Do you have mind blindness?

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And if so how severe would you consider it or blind to certain things. I think a wake up call for my mind blindness was finding out a classmate I talked to sometimes for 3 years in High school was gay. I was shocked to find out he was gay, I didn't pick up on any of his flamboyant behavior and since he was always around girls I assumed he was a ladies man. All the classmates that didn't know I had Asperger's thought I was joking.

Being unaware of my facial expressions, I didn't have my glasses for a while so I squinted to see better, once I got a new pair of glasses a school security guard asked me if I was just squinting because I looked angry before I got my glasses. One guy thought I was trying to start something with him when I was really just trying to read a poster behind him. Another guy thought I was flipping him off all the time because I had a habit of adjusting my glasses with my middle finger, I didn't even notice I was using my middle finger.

Of course not picking up other peoples facial expressions and body language sometimes I can't tell when they want me to stop talking about something they're not interested in or is bothering them until they speak up I realize it too late.

I'm slow at picking up some sarcasm and verbal hints. When some people that mad at me try to use it passive aggressively it only makes them madder because I don't get it or do what they and not take they actual meaning. One guy mad at me told me to stop holding doors for people so I did and he flipped out, I was figuring out what the heck was his problem.

I once made a little girl cry and I had no idea why.

It is almost like it makes you a troll without trying.

Last edited by SnailHail on 15 Dec 2015, 10:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

When I studied French at the university,
I loved the language, and the philosophical literature.
So I decided to show this enthusiasm on my test paper
when I finished early by writing
"J'ai un choix?"
on the paper and handing it in to the teacher.
I just thought the words looked and sounded so pretty.

Well, the teacher couldn't understand why I had written
"Do I have a choice?"
in French on the test paper,
so she called me over and
explained to me in a loud whisper that
no, I did not have a choice.

Took me a little while to realize that
she probably considered me rude,
even though I had meant no harm or disrespect.

...

Oh I hope that's a typo

Yes. I've learned enough to recognize enough to realize how much I miss. The closest I can understand people is to picture myself in that scenario. It helps a bit, but it's a blunt instrument for a delicate task.

I am very mind blind. I take sarcasm personaly many times and I am clueless at reading facial expressions or knowing when someone needs my support emotionaly.

Whoops I didn't notice, I'd hate for that to be taken out of context.

I have self mind blindness. I can interpret others but I can't interpret myself.

No.
But yes.
But no.
But yes.
But no.
I'm not sure.
I've often taken jokes seriously. Missed sarcasm and stuff like that.
But I feel like I can understand many things.
I've often had situations where I only later realized I had offended someone, though.
The thing about mind blindness is that it's not obvious to the person who has it.

My answer is 'it depends'. If I am permitted to focus exclusively on one other person, with no distractions, and if they are open with me, then I will usually get feedback later from them that they felt very positive about the interaction (included, appreciated, understood, valued, etc).

With distractions, multiple people, people who do not care to be honest with themselves or others, people with fragile egos, and the passive/aggressive type, I can appear to be maddeningly oblivious to the inner workings of one or more of the minds in play. I also can be distracted by my own enthusiasm for a topic of conversation that touches even tangentially on one or more of my 'special interests' which can lead to me not seeing that I have strayed into TMI-land or said something that the other person finds offensive, awkward, incomprehensible, or disagreeable.

I fail more often at seeing myself through the eyes of another person, than I do at understanding their emotional needs. For example, because I have great difficulty seeing myself as attractive in any way, I often fail to 'get it' when a man is attracted to me, and I almost always fail to see this when a woman finds me attractive. Yet, I can still empathize with the very same person and give them all sorts of well-meaning encouragement about their ability to attract a compatible mate. As I am sure you can imagine, this has lead to all manner of awkwardness in the past.

It certainly has explained why a lot of things happened in my life and the way it did. Less now that I am aware and more experienced.

oh my gawd im f*****g blind!

Yes. I'm in my own world alot.

The interesting thing about this is that I do still have mind blindness for other's as well except my logic is that good. I can see A which means B and call the process for example, happiness because of C, but share in none of that happiness and not really understand what they're feelingexcept to know that I am safe from that person because they are happy.

I'm on the sociopath side of things :-s

i am blind to the inner motivations behind what anyone does or says.
i can process correctly what they say, but i have no idea what train of thoughts led them to say it.
to me, everything a person says is a kind of "surprise" in that i had no idea that they were going to say it.
it is not that i try to think about what people are going to say next in conversation, but if someone "stops the clock" and asks me "what do you think he will say next", i will not have any idea as to the answer.

to me, all conversation is completely instantaneous and ad-hoc.

i also do not see what possesses people to feel passion about things that they are passionate about.

i have no "community spirit" in the sense that i do not care an any way about things that do not directly relate to me.

i see people cheering on their favourite sports teams or congratulating others on achievements etc, but i wonder how they could be in a state of mind that would make them do that.

i may say "that is good" when someone tells me something important to them like they have managed to save their house from being repossessed or whatever, but i can not go beyond my simple observation that it is good that they did not lose their house. i have no instinct to hug them or smile in a broad way and feel elated or anything.

i know they feel elated (or mournful), but i just see it from an objective point of view. i am never drawn into their feelings like others report that they are.

it makes me seem cold and distant which i suppose i am, but why does that even matter to them?
what is it about my "endorsement" and synchrony on a personal level with them makes them them feel that their lot is better as a result?

why can i be seen as a lesser person because i am not in their own arena's ?
people dislike cold people, and they distrust them.

people warm up to "happy shiny people" who want to hold hands.
people say "if you have nothing nice to say, then don't say anything"

well that makes it easy. if they ask me to talk, i can say "i have nothing to say because i can not determine whether it fits your criteria for nice". maybe i should print that on a tee shirt.

i am not blind to my mind. if something needs to be thought, i will think it whether or not it is pretty.

Yes, and I often experience "mind blankness", too. In fact, I am convinced that my brain is severely damaged. I spend the majority of my time thinking about nothing at all. Maybe I am mentally ret*d?

it is difficult to think about nothing. i was told by an old guru man that i was speaking to in a pub one night, that i needed to do meditation because he thought my mind was too wound up.
i asked how, and he told me to think about nothing for one hour every night.
i found it to be a major chore to try and work out what nothing was for an hour every night and i soon gave up, and when i next saw him a few weeks later, i told him that i still did not know what nothing was.

he said that he simply meant "do not think about anything", and i subsequently tried that as well, but it is impossible not to think while one is awake.....

or is it?

what is thinking? is it a process that happens independent from our awareness?
if we were not aware of what we think, then would we be thinking really?
i think so.

i have read a few accounts of automatons that have been on unconscious autopilot for many years before they finally woke up, and no one in their lives noticed anything much different about them in that whole time.

they must have thought about what they were doing all that time so as to remain alive and service their relationships, but they had no consciousness of it the whole time. they were automatons. wow.

so i guess there is always a world of stuff going on down there in "thoughtsville" whether you know it or not.

i guess that is the case with other peoples minds.