We think, they feel

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Hi all,

I've been putting a lot of thought lately into why I struggle to relax and enjoy socialising with other people. Particularly for me, it's hard to understand why I assume that others aren't connecting with me, and instead are judging me.

Tonight, it hit me. In social situations, NTs aren't predominantly thinking: they're feeling. Where I go wrong is in thinking about what other people are thinking. Think about it this way: why do NTs not enjoy having conversations when they're focusing on something important, such as homework? Because they are in their thinking state. When people go out for a night on the town, they're trying to escape this thinking state and divert their energy towards feeling! Now consider that people on the autism spectrum generally struggle with compassion, and sharing an emotional, feel-based connection with others... do you see where I'm going with this?

Do you think perhaps the social difficulties faced by people with autism can be traced to a lack of empathy and compassion? Maybe what we should focus on developing is our empathetic side, rather than trying to improve our social "skill set" which is ultimately irrelevant to a genuine, relaxed conversation.

I realise this might be oversimplifying the topic slightly, but I'd like to hear your opinions on this approach.

Interesting..I like it.

I've often thought some people just don't think before they speak, and this would definitly explain that experience. And also, some use conversations as therapy, obviously their feelings are involved. They must use some kind of brainpower though, to be able to form the words in the correct order, be able to associate what is said with what they will say, etc.

85% of everyone with Aspergers have Alexithymia (a state of deficiency in understanding, processing, or describing emotions) , which means most process emotions slower, and therefore have trouble keeping up with the emotions communicated in a conversation.

One personal example coming up; My mothers father amputated his leg a week ago, she came to tell me the day after it happened, and I asked her why she didn't tell me immediately. She looked at me with a facial expression that can be best described as shock. She obviously had feelings about it, and I should not be so egocentric. However..I didn't realize what her emotions were until many hours later after she had left.

I realize I handled the situation wrong, but she let it pass with exception of that face she made for a second. I am not ice cold, but non the less, in the heat of a conversation it is hard to get in touch with empathy, it is usually delayed somewhat. So I am left twisting in my own agony after the many social misunderstandings.

I think you may be right - to some extent, at least. Ever since I've learned to be more empathetic, I started enjoying more interacting with other people.

Fact is, I have always been empathetic, but empathy was directed more towards animals, fictional characters (movie/books) and even inanimate objects (I remember being terribly disturbed by a children's movie about a red balloon that was destroyed in the end). I just had bad theory of mind and could not recognize emotions in others. Now, after many years of writing stories with multiple characters and after developing a special interest in psychology, my ToM improved to the point where it's better than that of most NTs. It's certainly different than theirs, but it's still good. I also learned about active & reflective listening and, once I started mirrorring people's postures, gestures and mimic, empathy kicked in strongly (by doing this, shadow emotions also get simulated at a neurological level). Top all this with learning about body language and learning how to cognitively assess somebody's non-verbal language and there you have it. That's how I managed to recognize emotions and to connect to other people. As a result, empathy towards people came naturally to me. I also found I like people more than I did when I was a kid.

But my social skills are very poor still. I can understand emotional connection and be genuine in it, but I do not understand social interaction. This is something that NTs have an inner map for and I was born without that map, I think.

However, my social interaction has greatly been improved by means of higher empathy, so that might be the way to go. I may not know the socially appropriate response, but I do know to give the appropriate human emotional response now. And I have noticed that people who are authentic, honest and laid back themselves will appreciate it, but people who like low-life flattery and ***-kissing will not appreciate it. I don't care about them either, so I enjoy my interactions with authentic and honest people...

I must however be one of those 15% Aspies who do not have alexythimia, since I always had a good awareness of my emotions and was always able to talk about them and describe them (or, at least, I think so). So I cannot speak for the other 85%, that's for sure.

You're probably right, but i'll never understand why people would want to escape their thinking state.

Do you think perhaps the social difficulties faced by people with autism can be traced to a lack of empathy and compassion?

It's our lack of social awareness that causes us problems. In that sense, I guess you could say impaired empathy(i.e. the ability to tell the emotions of others) is a contributing factor to our problems, but I don't think compassion has anything to do with it.

Maybe what we should focus on developing is our empathetic side, rather than trying to improve our social "skill set" which is ultimately irrelevant to a genuine, relaxed conversation.

