You cannot tell me that it's normal to be a mind reader!

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I'm getting so danged sick of this one. I am pretty danged high functioning, I think, but I do not understand what they mean when they suggest that NTs know what other people think of them. They can't know that. They think they do and jump to conclusions assuming we know what they're thinking! That's where it gets ugly!

But really, I do sometimes say something, and then later end up thinking of how it might have sounded and that it probably came off wrong, especially after whatever funny looks I got... But that's it. Who has time to come up with the words to say and spend an hour guessing how it might sound? Shoot, it's no wonder I hate talking to people. They're just waiting to size you up on the spot!

Now of course when someone says something to me, I receive some sort of impression from it. That said, I acknowledge all sorts of possibilities as to the meaning. In fact, there are so many possibilities that I wonder how anyone can draw a conclusion!

So tell me, I beg you, how it is that there are masses of people walking around, menace that they are, leaping to conclusions and satisfied with the answers they produce? They can't be right all the time flying by the seat of their pants, it's ridiculous.

I think they call it Theory of Mind. I call it bloody pig-ignorant lazy guesswork.

But it's not as catchy.

Isent mind reading ilegal? Like against the law? Maybe it should be....I dont know.....

I've often wondered the same thing. I think it may be a form of prejudice. People seem to like to catagorize people as quickly as they can. This form of mind reading may just help them make some kind of sense of their world?

irishwhistle,

It ISN'T normal to be a mind reader. It is often CONSIDERED normal to THINK you are a mind reader.

Frankly, I am FAR better at "reading minds" than the average NT, and the average NT certainly CAN'T read minds! So how do I know those things?

1. I can sometimes GUESS how words will be twisted, etc...,, movie plots, etc.... making me OK at it.

2. People do that, making it clear THEY CAN'T! My motives, thoughts, etc.... have been guessed in ways that were WILDLY wrong since I was no older than 6.

BTW I am not saying I CAN read minds. I am saying what I say only because it is true and further emphasizes my point.

i always had trouble reading peoples minds, but i think you can learn to. i mostley have problems with stuff like what happend to me yesterday, when my mom bought me a pair of shorts at the thrift store, she said, "these shorts look good on you" and i thought she ment like laying on me. or something, another time when my brother was going into the military they had a rock with the words army on it. and somehow it ment, "we are hard as a rock?" i didnt get it and pretty much made a scene as to why it wasnt funny, illogical, and unesessry

Well people think about each other, and a lot of the time, what they think of an individual can be ascertained to a practical degree of accuracy by other individuals, without the thinker explicitly telling anyone about their thoughts.

They make educated and skilled guesstimates, involuntarily, and receive considerable environmental feedback that persistently indicates that others also make skilled guesstimations that are often enough close enough, to be of a practical nature. Individual explicit awareness of this process varies; most people never think about it or question it; for many, these processes and their knowledge of it, is entirely implicit. It's not that they actively think that everyone is doing the same, so much as that most do not explicitly realize they are doing it in order to consider that everyone does.

Most people do not need an hour to "guess" that a comment might be taken offensively by others. If they did, we would not stand out in this respect.

They size you up involuntarily. They are not waiting to size you up anymore than they are waiting to kick their leg out; it's a reflex reaction to stimulus rather than some planned thing under their explicit volition.

Culturally acquired "common sense".

How=evolution.
Why=because it works well enough, often enough that it constitutes a reproductive advantage.

It's a lot less effort than working things through explicitly and systematically, but it's also much quicker, and can be more accurate. Instead of receiving some impression that they acknowledge all kinds of potential meanings to, but cannot draw any conclusion from, they almost immediately arrive at a conclusion that is right enough often enough. You can call that lazy and pig-ignorant, but they end up with the right answer more quickly and more often than those doing things the effort-laden, slow and inconclusive way. Thus explaining the reproductive advantage.

nobody can read someones mind, for example. someone could pretend to be happy and look or act happy when in fact they are sad.
i have problems 'rreading' peoples minds, but to be honest i dont get why one would want to.

YEP, people have thought I was misserable when I felt pretty good, and I usually seem happier than I am.

While there isnt genuine mind readers (as far as i know of), there are some some things that appears to be mindreading to the people in this community, take this story as an example:

There is more to this than first meets the eye.

The woman really says "Go get me a glass of OJ".
And the man is replying "Go and get it yourself!".

This is the level of "mind reading" normal people really have. There isnt as much "mind reading" as subtle pointers that people say, but the good news it that it is learnable.

That isn't mind reading. Women generally, at least in some relationship. see that as a LEGITIMATE way to communicate. If the men WERE mind readers, they won't even have to verbalize. And women often don't understand that men communicate differently.

My take on "mind-reading" is this:

Some NT people seem to think they telegraph their intentions so obviously that anyone knows what they are thinking. Best way to think of this is the old joke of the girlfriend/wife being mad at her man because he doesn't know what's bothering her. Intimacy implies a simpatico on some level where you just know each other so well that you know what the other is thinking and feeling.

In reality, it doesn't happen that much. It's really laughable to see a woman think that if a man loves her enough, he would know the inner workings of her mind....as if that's natural in the first place.

