I can't stand my lack of ToM

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I hate it, I despise it, it makes my life a living hell. I head butt with everyone because of it and my life is a constant sequence of instances of total blindness-befuddlement-noticing what was going on when it's too late-grieving. I'm the most impaired Aspie on WP in the ToM area, and I'm tired of living this way.

Hey, come now, GT - THE MOST IMPAIRED? On all of WP? Isn't that stealing thunder from the rest of us? I like to think I possess a pretty impressive impairment, too.

My faux pas can beat your faux pas any day of the weak.

My lack of TOM makes it impossible for me to even know just how bad my TOM is...

What does ToM stand for?

Theory of Mind. Like when someone's giving you all these suggestive looks and sighs and tones of voice and silences and you don't have a f************** clue what they're trying to tell you, so you appear as if you're purposefully ignoring their message and then they hate you, do bad things to you, you now have an even bigger cluelessness about what's going on, plus you're being emotionally battered, and then, 14 years later, your logical mind suddenly bingo! finishes working on the puzzle and you understand that the person was expecting you to just...tell them what date it was. But by then, their kids, following the family tradition, hate your kids and for generations there's an enmity that your great-grandkids will mention as "that age-old enmity between our two families that no one knows how it started." And all because your ToM is almost non-existing. And in the midst of your tragedy, when trying to unburden and cry on the shoulder of a trusted friend, they go: "But what IS ToM at all?"

Willard, I haven't been impressed by yours...

Poopy, that's better. I was happier when I didn't know how off I was.

You may want to reduce your amount of social interaction. That way you will inevitably reduce your amount of social failures. Which will probably lower your stress level.

'Tis why I'm shy.

Theory of Mind---although every time I see it, I think "Time of the Month", which is a euphemism for menstrual period.

Greentea, I'm never sure what to say in conversations about ToM (Theory of Mind). It's hard for me to grasp the concept, really. I mean, nobody can really know what another person is feeling or what their intentions are, can they?


Oh, I just looked down and saw what Poopylungstuffing wrote: "My lack of TOM makes it impossible for me to even know just how bad my TOM is..." Ha ha, I love that! I really don't know if mine is bad, horrible, average, or what. I do know that I always have the strange feeling that I'm missing something that other people are not missing, like the way people seem to make intricate connections with each other. It's like I'm a drop of oil and everyone else is water. I can float around on the surface, and be in contact with a few people, but never fully integrate. I suspect I'm missing something, but I don't know what.

If I lack ToM, and if you lack ToM---then who are these people who don't lack it? If "normal" people have Theory of Mind, then does that mean that they will understand that I become physically ill on roller coasters even though they love roller coasters themselves? A lot of "normal" people have tried to force me to go on roller coasters. But why?

Maybe an example of "lack of ToM" would be my AS son, who loves peppermint patties. His brother can't stand peppermint, and does not want to try a peppermint patty. But the AS son loves them so much, and wants his little brother to experience nice things. So he keeps trying to convince him to try one. It's hard for him to understand that his brother is revolted by the smell, and it wouldn't be pleasant for him.

Is that how you are, Greentea? Is it hard for you to understand when people don't like what you like?

I'm not sure what I'm saying, or what I'm thinking, to tell the truth. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the idea that anyone could know what another person is thinking or feeling. And I'm trying to get a good grasp of just what ToM means, but it's a concept that keeps slipping away from me.

I can read emotions alright, with people I know well, BUT the people I know well are all a little spectrumy, and do not try to send false signals. If someone is faking that they are happy with something I've done, I'll believe that they are happy. Unless they are doing a terrible job at faking it, then I might just feel confused. But the only way I can "know" what someone else's intentions are is if I already know that person well, and have a good idea of the kinds of things that are important to them. I've known people in the past to send deceiving signals, like smiling and calling me sweetheart, then announcing that they don't like me. The reason I didn't know what they were really feeling is because they intentionally gave me wrong information, not because there is something inherently deficient in me.

This post is all over the place, I know. That's because it's hard for me to really understand what ToM is, or how a person with ToM is different from someone without it.

I was under the impression that was common social practice in the Middle East.

And in the hills of Kentucky. Y'all.



"He's dead, Jim! Ah just phasered me another good-fer-nuthin' Hatfield!"

Hate...the Final Frontier...

Okay, now I'm just babbling, off in my own little world...what was everybody talking about?