That wouldn't work for me. I need to focus on being more outgoing and being able to carry on a conversation smoothly. All the empathy in the world wouldn'tt help me.

There's some good replies here guys. Keep 'em coming!

Interesting... where did you get the 85% figure from? Not that I doubt your claims, but again I think this can be traced back to self-enclosed thinking and a lack of empathetic development. Alexithymia, for me at least, is heavily connected with anxiety. If I'm in a relaxed state of mind and not focused on others being judgmental, I have no problem showing my emotions - yet, if I try to come across as emotionally "in touch," for fear of seeming distant and losing people's interest... I often seem distant and lose people's interest! Food for thought.


So you could say you connect better with compassionate individuals, and you struggle to interact with others who are too busy fishing for self-reinforcement to be in-touch with their feelings? Maybe this is another aspect of the intuitive vs. logical mindset, and NTs struggle with it too!


Compassion is quite a complex subject, and I think you'll find it has strong ties to empathy and connecting with others on an emotional level. After all, we all have problems and insecurities... compassion, then, could be about understanding that everyone else has been through just as much as you, if not more. It's what makes us all human, and what makes one person no less deserving of your love, respect and most importantly, trust (and trusting in them not to judge you), than anyone else. Another way I've seen it explained: Treat others with the respect not deserving of them, but of you. Is someone else being rude to you? Respond with kindness and dignity, if that's the kind of person you are.

Of course this is a new concept for me, so I'm not claiming to be an expert by any means. What I can say is that I've felt compassion with others for the past few days, and my interactions have been drastically different. It's like flipping a switch that suddenly allows you to engage people, to put the spotlight on someone else and let them feel that you not only understand them, but appreciate them.

Again, sorry for oversimplifying the topic: I know for others, the social struggles of autism are multi-faceted and far more challenging to resolve than a simple discussion. But I have to wonder if developing empathy (and it can be done - use Google!) would impair your social ability in any way which makes it not worth the effort.

I really like your post because it half fits/half challenges my current thoughts about this topic. I think I'll give you some of my current thoughts that maybe you can argue against.

I hadn't framed my thoughts quite that way. I've been thinking of it more as this: We just think too much. We don't have enough filters, or they are not working "properly". NTs think a lot less about what is happening in a social situation. They "go with the flow". And, perhaps most importantly, they make a lot more ASSUMPTIONS than we do. Whether or not they are right, doesn't matter. If the assumption is right, all is well. If it is wrong, well, the other person wasn't paying much attention either so the flow continues. A whole conversation can go on between two people with both parties making wrong assumptions about what they other person thinks or feels about what they have said, and they are none the wiser and don't care. It's sort of like optimism and pessimism - pessimists have a more realistic understanding of the way things are, but optimists get further in life because of their delusion.

These thoughts led me to another thought which really is very fresh at the moment so I'd love for it to be challenged:

Aspies have better ToM than NTs.

You said it yourself: you think about what other people are thinking. I assume from this (but correct me if I'm wrong) that you also think about what other people are feeling, believing, etc. etc. NTs don't bother doing this. There's no point. They will tend to assume the other person has the same experiences as them and again, it doesn't matter all that much if they are wrong.

Aspies believe it does matter if we are wrong. So we hold back, we delay our responses, we doubt ourselves. This messes with the flow of a social interaction. We understand that other people don't experience the world in the same way we do, and we think it is important to know what others are experiencing in order to interact effectively with them. I think maybe we have it the wrong way around. In you average, NT-like conversation, we need to CARE LESS.

I've thought about this in terms of alcohol. I know alcohol affects aspies in different ways, so this is just from my perspective and I'm not confident it could be generalised to most. But, when I drink, I do care less. It's not that I turn from a thinking to a feeling creature, I don't think, I just go from thinking about everything to just letting things happen. I feel like I have better conversations and connections with people. This isn't because I have suddenly repaired my "social skills deficit", it is because I am now ignoring a lot more information. I will assume the person opposite me is interested in what I am saying. I will assume what they think or feel, without much thought, and what do you know?, we get along just fine. Each of us probably had quite a different experience to what we assumed each other did, but who cares? We got along in a typical social environment. Just like an NT optimist does all the time.

Ok I'll leave it at that...

