People with AS and high emotional intelligence

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I have a very high EQ. That said, I suck in social situations. It is often hard for me to fully explain to people. I know social rules. I am not rude, so much as awkward. It took me longer to learn social rules, especially social hierarchies. So until about 8, I let myself march to the beat of a different drummer and was shocked when I was hated for it. I started every day with a clean slate. If someone was cruel to me one day, but sweet to me the next, all that was bad was quickly forgotten. And, inevitably, I would be shocked when they would suddenly be cruel to me again – because it simply made no sense to me. This vicious cycle had its profound effects on me. As everyone else seemed to instinctively know the hierarchies and the rules, I gave them deference. I responded by closing up, inhibiting my drummer, and learning my place, which was at the bottom. Much of my social awkwardness today is due to insecurity and lack of confidence and general timidity born from years of this brainwashing. And it is frustrating, because logically, I know that I am not at the bottom, that I am actually more intelligent, self-aware, and empathetic than many “NT” people.

For a long time, I could not see how I could be on the autism spectrum (though in every other way, I so clearly am), because everything I read and was told focused so much on the emotional shortcomings of people with AS. Yet, here I was able to read people’s faces just fine, super expressive in both my tone and expressions, with a calculated understanding of people’s possible intentions, motivations, etc. I have trigger responses to emotional stimuli at times, but for the most part I can actually feel myself processing emotions in my conscious mind. I have this often annoying objective self-analysis as I am experiencing an emotion. It can make the emotion or reaction feel insincere or fake. But having this ability to experience feeling and also step outside of myself and objectively analyze what and why I am having that feeling has led me to have a better understanding of theory of mind (I guess that is what people call it here, I hadn’t known the term before yesterday).

And while having a high EQ seems to go directly against AS tendencies, I actually think my higher EQ is caused by AS. I don’t instinctively know what goes on with other people. But over time, I have amassed a vast library of common responses to certain stimuli, common human desires, motivations, etc. And I think the reason I amassed this library, while some people don’t, must simply be that I have a desire to – call it my special interest, lol. It is my favorite topic of debate and discussion. I talk with my friends for hours on simple and complex psychology.

Yes, it is unfortunate that I only let out my little drummer when I am alone or with my trusted friends and family. But, for whatever reason, I chose as a child to allow NT social doctrine to dictate. I think this is largely due to the fact that, while I was weird, I was also extremely sensitive. Had the insults not hurt me so deeply, I probably would have continued on my little beaten path, obliviously or self-righteously. Unfortunately, because it did hurt, I chose to protect myself. So my personality, my temperament, is directly related to how I related to people, learned to respond and function in the world.

And, by a certain point, I actively choose to absorb social lessons. While many NT’s are supposedly born with these instinctive patterned behaviors, I had to learn them. I didn’t feel forced to learn them. I can’t help but analyze and process everything – it is so ingrained in my nature. If I faced something I didn’t understand, I wouldn’t let it go until I had resolution or understanding.

Yet, while my EQ score may be off the charts, I still fail in social situations. Why? Well, one, again, my insecurity, but, two, social situations involve too much stimuli. I am extremely self-aware when analyzing myself and myself alone. I am extremely socially aware when analyzing people, separate from any self-involvement. But the moment I enter a social situation, and am expected to both think of responses, listen, read expressions, analyze motivations and intentions, my conscious becomes overwhelmed and I freeze up. I suppose it is like how hearing your voice echoed milliseconds after you speak will completely trip up your ability to continue vocalizing new words – often leading to stuttering. I am too busy processing incoming data to be able to respond in the flowing manner conversation requires.

Thus, I leave social situations always kicking myself for getting things too late – those sudden realizations, those, I should have saids. My mind will go over and over the interaction, running different outcomes, analyzing facial expressions or words I was unable to process at the time, but stored for later retrieval. I don’t leave the situation scratching my head, clueless as to wtf just happened, I just leave frustrated that I am slow and awkward.

Now that I AM aware of the effect my weirdness has on the vast majority of the population, I am TOO aware. And I do not like attention drawn my way, which is exactly what being my little drummer self would do. So I consciously choose to inhibit myself because of my awareness of myself and others. I wish I didn’t care to have attention on me, but I do. This too is hard to explain. If I feel like I am being watched, I can’t help but start to examine myself as they would. The effect of having to both deal with what I am doing and deal with my self-analysis becomes too much for me to handle.

