On this day in history, something happened.
This is a daily post for “casual” conversation. If you want to post or talk about something non autism related this is where to do it. For example if you want to info dump about your special interest but it doesn’t fall into “autism related” then you can post it here in the comments. All other rules are still active, be respectful to each other.
While it is absolutely possible to learn the skills required to pick up on these things, my personal experience is that it’s a very slow, very painful process. I first realized that there was information most everyone around me were getting that I wasn’t (i.e. social cues) at around 8 years old. I didn’t come up with anything resembling a solution until I was 12, when I read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It took me the better part of three decades to devise and implement my workaround. The essentials are that most people appear to have an intuitive grasp of social cues, including but not limited to the ability to recognize, identify, and interpret emotions in other people. I do not have this intuitive grasp, but I am now able to glean a largely overlapping set of information by consciously reading body language, micro-expressions, voice intonation, common patterns of phrasing, etc., and also by creating a mental model of common patterns of thinking, which I call “mental archetypes”. Note that these archetypes are neither intended as nor appropriate for comprehending or predicting any specific individual, but rather illustrate general patterns into which many people frequently fall, to aid in navigating social situations. For me, it was a lengthy, tedious, painstaking process, but it was effective.