> I eventually decided to learn how to read body language. I did some training to recognize expressions, focused on one skill at a time, and viewed every conversation as practice.
That's doing with intellect, what most people do naturally and subconsciously. This is how an Aspie learns social skills, using intellect to cover up a natural deficiency.
> When I was younger, before learning to read people, I read descriptions of Aspergers and it sounded much like me.
It likely is you; neuro-typical people don't have to "learn" how to read people, it's innate.
No offence, but you really should avoid "diagnosing" people on the internet. It's incredibly stupid and disrespectful at best, and can lead to actual harm at worst.
That goes for anyone who isn't a trained professional. But it goes triple for you, given your rudimentary understanding of aspergers, intellect, or how people learn to recognize emotions.
Excuse me, but I didn't diagnose anyone, nor do you know anything about me or my understanding of anything, so take your incredibly inaccurate and rude advice and go shove it somewhere it's wanted. Saying "no offence" isn't an excuse to be offensive, which you intentionally were, so perhaps try learning how to be social as well, you're bad at it.
1 - I asked you not to tell random people that they're autistic because it's bad form (fact) and questioned your knowledge of the matter (my opinion). No personal attack on you has been made.
2 - You retaliated by contradicting yourself and sending two ad hominem attacks at me. No attempt to disprove my claim of your lack of knowledge besides another deflection .
3 - I point out that you've contradicted yourself.
4 - You reply with another two ad hominem attacks on me.
> I asked you not to tell random people that they're autistic because it's bad form
False, you said I diagnosed them, I didn't, he diagnosed himself and I simply agreed he was probably right.
> No personal attack on you has been made.
False again, and I quote "But it goes triple for you, given your rudimentary understanding of aspergers, intellect, or how people learn to recognize emotions."
As you don't know me, that's absolutey a personal attack based on nothing.
> You retaliated by contradicting yourself
False, I contradicted nothing; I didn't diagnose anyone with anything and your repeating the lie doesn't make it true.
> and sending two ad hominem attacks at me
False, perhaps you need to look up ad hominem as well; insulting someone is not an ad hominem, it's only ad hominem if I claim your argument is wrong because of the insult.
> No attempt to disprove my claim of your lack of knowledge
Burden of proof. It's not my job to disprove your claims.
> Yeah, I rest my case. You enjoy your day.
I hope you're not a lawyer, because if that's your idea of a laying out a case, you'd be terrible at it.
> It is you; neuro-typical people don't have to "learn" how to read people, it's innate.
I'm pretty sure I'm neuro-typical. At least I'm not atypical to the point that it was ever a problem.
And I too had to learn how to read people. I could always read them innately, but after some conscious effort, it became like a superpower. People always say how great I am at knowing how they feel.
The real hard part, though, is learning how to emote back. Especially after moving to a different continent. It's really really hard to display appropriate emotions because, for the most part, knowing and understanding other people's emotions, just doesn't really trigger an emotional response. It's all on an intellectual level.
I've always wondered whether that was normal or not.
As I was reading graeme's post I was thinking the same thing. My only suggestion, in line with tangled_zan's response, would be to keep away from informal terminology for such things so as to avoid any chance of your tone being construed as disparaging.
It's certainly possible. But how would I tell? I learned the social skill stuff to such an extent that it's now intuitive, rather than something I have to think about intellectually.
That's doing with intellect, what most people do naturally and subconsciously. This is how an Aspie learns social skills, using intellect to cover up a natural deficiency.
> When I was younger, before learning to read people, I read descriptions of Aspergers and it sounded much like me.
It likely is you; neuro-typical people don't have to "learn" how to read people, it's innate.