Aspergers but good at reading people. Intense world theory

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Hi Everyone!

I'm new here, so nice to virtually meet you all.

I'm pretty sure I do have aspergers, the female version more than the male. I fit almost all of the criteria.

Except that... I'm really good at reading people. I almost feel like I'm too good and that that's where one of the problems lies. Like I feel I know when people are lying, and also when people are mean about someone I always jump to defending them and explaining how things might be from their perspective, because it seems other people just don't see this, or choose to ignore it.

I've been reading about the intense world theory of autism too and I feel like this fits - I feel like I pick on things others don't. Also, the world becomes too overwhelming and I just block everything out, which is the worst. I just feel spaced out a lot of the time and end up seeming really unaware to everyone. I'm really sensitive to lights and also to sensation generally (I found going on SSRIs numbed my sensations somewhat and I've been told repeatedly that this isn't a side effect, so it seems most people don't notice the difference).

Just wondering if anyone can relate.

Thanks all the reading.

Last edited by stalactite on 01 Sep 2016, 5:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

Welcome to WP!

Sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not able to read people. I have a friend from another forum I have emailed with for nearly three years, and we have extensively discussed other members.

Some I have been able to read very easily. And usually what I read of them has been backed up by comments from other forum users and my friend.

Other times my friend has pointed out stuff I never saw. And sometimes still don't see even after it's pointed out. Not that I have a different observation, I'm just not picking up on anything at all.

Hi Ezra! Thank you and thanks for your reply. Interesting - do you know what the difference might be between times you can read people and those you can't? I feel like when I'm anxious I'm not so great and end up saying stupid things... but then I notice afterwards and that then makes me even more anxious. I don't think I notice everything either, just more than most people I guess.

Also, when I do say the stupid things I kind of know beforehand that they aren't perfect and will probably offend, but I feel like I'm so clumsy I'll always end up offending people, so then the options are offend or forever be quiet. It seems there's never a perfect way to say something... but other people seem to manage it without always putting their foot in their mouth or being overly polite (which is what I also resort to)... interaction is hard.

I don't know what makes the difference. Just sometimes it clicks and sometimes it doesn't.

But you know, very often those with autism excell at something that is usially hindered by autism.

For me I'm told I am quite good at getting and giving sarcasm and little jokes instead of taking everyting literally.

I wonder. It's quite unusual for an aspie to be good at reading people. It would be best if you could get official assessment because just reading about traits can be misguiding, especially if you just stick to female asperger traits that are not even an official list.

It is quite possible you just learned to read people for example by being interested in facial expression and psychology. I recently got better in reading my family and my moms facial expressions overwhelm me now although I was still clueless about them 2 years ago. I am not sure if she changed or I learned to recognize them better.

I am also quite good at playing the devils advocate - taking other perspectives on cognitive level and explaining it to others. But I do it by theorizing - not actually reading people. I just take the info, analyze and find a logical conclusion of what might be the reason. People are quite logical if you take emotions as possible factors of behavior. Emotions make people act certain way. Being scared/embarassed/happy is often the reason of people behavior and you can guess the emotion by what they do/say. I had been sharpening this ability since high school.

I used to think I was quite good at reading people.

People noticed that I paid much more attention to them than most people do, but that was because I was working so hard to try to understand them.

What I learned is that I am actually so bad at it that I was totally unaware of what I was missing. No one will tell you this, unless they are specifically evaluating you in this area.

I thought I had a pretty good idea only because I was oblivious to so much.

It was as if I thought I was well read because I had seen a lot of book covers, and had no idea that there were pages full of information behind them.

I have come to realize this is an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. It's retroactively embarrassing, but better to be aware of than not.

Intense world theory has a lot going for it, but that doesn't mean there are no deficits in social communication in autism. It may be a partial explanation of why those deficits exist.

It might also have something to do with the other person. I find superficial people quite hard to read, because there's very little there to evaluate, so I spend a lot of time looking for something that doesn't exist, or 'reading into' their personality. More complex people are easier in a sense: their character has depth and substance, so once you discover something about them it leads to something else and can become very interesting. On the other hand, they can be quite secretive.

Perhaps it's the same for you?

Adamantium, thanks for the reference to Dunning Kruger. There are some great historical quotes supporting the concept.

As to the subject at hand, I am clueless.

I got interested in body language and I'm under the impression that I managed to find ways to read people. I feel like I actually read facial expressions and changes and body language very well, but where things still go wrong for me is that I usually cannot figure out WHY someone's face has changed from happy to angry at me, or pleasant then bored. I might be able to glean they seem happy, sad, angry or whatever, but I'm often failing to discern why or what happened to cause any shifts.

Later I sometimes learn or realize or figure out it really was something I said or did, or something they thought I intended even if I didn't. It's like even knowing how to read people well doesn't always mean you're any the wiser as to what's actually really going on in your interaction with them.

Yes, responding with the proper social emotional signal is crucial.

Being good at reading people is evidence against having autism.

I am very good at reading body language and subtext. If you test me, I come out superior, even to NTs. I notice tiny little movements that indicate emotions other people don't get. That is what happens when I am paying attention.

However, in my daily life, I am still clueless. I miss things entirely. I run on missed assumptions. I offend people without even noticing it. I see emotion, but I don't know how to respond to it. This part is also improving as I get older and I come up with "scripts" to help me know what to say. The big problem is romantic relationships. I can tell when someone is into me, but I don't know what to do with it. It takes me too long to even know if I want to be sexual with someone.

My emotion-detecting superpower was learned. I taught myself by watching TV shows over an over again, and by reading books on body language. It similar to how some other autistics pick out patterns in numbers or memorize every fact about trains. I just did it with body language. But its not the kind of instinctual recognition that NTs have.

A few people on WP who are fully diagnosed do say that they have learned to have a certain amount of ability for it; it may not come naturally but it's not something that can't be learned intellectually to a certain extent. Particularly in older people who have improved with experience, it's not always entirely "evidence against having autism."

Just saw somanyspoons response - yes, this exactly.

I don't have any problem reading emotions as far as I can tell. I even scored above normal on a test I took.

I struggle more with the verbal parts of communication. I often can't understand people at all on cell phones when there's poor reception as the sounds get clipped short. I also can't understand people when there's background noise.

I'm Aspie but I am good at reading body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, emotions, intentions, jokes, and lots of other things like that what most Aspies are supposed to struggle with. This is why I often doubt my AS diagnosis, because a lot of it, or probably all of it, feels natural, I did not ''train myself'' to recognise these things.

And I don't just ''think'' I can do these things. I hate it when other Aspies say ''oh you probably think you can read body language in people and all that, but you really can't''. It is really unacceptable to say that, because I know I am good at this, I can proven to myself and to others that I am, plenty of times. So saying something like that to someone who knows they have a natural skill is quite rude in my opinion.

I spend so much time on WP, that I started to realize my instinctive social skills, by analyzing situations where I had naturally recognised a subtle social cue. Before I joined WP, I didn't even know that Aspies struggle with reading non-verbal social things. It's only until I came here is when I started realizing what I can and can't do socially.