Difficulty with unpredictability of people, etc.

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My dad and I somehow got on the topic of how important it is to train very young children how to be gentle with pets in the house (like dogs and cats) and then he told me that when I was very small (like, still crawling or just learning to walk) and I was around an animal such as a medium or large-sized dog, I wouldn't really react to the dog in any way, at first. I would just take some time to sit there and observe the animal as if I were trying to figure out his/her motives. I wasn't scared of the dog or anything, just trying to figure out what it was doing there, lol. This was in stark contrast to how my (NT as far anyone knows) youngest half-sister, when young, would walk right up to total strangers and their dogs and start petting them right away without even asking if it was all right first. She called it "nicing the doggies." lol

I don't know, maybe I was just sitting there in fascination bcuz I never really saw that many dogs in person when I was growing up (my parents didn't have any), but my dad's theory that I was trying to predict the unpredictable really makes more sense, now that I think about it. I still struggle with people and things that are unpredictable as a twenty-something adult. It could also be related to needing a routine or something, although I'm relatively okay with changes in plans, changing up my day-to-day routine and the like, etc. It's when, say, someone who's been nice to me for awhile is all of sudden mean to me for no reason I can bring to mind, something like that.

I think this struggle with the unpredictability of living things I've had since before I could walk or talk is the reason why I latched onto my stuffed animals so quickly and permanently right from infancy....they were the only "people" in my environment that I totally understood and who totally understood me.

Does anyone else have these kinds of issues with other peoples' unpredictability?

Actually, it's ONLY unpredictability that causes major people problems for me. I realy don't have much of a problem reading non-verbal cues and I can make conversation (under the right circumstances), but I just never know what to expect from people, which causes me a lot of stress and sometimes even scares me... So, I usuualy prefer to be alone or around very familiar people.