One NT psychologist conceptualizes how we see people -- ?

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Not too true for me. It is more like Brain Lock. Sometimes I do not even notice the bowling pins, or people. Not because lack of empathy or something to avoid, butbecause I am in a prison. Not a bad prision. It is nice in there a lot of the time.

So the fact they are there is like the fact that there is a spark from a star way up in the universe. I think it would be very nice to see it, but I don't, so I just have to assue that it is there and that its energy does something nice and beneficial. Just lke people are there and do many good things but I cann't always see them.

If I see them visually, they do ont register. I am not psychotic. It's not like that. But I will feel themthe same way I feel the rain or wind.

I can't explain it. But there are those on here who will totally understand.

I like bowling pins, I call them customers, people I will never meet, who would not like me in person, but one step away, I like their money, and they like my service.

This Psychologist comes across as socally needy. I would have to go with the bored with humans crowd. I can deal with them, but it is always a drain, for they do not feel comfortable with me.

I write, so I study characters, and I also do afternoons in bars and restaurants. Each is different, and a set of role playing. The person and group are always different, with some common features.

I role play a customer well, I tip, and converse within limits.

What I have discovered is limits, each person has a functional range, and dealing to the center of that works. They also have group position, the lead, the bottom of the pecking order, and a simple dealing with it works, "This place is a madhouse, how do you keep it from crashing?" to the lead, brings a smile, and "Somedays I don't know."

The wait at the bottom of the pecking order responds most to compliments, every place has, "The hot chick" The lower in the pecking order, the more a compliment is worth.

The world runs, but seeing them at another place after work, they are off their high performance. We will not get to discussing writers and painters. Work performance is their high point, and then they struggle to fill the role.

Educated should be called trained, for they are, for a role, and not in any other direction. I have been at that table, and it is as high as they will reach.

I would like to be with humans, be a part of a common world, but all I have found are people, living within close, and mostly self imposed, limits.

I seek equals, but I have kept pets.

I see it as limits, I was once them, but I changed. I do not have to go to school to learn, I do things because I want to. Life is a hobby, not a job or identity.

I am also not as attached to being me, that changes. My attachments are limited, an interest carried as far as it can go, then dropped. Microscopes, Fine Art Printing, Photography, and Geology do fit together well. My interest in machines makes all the rest run.

It is as a writer that my broad interests get woven in a story, telling some of many things, an enriching read. Reading should broden the world view, but readers are a small part of the world.

So I am far from this Psychologist who sees "generic people", that all other people should want to know and be like.

I am in the house, looking out the window, at a garden of stunted plants.

In the garden they all see themselves as equal, which is true, but they look through my window, and are not happy.

One of the brighter plants said, "For you to exist, I must be an idiot."

I feel I am in the crowd, but never really connecting to them (or very rarely, at least), like I'd be there, yet in another, one-way dimension... I'd wanna find people that I really felt on the same page with which is very rare for me. So even if I find most people and their talks about the mundane immensely boring, it doesn't stop me from wishing I had someone to have good discussions with. And I have, over the years found some, but they're scattered around the globe...
So no. I don't feel exactly either way described there (except that on my introverted days when I nonetheless have to be out in the open, I AM to people like Mario to carnivorous plants when running through a level gathering coins and lives and getting closer to saving the princess held captive in Bowser's castle).

I once was feeling like this when out with a bunch of people, and I took out my notebook to write this:

Shell in the Crowd

Everybody's here
How come I'm so alone?
No rose on the wall - I am the air they breathe
which they never recognize
to be there

I want to leave
but desire to stay
Walking about in the bubble
that none will burst

How can you expect them to touch
what they don't know to exist

If I am not here...
how can I cease to be?
Who could bring me back
so I could escape again?...

...I know this isn't a poetry topic but thought this might fit here


---Edit: One line in the poem that was from the draft version! Now it's like the final edit.

That feeling of being on the outside looking in, for me, carries over into online forums as well. I belong to another forum, where there are primarily NTs. Lately, I feel as if they are posting around me, and talking only to one another. I know that there is no way of knowing if this is actually the case, but my old insecurities come up, and I feel excluded from the conversation. Or, I feel as if I am finding something amusing that nobody else is. sigh.

@hartzofspace: I know how you feel, I get like that really often too :/
...and thank you I'm glad you like it!

I agree with trying to be a part of a group, but unable to see their point of view. Its frustrating because really, I like people. I like attention and having friends and meeting new face.s I just cant seem to get this blasted social interaction stuff right. Im not antisocial at all. I dont avoid people like bowling pins, if anything I try to contact them and hold a conversation. But inevitably I talk about things they have no interest or understanding in, and the conversation pretty much goes nowhere.

Itsl ike, I know they can talk for hours on the phone or hang out at each others house, often seemingly not doing much of anything. for me, that jusdt seems hard to comprehend. what do they possibly tlak about for so long? and how can they be standing there doing practically nothing and enjoying it? I just dont get it. I wish I did, but I dont.

In an attempt to find/summarize commonalities, themes:

* It is clear from the writings, that those on this forum, we are thinkers. We work overtime and very hard to try and figure things out. We are intelligent, creative, finding and generating new patterns - but somehow as yet, to varying degrees, solitary.
* A few (three) found the psychologist to be "spot on" in the experience.
* All have the experience of a Wall, or a separation - but the density or thickness or distance varies greatly.
* We differ in our response to the Wall. Some still try to be a part of The Greater; others less so.
* For those who still try, commonalities are:
- It is exhausting always being in "pretend normal."
- There is the constant unease we will be "found out."
- Eventually we are found out.
- We never really understood the whys of exclusion.
- We puzzle at the difficulty understanding them; and their difficulty understanding us. It hits home worst with those we may care for.
- The separation is a source of sadness, sometimes pain.
* For those who have to varying degrees "let go" of The Greater:
- Separation can be peaceful, safe.
- It takes less energy.
- We may become keen observers of The Greater, learning of things few know - but still it is something we keep within.
- There is still a hint of sadness to it.

I missed a lot, misunderstood even more.

One thing is clear - there are brilliant people who have here written.