Oddly enough, like how many people who stutter do not stutter when reading or singing or acting, I lose most of my awkwardness when I am “performing” certain tasks – job interviews, intellectual debates, seminar discussions, focus group type interactions.

Anyone else feel this way?

I see.

I'm going to come back and reply to this at length in the morning, but I think you're onto something interesting. I hope it doesn't rub ppl here the wrong way. I think you've done a great job of explaining your sense of things. I'll write more later. I'm intrigued.

I have a low EQ, about 66. I've always wondered if there is a way to learn emotional intelligence. I'm not sure if it is my low EQ that makes me feel distant from people. It could be one of the reasons why I'm bad at relationships.

Buka, I think you wrote a good description of your traits. However, with the construct of emotional intelligence being so ill-defined, unverified, and multifacited, it's difficult to know what you are referring to exactly when you say you have a very high EQ. The traits you list indicate both high and low EQ. Is your conclusion mostly based on test results? A lot of the EQ-type tests focus on emotional processing ability and reacting intuitively. You describe your case above in terms of being sensitive, lacking confidence, having difficulty processing in real-time, and these would bring an EQ score down, so I'm slightly confused.

For clarity in discussion, I'll list the traits you described.

The traits you list that indicate high EQ are

-- Knowing social rules (e.g., not being rude)
-- Being very self-aware
-- Being more empathetic
-- Good non-verbal expression and reading
-- Aware of the effect you have on others

The traits you list that indicate low EQ are

-- Taking longer to learn social rules
-- Being socially awkward
-- Being confused by alternate cruel and kind behavior and not knowing how to respond
-- Not instinctively knowing hierarchies and rules like others did, and so deferring to them
-- Feeling you lack confidence
-- Not instinctively knowing what goes on with people and having to do objective self analysis to get a better theory of mind
-- Having to learn instinctive patterned behaviors
-- Still failing at social situations because of real-time processing difficulties


Emotional intelligence is a fuzzy mix of how someone processes emotions, personality type (which you describe as being a large factor in your case), sensitivity, thought processes etc. Your analysis shows that the concept of emotional intelligence has use in exploring emotional and social processes, but I think that due to the wide variety of traits and abilities encompassed, it's too simplistic to sum them up using one term: emotional intelligence. I also think the term is too fuzzy and confusing because it includes the word intelligence, which people have trouble with defining anyway. Like you, I love to explore anything related to psychology; I just wish they'd make better defined constructs.

I score great at:

- reciting social rules and boundaries
- explaining about what should be done in certain situations
- describe a perfect social experience
- list possible reactions of others to events
- self-awareness
- reciting literature about non-verbal cues

Yet I can't read non-verbal cues, I do not feel empathy, and still have a little trouble with TOM.

I'd say this all perfectly agrees with having an ASD.

The first part just means I'm informed, have a good understanding of (some) theoretical principles, read a lot and have taken a non-personal interest in people.

I'm also really good with social interaction these days, reacting intuitively to subtle changes, appearing spontaneous and empathic when in truth I am not like that and just working out patterns as a talent of my own ASD.

I don't think professionals and researchers actually considered these dimensions when they claimed the EQ is a measure of someone's social ability.

Thanks for sharing some really interesting points.

I wholeheartedly agree.

When I was thirteen I realized that people treated me badly because of how I behaved. After that realization, understanding people (and emulating behavior) became one of my special interests, and consequently I've learned to read people very well. On the Wechsler II test, I scored in the 99th percentile for picture arrangement, indicating that I have high social awareness.

I still, however, have difficulty expressing my own emotions (alexithymia). Often I can read other people, and I'm somewhat hypersensitive to other people's moods, but personal decision making and sustaining relationships can be difficult.

My parents were very naive when it came to understanding and trusting people - so much so that we were briefly homeless in the late 1970s. In addition to wanting to be treated better, I think I became interested in understanding other people and their motivations because I wanted to be able to avoid some of the terrible problems that a lack of emotional awareness can cause.

Z

My emotional IQ was 114 when last I checked, when I was 16.

I feel just like you.

Did you pick your default picture because that character in a way might represent you? Anyway, that is my favorite commercial and just wanted you to know... Yup I feel like this. There doesn't seem like much we can do but do our best to imrprove.

Last time I checked my emotional IQ was VERY low, apparently I am ret*d there. The real IQ was 135.

And EQ of more than 10 should really be able to shake the world