"Improve Your Mind Reading"

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http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/07/improv ... on-big.php

http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/may08/1.aspx





Quite a lot of material. What do you guys think? I would guess that whatever issues NTs have with seeing themselves and others accurately, autistic people have an extra heaped helping of.

Anyway, interested? Read the articles? Discussion!

I can't quite work out which way this sentence is getting at, but I am not poor at working out what others think of me. In fact, I am extremely paranoied, and I'm always giving myself up to socially impress other people. I can also sense when people may be talking about me, by judging the current circumstances or atmosphere around me.



Yes, I am easily led, but that doesn't mean I haven't noticed anything peculiar about the other person. In fact, I suss people out quicker than they think, but the reason why I'm easily led is because I find it difficult to act assertive or stand up for myself or say ''no''. I'm so scared to upset other people by saying ''no'', even though saying ''no'' doesn't always necessarily hurt other people's feelings. But sometimes it can, especially when they're quite demanding or ''clingy'' with me.

I very much agree with all this. In fact the article [1] I wrote about my pub visit last Saturday is about exactly this. How I have always tried to understand people's behaviour by observation, but never realizing that my interpretation of the reality was heavily skewed by my own ideas, morals and values about how things should be. The result of this is that my conclusions are often completely inaccurate.

Understanding in detail how you yourself work, can be a great help in finding out where you go wrong

[1]: http://site.jteeuwen.nl/autism/pub.html

Well, the paranoia probably comes from not accurately judging how people see you. You may be very aware of people around you, but you might be overestimating or making assumptions about what they think based on your experiences.

What the article is getting at is that we as people tend to think that our problems are much more obvious and important to other people than they really are. But the reality is that people don't notice our faults as much as we'd like to think they do. You see yourself a certain way, but other people only get an incomplete picture because they aren't always there with you. They only see bits and pieces of you over time... a tiny portion. And they are probably not looking as closely as you think they are.

I would like to believe this, but I have learnt on WP that NTs are very quick on the mark, and can suss you out quickly by any bit of body language you give off, because apparently they notice body language quicker than you can even say it. The same goes in the street when people look at me, even though I'm dressed presentably, act normal, and stand up with a straight, neat posture, plus I'm fairly attractive and slim. And it's not because they're jealous, because I even see dressed-up ''beautiful'' girls stare at me funny. And I've experienced girls making it really obvious that they're looking at me, because one literally stood in front of me and stared at my face for a few seconds, then went back to her friend and said something, but there were other girls my age standing nearby and they didn't go upto them and stand right in front of them, looking up at them. I feel that people only do it to me, which gets me paranoied. Other people who I know say that other girls never look at them like that. So things like that make me feel really paranoied, self-conscious, and even suicidle. So things like this make me believe that people can see what sort of person I am just by glancing 3 seconds at me, even though I'm not doing anything to stand out.

I intend to look at this more closely later, but I initially take from it that it makes a great deal of difference to have even a little better information.

I'm amazingly disinterested in managing my "social identity". If anything, I tend to think I'm pretty unknown in my real life social environs. However, if others are aware of my existence, I guess I underestimated what others were thinking.

I don't want to know what others think if knowing will make me want to grab them by the neck and throttle them for being mindless bigots.

I'll get right on that when someone invents a telepathy helmet.