being able to see people for who they really are

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even though i cant read people's emotions very well, unless they are dead obvious, i feel i can see people for who they really are just by talking to them for a few minutes, sometimes i just have to meet them and i am able to form an accurate opinion about them. I even sort of sympathized with the main character in There Will Be Blood because i really understood where he was coming from; that whole "i see the worst in people/ when i look at people, i see nothing worth liking" speech really hit me hard. I am not just realizing it now, I've felt this way for as long as i can remember.

Of course its easier for me to see the bad things in people, which has made me come to have a pretty pessimistic (possibly realistic?) view of humanity. but i do rarely find people who are truly good hearted and unselfish.

the reason i bring this up on WP is to see if there is any correlation between these "abilities" and asperger's or if its something that wouldn't be linked to autism at all. does anyone else get these feelings here?

Not reading emotions well is part of the aspie spec.

None of us seem to read them really well and most of us have problems empathizing in some way or another.

I used to think that I could empathize really well but the recent death or my son's tutor has taught me otherwise.

I feel bad about it but I generally dislike most people. I've found only a handful of people in my entire life who I have found really are willing to act in a non-selfish way, who really seem to be good people. For the rest when you really boil down their actions pretty much everything they say and do is close minded and selfish in their own way. Maybe that's just the human race, an animal primarily driven by selfish instincts.

The part of it that bothers me I think is that the goal in society seems to be to follow this rule.

A) Be as selfish as possible, while
B) Appearing to be a selfless as possible.

I know I am able to pick up one what kind of person someone is by the way they treat me because they can sense I am "different".

I am sort of the opposite, I feel I need to believe in the underlying good in people, though they often show the opposite I try in my mind to look underneath it and see the reasons...

I think it is just my personality type, its funny I am naturally very pessimistic about life unless I put in massive efforts to try and stop it, but I have this weird desire to believe in the good in people.. sort of like a people optimism.. odd.

Some people though behave in pretty repulsive ways which make it hard to do this, such as people who harm others with no regard for them.

I can see some bad things in people, but also some good things, usually.

I cannot see how someone can know how a person innately is other than witnessing actions or resorting to telepathy, and since the latter doesn't exist..., yeah.

No idea on verbal/non-verbal communication here; I cannot see non-verbal emotion unless it's extremely overt (it still confuses me then), I cannot read voices at all other than my mother's.

I don't wish to know people, so my "difficulties" don't mean much, and I assume that everyone is a potential enemy, so I'm always prepared for the worse (it gets draining after awhile).

I have felt the same way as well as the original poster (word for word).

It could be an attitude thing. NTs probably believe the same thing. They just focus on the positive and don't focus on the negative parts of people.

I actually get those feelings too, whether experience repeated and memorized and proven time and time again; of body language, or empathy, or purely medium. The people I like the best often are the ones I just can't finger.

But this IS how WE are often mislabeled and how others often go unnoticed.

Being a medium IS biological on an extremely sensory level, imo.
Seeing is believing and though I form opinions I NEVER pull anything out of a hat: ie guess-except as it pertains to my safety.

By their deeds shall ye know them.

I can't communicate well with people unless it's in a predictable situation but I can read them extremely well. I think that's part of the reason why I have difficulty interacting with them. They contradict their internal selves with their external behaviour, not necessarily lying, just adapting too much.