Normally I wasn't sure how to gather my thoughts on this, but your post made a good start to the discussion, yellowtamarin, so allow me to continue a bit.

Can't really argue with this. I see the logic and understand it, thus, I'm on part with it. The only thing I'd refute is the bold part. Putting a generalized conclusion like this excludes the instances where the assumptions are called out, thus, the flow of conversation is "halted", in a way.







The concept of ToM, to me, is situational. Based on this definition, if you put two NT's in a room, there's a higher chance both will be able to know what the other's thinking without using a lot of words. Likewise, I personally have been in scenarios with another Aspie in the room and while there's going to be more words exchanged, I could tell the state of emotion without necessarily asking (I asked anyway because I don't feel it accurate to assume). But if you have conflicting neurologies (one AS, one NT), then it's going to be much harder to do that. Neither one's at fault for the way they perceive life, so to say one has a higher ToM because of a particular neurology seems inaccurate to me.



Personally, caring less would start with asking other people to put less stock into socializing as a whole, but that's asking 1000 people to change for 1 person - unless I had enough force, it's near impossible. To top that off, I might be overgeneralizing, but a lot of the Aspies I've come across have had self-esteem fights simply because we got thrown a lot of insults and damage as a result of "following the wrong flow". Notice that none of these things come into play when I'm talking to another Aspie. I think I have a problem with a flow of conversation in certain instances because I want to see a flow of information on top of it or running alongside it.



I've got another paragraph to add to that. If you want to know, PM me for it

I do see what you're trying to say here, gs0. Relating to others based on common emotions and shared experience is a critical component to close friendships with neurotypicals. And if an autistic person was not easily able to relate to the feelings of others, it naturally follows that they would have difficulty making friends.

Some Aspies do lack compassion, others(and there's quite a few) have plenty of compassion to spare. But the common theme that I see among all Aspies is imparied social awareness. Myself, well, when I was much younger, I used to have anger issues and was very bad at sharing and understanding. I hadn't developed much compassion at that point in my life. Now, I consider myself to be somewhat compassionate. I'm always very considerate of other's feelings, I do have the ability(though perhaps weaker than average) to emotionally relate to people, and I'm emotionally affected by the suffering of those around me. But my biggest issue has always been about knowing the appropriate thing to say/do(for example, I will frequently run out of things to say in conversations, I just can't think of good topics).

I feel that our social impairment can be better summed up as a lack of social awareness and perceptiveness, as well as difficulty expressing our feelings. I think saying that "Aspies lack compassion and that's why we fail socially" is only 1/4 of the whole truth(and I realize you admitted that it was maybe a simplification).

@ yellowtamarin:

That's an interesting though, that we process too much information and overthink things. I don't think I had that issue when I was younger, though. For me, overthinking social situations is a learned, not innate, method of compensating for my lack of innate social understanding(and I suspect it may be the same way for many Aspies). However, I agree that this rational way of approaching socializing can be very counter-productive at times. I guess the trick is to try to limit how much you think about social situations, without totally abandoning your thinking mind.

Excellent, lots more to ponder now

Hmm interesting. I'm want to try to figure out if I had that issue when I was younger, but I'm not sure how to. I have memories of how I was in primary school for example, but I'm not sure my memories of what I was thinking and feeling would be accurate. Got any ideas on how to tap into childhood thoughts? I can sort of picture myself in a scenario, and know I felt like an outsider and didn't know what to say, etc., but I honestly don't know how much I was "thinking" at the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymi ... ic_illness Alexithymia frequently co-occurs with other disorders, with a representative prevalence of 85% in autism spectrum disorders
Sorry, 85% comorbidity with AS was inaccurate, I should have said ASD.

i find this topic very interesting because it goes right to the point.

I am not so affected of that particular problem or I just know that I am different and accept it.

Such people that use only feelings without explaining them are boring to me. So why should I care
There is not much I can do to change this thinking type of behaviour.
And I don't need to.

There are very well people that are explaining feelings.
And people that accept your strangeness.
People that like you although you are strange.

This approach to learn social skills is to my mind totally overestimated.
An NT can very well also learn Aspie social skills )) whatever these are (New interesting topic?)
NTs are strange to us and we are strange to them, but only to a certain extend.
This depends on everybody's level of affection.

Learning something that you cannot learn and pretending to be normal is not the way to go for me.
Just understanding the important feelings is enough,
such that you don't hurt anybody accidentally.
This is really demanding already.

