/intuitive interaction happens for me at the level of conscious consideration. It's learned, because I came to understand from experience there was a gap between what is said and what is meant, and I had to learn ways to work that out (as well as plain curiosity). Because I have to consciously evaluate the information, I'm more aware of more of what's going on than the NTs who take it for granted. This works much better when I'm simply observing, because if I'm called on to interact, I can't really keep up with it all, and I'll then spend a fair bit of time afterwards analysing the interaction.

Intense world theory makes sense to me. I struggle to deal with all the (sensory and social) information that's coming at me, as it feels like I have little or no ability to pre-sort. Everything that comes to my attention has to be weighed and assessed and sorted, because I don't know what's important. As is doubtless a norm around these parts, I spend a lot of time in my head. The experience of finding one has arrived at a destination without noticing the travel is common stuff across humanity, but for me it feels like a coping/survival mechanism. If I'm distracted enough with my thoughts or a podcast or music, I can pay the minimal amount of attention to the world to move through it and not feel overwhelmed.

about that "intense world theory" thing, i don't know if it's the same thing, but i have virtually no doubt that a neurological inability to properly filter sensory input is at the core of all forms of autism. your brain simply fails to learn the irrelevance of a lot of the input your senses capture. not completely, or else we all would see the blood vessels inside our eyes. but still, a lot of noise keeps coming in, and then you need to compensate for it. and sometimes it turns out that some of the "noise" that would be filtered out by an average brain actually has some use (and then some people have "savant" skills)

in short, i believe autism = "broken filter syndrome". the details can be wildly different from one person to another (what goes unfiltered and what doesn't, or under what circumstances, or what are the implications and the behaviors that develop from it, and so on), but i think that's the one thing all autistic people have in common: a "broken filter"

Generally, I "guess" at what people should be feeling based upon how I would "feel" if I were in that person's shoes. This, based purely on logic.

As such, I am RELATIVELY GOOD at reading people who are 100% logical. I SUCK at reading everyone else.

I have been a mechanic for 25 years. I have a mechanical mind. I meet, greet, and have coversations with all human walks of life. It is my job. People are very needy of what I can do, so it is easy for me to deal with people. I fire alot of them. I just can't have a boss, or keep a job. Looking into a car is like a window into the mind for me. Alot of people tell me I have a person figured out inside of twenty minutes. Most things I need to keep to myself. I have never been diagnosed either. Maybe i'm wrong. Nobody is willing to make me know otherwise, so I just suffer with my human condition without anyone telling me for sure one way or the other. Special, and idiot savant skills come in all forms. That is the colorful thing about the human condition. Like the golden number. It is in the design.

I keep to myself out there in the real world for 3 types reasons.
A) I do not like small talk. It stresses me out when other women establish groups and orders. I come of as confident(I can have a full fledged panic attack while looking stoic /bored. I cannot speak during,though), and I am good at what I do, so often groups attempt to pin alfa positions on me. Some get really mad when I decline. I guess it is provoking that I see no value in being offered a good portion of their social currency. In short, group socialisation with all it's rules and hollow valuesystems seems utterly pointless to me. I get the system of behaviour, it just comes off as pointless to me.

B) I do not read the paper, I do not have Facebook. When the News reporter tells me that 1 million people in West Africa are dying from hunger, that mothers kill their children rather then let them skuffer, I fall apart. I take it literaly. After all, what is being reported is real shyt, as real as me and mine. Reality is a shaky concept for me, and therefore my perspective,my lived experience, does not seem more real than any others. Often what I feel seems further away to me than the Saharan mothers pain. I start thinking "right now, right now people are dying for no good reason. Mothers are murderes for no good reason".My head starts going in a loop and I feel like I will explode. If I am alone, strange noises will leave me as I wander from room to room looking out the windows as if I can find the mother and feed her baby.

C) I some times cry getting of a bus. One-to-one human interaction can be a horrifying thing to witness. If I have been on a 30 min bus drive, I have noticed every detail of every individual and their subtle interaction. I know who does not like to be sat next to -and my stress level goes to the roof when someone does anyway. The personal boundary I have picked up on, I experience as a rule to be followed.

I read people very well, but I do not understand most of their choices, actions, values and beliefs. Also, I do not understand why people seem to think they live for ever. Death is very real to me . I also do not understand why the world and life im general seems so comfortable to most people. To me existence is so strange, but I guess that it is all the groups stuff, the valuesystems stuff that makes the world seem real to most people. They only notice what is right infront of them, and not even much of that, it seems. Their minds never seem to space out or zoom in like mine does.

Ohh, btw I have never been testet for autism. I guess most of you would find it unlikely for me to have.

MayK - your descriptions of how the world is for you sound a lot like those of an autistic person I know.

And I definitely agree on knowing the 'theory' of why people are a certain way or do certain things, but not 'getting it', not having the resonant, meaningful understanding.