My take on the problem is that some NT people are so into themselves or think they are so expressive that everyone within 20 feet automatically knows (or should know) what they are thinking. Drama queens...all of them.

There is another level, though.

As NT people do many things through subtle communication that AS people might not recognize, a NT person might wonder why an AS person does not pick up intuitively what other NT people seem to pick up on. This is a legitimate shortcoming AS people have to deal with.

It was confusing for me for many years because I didn't know about AS or that I had AS. I thought everyone thought and looked at things just as I did, and I never understood why everyone had a problem with me but not with each other.

It's not really mind reading. What happens is a group of people get together and they listen to what each other says and look at each other's reactions and expressions.

Let's say these are a group of people meeting for the first time at a training seminar.

At first everyone is intensely interested in what's going on and they make quick conclusions about the scene, much like an experienced better on horse races at the track. I seriously think the same rapid deduction and conclusion reaching skills are involved in gaging initial social scenes and noob potential and heirarchy and win, place or show at the track. They have to quickly decide who among the noobs is going to win, place and show. Everyone else is expendable, meaning they could piss off and know one would either notice or care. Much like all the horses who don't place at the track. Are they really worth anything to the one placing the bets?

These are the ones the others will say are "non entities" after they have all exchanged phone numbers and have a chance to three way call and teleconference. That's when the real establishment of the "clique" occurs amongst veteran cliqusters who know what they're doing.

It will become common knowledge that it's perfectly okay to disregard, belittle or ignore "non entities" because they are either unwanted or don't belong anyway and, for various reasons, are considered unworthy by the groupthink herd. The idea being they will quit or get lost if everyone ignores, belittles or exploits.
But first we must establish the "who's who"-

If two or three of them are invading another's personal space or get clingy with one other ( they all seem to be gravitating around one individual) it means they subconsciously elected that person their prom king or queen. Chances are at some point there will be some kind of elevation involved. How they all decide which one is worthy is a mystery to me. Why this person and not her or someone else? Every once in a while there is a mutiny, though. One who feels a bit more worthy tries to snatch the spotlight by casually sniping at the chosen one.

If someone considered "lesser" for some unknown groupthink reason challenges the chosen it can mean excommunication for the "lesser".

Why do they subconsciously believe it must be a popularity contest every time? I would call it high school level mentality.
If they belittle someone, tend not to listen to what they say, discount them, insult them (with others joining in, some more subtle than others) ignore them, it means the group think has gone against said person. That one has been subconsciously voted off the island.

That has happened to me so many times it's the number on reason I really dislike talking to people and dealing with them.

I am confused. Your comments seem to imply (to me) that the behavior is pervasive rather than primarily occurring in high schools.

I think you're correct OP. They really can't read each other's minds. Only act like they do and if it's revealed it was false, do something quickly to cover up feeling and looking ignorant.

People only think they know body language and if someone is lying based on eye contact however they get it wrong often. Rather than admit these social gurus who just wanted to make some money were wrong, they just keeping going with a flawed social analysis that can often be used by dangerous people who act to have their way with others with no questions involved.

"They" do not claim to. It was the OP who introduced the phrase "read each other's minds". Of the NTs I know, only those who believe in psychic phenomenon believe that mind-reading is literally possible. If there is a rash of NTs out there claiming that literal mind reading is some ordinary every day competency of all or most humans, I have failed to encounter them. "Reading minds" is what some of us describe NTs as doing, not what NTs tend to claim themselves as doing.
What do you mean by act like they do? Do you mean their behavior is consistent with what would be predicted if they could "mind read", or do you mean they intentionally set out to portray themselves as mind readers? I find the second rather unlikely to be common since most people seem to view mind reading as implausible and further tend to consider those who think mind reading is possible to be kooks.

People do "know" their native language, but they can still fail to comprehend what is being said to them in their native language, even if literal language is used, particularly if obscure or technical phrases are employed. No form of communication is perfect. People can deceive in both verbal and non-verbal communication. That does not render either form of communication non-existent or unknown.

I'm confused as to what you mean by this. I doubt most people give much thought or consideration to body language much of the time.

It's at it's most obtuse in high school with the yearly crowning of homecoming Queens. Some places have homecoming Kings, I guess, but where I went to school, Homecoming Queen was the main focus, and her attendants.
It's an essential part of social life. From an early age, nearly everyone is taught there are "popular" ones, "midlevel" and the misfits and outcasts are considered unimportant by members of the student body and faculty.
This is where people aquire their ability to figure out who the popular ones and leaders will be. They subconsciously scan and pick up on qualities in people they just met that match the qualities of people they knew in school who were well liked and popular with everyone but the misfits. That's how they know who the leader is and it might look like "mind reading" because they have these qualities ingrained in their subconscious from years of going to school and being around popular kids and unpopular alike.

People take the qualities of the popular ones they grew up with and match them up with the qualities of people they just met later, when in a new situation where they have to make quick decisions about who is cool and who isn't. This looks like intuition but it's actually behavioural shaped by years of subconscious practice at subtle identification in youth.