If you consider people to be boring then they are and you don't care so much anymore to socialise with them.

A way around being judged and contacted also? --> Thinking
Connecting to them is also one thing.
I don't know if people were really particularly interested to contact to me
but I connected to them instead, in my way.

Is this judging a real spoken word judging or just a perception?
NTs have to also reveal something about their feelings by talking and they do it,
because they realise that you don't understand.(If they are interested to talk to you)

Contact by yourself is the only way to get over it. And if it fails you can use thinking afterwords

But starting with thinking over thinking or thinking over feelings is quite difficult and maybe really useless.
Focus on the thinking about words they are saying and base your words on them
Because if you behave strangely this is communicated to you in some way by words also.

I use to interpret NTs feelings like I feel myself. This can go really wrong. But it doesn't matter so much for me.
Usually there is a word way around to force NTs to reveal what you want to know.
If they don't and you really [/]must[/] know, then you are in trouble.

I guess that both NTs and Aspies get it somewhat clear if something is wrong in the communication between them
and then they try to spontaneously adapt to it.
Both Aspies and NTs would be stupid not to do it

I use to repeat myself with a certain small change which maybe passes into their brain.
And then I spot from the words whether they misunderstood me.

Thinking is slow. But thinking about words is still easier than thinking about thinking or thinking about feelings.
I avoid thinking about thinking I guess. And thinking about feelings as well.
Everybody can talk, and if not, then there is a problem.
Then the person is not suited to you.

Or if the person is really important then you can start thinking about feelings or thinking.

It is by the way not easy for me to get it always right with Aspies, either,
and that's because everybody is different.
Although we share a lot of common feelings I guess.

Well, if I think about what I just said

then this topic should be more

We think and feel differently than they do. Or the perception is different

If a NT starts to feel that there is something wrong, he/she starts thinking (hopefully!)

if an Aspie starts to feel that something is wrong, he/she starts intensive thinking

Where by the way is the border between feeling and thinking?
Because feelings affect thinking and vice versa

I am not sure can you feel completely without thinking
or thinking without feeling (which is like thinking without any experience, again and again the same things), horrible!

They feel more(easier because feelings need I guess less brain activity)
and we think more (and thats why this is maybe so difficult)

But then there is NT-NT contact (feeling)
NT-Aspie contact (more thinking for Aspie and NT, difficult for both)
and
Aspie-Aspie contact (feeling again)

These constellations are in probability quite different

for an NT to meet an NT is probably close to 100%

for an NT to meet an Aspie is about 1%

for an Aspie to meet an NT is about 100% !

And an Aspie to meet an Aspie would be 1% of 1%

This leads to a close to 100% of the situation where the NT has no problems
but to an almost 100% situations where the Aspie has problems.

We must be the hell-thinkers, close to 100% of the time.
And our brains are made for thinking,
maybe only because of that?

If this world would be full of Aspies then NTs would have the trouble of thinking too much???
And we would be the "feeling" guys.

Maybe that is the reason why we can do really astonishing things that others never would be able to do or could imagine

But of course we are not random humans, so the percentages are somewhat different

Any comments on this from somebody with an Aspie-Aspie relationship?

Or some comment from an NT in a relationship with an Aspie (who has to think more than normal, I guess)

How about Aspie preschool or something similar only for Aspies?
Is there more contact between Aspie and Aspie (I remember I was not so interested in other children)

Excellent thread! gs0, I agree with your original post. It probably is over-simplifying things, but it may well be the core difference.

Yes, that's a great way of putting it! (And yes about the optimists/pessimists, too - delusion can help, sadly.) Of course, it's not as simple as just thinking less and going with the flow - you have to actually know where the flow is going. Aspies tend to struggle in figuring that out, which brings us nicely to this:



I can't be sure, but I think I learnt this over time, too. As a young child I would often fail at social interaction (got rejected or misunderstood or ignored) and I would try to analyse what went wrong and how I can fix it. That certainly helped - I got better, but it's still not the same as being NT. I don't think I could have done anything different. If I didn't stop to think about it I wouldn't have just magically picked it up. There's no easy answer here - it's probably a matter of finding the right balance between thinking and going with the flow. We need to think enough to come up with a "good enough" response, but not so much that we're paralysed by it and don't give a response at all. Easier said than done.



