What does it "feel" like to be NT?
When you look into another person's eyes, is that some way of sending telepathic messages across the remaining space?
Why do you stand so close to each other?
Or kiss people who aren't your significant other?
I am THOROUGHLY NT and a Pisces which translates into EXTREME SENSITIVITY AND a redhead which means I am sensitive to noise, lights, sunlight, you name it, so in some ways I am a lot like my Aspie daughter, 16. it is rather painful to be so physiologically constructed, though certain men go crazy around redheads.
That said, I am not sure it is so wonderful to be so NT as I am often disappointed in people. I give a lot, so expect a lot ,so I am often disappointed. But that is the downside of being a Pisces and maybe just a woman, I don't know.
All of the above also results in maybe more depression in any given lifetime so believe me not just Aspies suffer here. Maya is alluring, but painful! (Maya is the Hindu term for the world, for materialism, etc.).
So as a redhead, Pisces NT I really delve into the world, but often emerge bruised and bleeding, if you know what I mean.
I sometimes kiss people spontaneously, men and women, but mostly women. For example, recently I kissed a near stranger on the cheek because 1) I knew her from a genealogical society my Mom joined (Daughters of the Confederacy - 5 ancestors fought in the American Civil War, but I digress) and 2) she also had a mother in the same assisted living facility as my Mom so I just felt SUCH a connection with her. It is very hard watching your mother slowly waste away in such a facility when said woman used to ride horses and regularly jet around the world with her husband to Beijing, St. Petersburg, Bombay, you name it. It is hard.
Hope this answers your questions.
Ellen, Man U fanatic
I was given Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman as a gift and I bought Social Intelligence as soon as I discovered it.
I'm N.T as far as I know. However I'm uncomfortable with sustained eye contact, don't like people standing too close, if anyone apart from my daughter sits next to me on the sofa I'll move to a chair. Also don't like "social kissing/hugging".
Funnily enough I was talking to my sis about this last night...particularly about a friend who stands really close with her eyes fixed on yours...I was saying how I always try to subtly inch away backwards.
Strangely enough I used to be asked to do tarot readings a lot when I was younger....it is hokum of course, but I was good at reading voices and body language. Like what self-image does this person have (or how would they like to be perceived), once you had that nailed, you had a good idea of what they wanted/feared and fed it back to them in edited highlights along with vague easy-fit generalities. Like "there's a side of you that you keep hidden" or "You're not completely fulfilled by your work, you have other interests you've never had the chance to pursue". It worked particularly well when done on strangers (who'd had a few drinks)....they thought you had some mysterious insight!
I believe it's the same sort of techniques used by hokey mediums and spiritualists etc.
However my 6 year old aspie daughter can read me like a book, sometimes she seems to pluck thoughts out of my head and repeats them back to me, it's quite disconcerting at times....I don't know how she picks up the cues so accurately, particularly when my mind is off on what I think is an odd tangent.
In the thread
http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/showthread.php?tid=1632 Becca and Amy talk about mirroring. I've read about mimicry too. And then there are mirror neurons.
The mirroring and mimicry seems autistic. The mirror neurons NT.
I sometimes get the feeling that I do mirror people in a different way. I see a person, and the way they keep their head, their back or whatever and I get a headache. As if my body mirrors the body language of this person and tells me something. Is this a kind of mimicry, and a way for me to interact socially, without the direct emotional contact that others seem to have. Is this why someone like Stephen Wiltshire is asking if a woman on a painting has a headache. Is mimicry a way of understanding, not via the frontal lobes, but via the body?
Are there theories about this? And can NT people here tell what happens to them when they enter a social gathering? Each story will be different of course. But I am very curious.
btw I think I'm an aspie, but its not official yet, so maybe I'll turn out to be NT too.