Oh yes, TOM (whoever he is). Sometimes I KNOW what the little nonverbal clues are supposed to be telling me - I know how the other person WANTS me to react, but somehow I can't bring myself to do it. Because if I do, then I'm obligated even further to please this person or live up to their expectations and I just can't handle that pressure. So I just ignore their hints as if I'm oblivious to them and hope they'll go away.

As often as not, I THINK I know what they're after and I'm completely wrong. I give them coffee and they wanted wine. How the hell was I supposed to know that? Dunno, but everyone else in the room knew.

i agree with the above post....happiest year of my life was senior year of high school when i had only two close friends who didn't care about my lack of TOM and only interacted with them throughout entire day. Now I have employees and family, etc......im starting to think the happiest ASPIE has an amazing, patient, empathetic husband/wife and a job with their special interest that doesn't involve being around people at all.

And theres no way your the most impaired on WP.....The fact that you say that alone means you are noticing more of your lack of TOM than anyone else is.....because your not noticing that others have worse ones

Me too..

But Greentea.. you'll probably get mad at me for saying this, but I made a point of telling you when I was bothered by something you said and thought you might not know. You got mad at me for it. I don't understand what it is that you want, if not to be told when something you've said has bothered somebody. I wanted to not be another one of those people who stopped talking to you on the assumption that you were being mean, so I told you how I felt, and you were mean to me for it. So what's the proper response? I tried to not assume you were saying things you might not have meant, but then your reaction to my telling you how I was feeling seemed to indicate that you actually were. It makes it really difficult. What's the right way to react to that? What should I have said that wouldn't have gotten you angry at me?

ToM. Didn't even know it existed until now. Now that I know it exists, I don't understand it.

So what your saying is that taking 3 years to realize that a girl at a party was potentially interested in me is a lack of ToM? She said she asked one of the guys I was with for their phone number and he mistakenly gave her my phone number instead.

Gosh!

And to think if she had just said "Hey I asked your friend for your phone number because I'm interested"... Would've actually had a chance to go somewhere.



Anyway, you can always try and spark conversation with "I simply do not understand why so and so doesn't this and that!" Maybe they'll relate.

And I was upset I never got an apology for the way you acted (Greentea) in the PM. But I let it slide. I was more annoyed when you didn't answer my last one so I figured that maybe you thought it wasn't important to tell me how I took things to offense by your compliments or you realized how silly you were and were too embarrassed to answer. Okay vent over.

and what about automatical reactions, like when you smile to the person in front of you because she smiled, but she actually smiled to the person next to you...

just like i answer (here?) as if someone were addressing me, but it's the subject that triggers my reactions (ow, bug, there we go again... there is a human being behind those actions/words/sound/movement/...)

Two observations about the topic of this threat, GT (and everyone else who's here).

One: The ToM matter is quite personal and subjective, and hotly debated amongst researchers and clinicians involved in mental health/illness/disorders. How do I know that what someone means by "red" is what I mean by "red"? Given that I have synesthesia, I presume the intended meaning is different, but I simply cannot know. We are all, to some extent, mind blind, though I know from observation and reading that NTs have what to me seems like telepathy in their ability to interrelate through verbal and non-verbal communication that I no more notice than I do the neutrinos passing through me as I write this.

Two: I have several theories of mind that I developed for dealing with different categories of people. I started creating them in high school, and later abandoned them since as a shy introvert I have little interest in interacting with people, or in building my own models of what I think people do inside their brains. But I do not seem to have a fully functional ToM as NTs do, and I'm not even sure what is meant by it, much as I'm not sure how/why people enjoy socializing, dancing, or can work and listen to music at the same time.

I am a hermit by preference, and keep myself absorbed in work and other things I enjoy (books and cats, for instance). Maybe Vimse has an idea worth trying?

Wanda, it's a lot more complex and subtle than that. There are millions of practical applications of ToM, of which others may not like what I like is just one. So you master that one, but you still have millions that you don't master. And each one you manage to figure out is like a drop in the sea because there are so many other ToM rules you miss. And some of them are so subtle and so unspoken that I'll never live long enough to discover them.

Like a lawyer I had a meeting with today, she was giving me 25% verbal messages and 75% messages of the kind I abhor the most: those messages that you can only pick up from body posture, eye expression, tone of voice, hand gestures, but only if you can combine all those with ToM, otherwise in themselves they mean nothing. Combine them with ToM, meaning applying your general, intuitive knowledge of what humans are like and what they would likely be feeling and thinking and wanting and seeking in the specific context you're in. She was driving me crazy with that and I was desperate to leave. Probably 20 and a half years from today, my mind will finish analysing this meeting and I'll know what the heck she was trying to let me know.