I was reading this comment dozens of times while trying to understand its implications.
When reflecting on myself, I think I have problems with both cognitive and affective empathy. From my perspective it's hard to differ between those because I think a lot of what makes the "reactibility of a person" is intertwined and feels like a really complicated maze that needs exploration to find a potential solution.
The problem is though, that when you try to explore "this maze" in a situation; usually people get very upset for me behaving not in an appropriate manner. So I guess that it's very hard to figure out when these exploration parts are appropriate; and when they are not.
> leaving them susceptible to being tricked, or unable to pick up on, say, whether or not a person is interested in dating them.
A lot of times in life people tend to exploit your character; and even when you realize it's just friendship or a distanciated acquaintance relationship the hard part is still saying no when people ask for your help. Oh so often you help them; and when you need their help once for a little thing like helping you to move something around - years later - they're suddenly not your friends anymore.
I often think that what keeps my sanity intact is "keeping a score" subconsciously... how often I helped or made space for somebody; and how often they did. While this is the jerk part to other people; it's a necessity for me to not get exploited by others again.
This rings so close to home for me too.
I'm 36, I extremely rarely feel any envy(and when I feel it is about someone not "deserving" something because of something in that person) and I am very loose with my money.
Because of this I was manipulated a lot, because even though I could see the manipulative behavior I could not figure out the MOTIVE behind it and I always attributed it to some other reasons that I could understand.
I still have to second guess it a lot "really, is this abiut money? It can't be, right?"
I’m very similar. I easily become a door mat because I tend to assume people are sincere. It makes me seem nice, but I’m not trying to be particularly nice at all, just decent I guess. I don’t realize when I’ve been taken advantage of until months or even years later. I’m quite bad at reading these things in other people.
When reflecting on myself, I think I have problems with both cognitive and affective empathy. From my perspective it's hard to differ between those because I think a lot of what makes the "reactibility of a person" is intertwined and feels like a really complicated maze that needs exploration to find a potential solution.
The problem is though, that when you try to explore "this maze" in a situation; usually people get very upset for me behaving not in an appropriate manner. So I guess that it's very hard to figure out when these exploration parts are appropriate; and when they are not.
> leaving them susceptible to being tricked, or unable to pick up on, say, whether or not a person is interested in dating them.
A lot of times in life people tend to exploit your character; and even when you realize it's just friendship or a distanciated acquaintance relationship the hard part is still saying no when people ask for your help. Oh so often you help them; and when you need their help once for a little thing like helping you to move something around - years later - they're suddenly not your friends anymore.
I often think that what keeps my sanity intact is "keeping a score" subconsciously... how often I helped or made space for somebody; and how often they did. While this is the jerk part to other people; it's a necessity for me to not get exploited by others again.