It depends on what's "better". I think aspies have better ToM in the sense that they can correctly analyse more complex scenarios, but NTs have better ToM in the sense that they can correctly guess in most scenarios much more quickly and easily. It's a bit like the difference between a human solving geometry problems and a computer doing it. If you wanted to find out which of two random polygons has a larger area a human could tell you after a second's glance for most polygons, but if they were similar enough in size or complex enough then the human wouldn't stand a chance. A computer, on the other hand, would need a fairly complex algorithm to do this even for polygons that are wildly different in size, but once implemented, it could give the correct answer for all cases. Which is better depends on the situation. When it comes to social interaction the NT way certainly seems to be better!



Yes, I've experienced something like this. Not from alcohol, but occasionally, when I was in a really happy, social, energetic mood I've had interactions and realised at the end the other person totally didn't understand me - and yet the interaction "succeeded" in the sense that it was positive and the other person wasn't confused at all! The content of the conversation was totally irrelevant. I still couldn't help but inwardly cringe at that thought, but let it go at the time. Is this how (extroverted) NTs operate all the time? I don't think I'd want to do this regularly even if I could. Truth does matter to me. I can hold back saying it, but I can't help feeling it.

I'm going to use a chess metaphor, please bear with me.

It's not quite as simple as thinking vs. feeling. If a chess grandmaster plays a novice, the grandmaster hardly has to exert mental effort to easily beat the novice, while the novice thinks as hard as possible about the game. The grandmaster is so much better than the novice he can win easily without really thinking about each move.

It's not that NTs are feeling instead of thinking, it's that they are so good at socializing they can do it unconsciously. With Aspies, differences in brain anatomy make it difficult for us to develop such a degree of social/emotional skill. We have to work much harder at it in order for it to come naturally, if at all. The problem is we are playing against social grandmasters while being novices. If we socialize with other Aspies or with children, often we are more relaxed because we can play at a social skill level we are comfortable at.


NTs make assumptions because they can and have to. Social interactions are usually very fast-paced - a coy glance, a sudden change in pitch, a play on words - all can happen within seconds and need an appropriate response. A fast-paced conversion for an Aspie is like playing speed chess against a grandmaster - we can make embarrassing mistakes. We are slower and quieter to buy ourselves more time to think. If we stop caring we will be less quiet, but also make mistakes that standout in the eyes of NTs.

Aspies can have a better ToM, but only because we spend much longer in postmortem analysis of conversations and are often armed with research on social, psychological or anthropological theory.


When NTs and Aspies are young, they see all the possibilities of the social world and feel free to make mistakes, much like two chess novices playing together see all the possible moves and do not overthink what is right or wrong. As NTs grow up they learn to see only the interesting moves and quickly determine the best one based on emotional outcomes. Aspies have trouble learning to see the world this way, so we tend to see all the moves and need to process each one which requires a great deal of thinking, but also lets us see more sides of a situation.

If we have been hurt emotionally by our naivety in the past, we will err on the side of caution and rational analysis, which can make it difficult to form friendships and relationships with others beyond the superficial.


Like anything, we can become better at socializing through practice. It just takes much more effort for us.

Interesting thought. Never really thought about it. Although i know that i dont focus on feeling much.



I wonder what is your definition of empathy is. If you take it as being able to feel what others feel, then i dont think even NT's can do that. Because if they did they would not be able to do so many essentially hurtful things easily. Also then we would have no need for counsellors as people could feel what others feel and there would be no need for language. I have been told by the kids i worked wiht and it is true for me too, that although we know that something is wrong with a person we cant name what it is like NT's claim to be able to do. There is also difficulty with knowing what to do in the situation which compounds it. Lastly, with me atleast, emotions overwhelm me. I feel like i am getting something but i dont know what it is and it scares me. So obviously it is not zero as most NT's would claim.



interesting though. Somethings i have tried. I am supposed to come across as being very empathetic atleast professionally, hence it amazes people when i say that i dont really understand emotions. They dont realise that because i dont "get it" It dont assume and ask. Also since like to "think" more than "feel" i generally try to move their "feelings" to "thoughts" hence helping them. This works in helping profession. In real life it seems counselling skills work to make people want to ask for your help but it definitely does not make friends.