Supportive

The core issue is about data processing.

I am, as I have said, very good at identifying social patterns. Using observation and mimicry for so many years has allowed me to develop a fairly sophisticated type of cataloguing. I can predict probable outcomes based on these observed trends. There’s nothing particularly unusual about this aside from the fact that it is, I believe, unusually cognitive. It would rightly be considered a coping strategy. When there are deviations from these patterns I notice immediately.

The issue arises when it’s time to actually analyze those deviations. I’m terrible at it. I’ll know that there's something happening, something potentially important, but determining what that is exactly is mostly guesswork. This is where a lack of instinct becomes crippling. Sometimes it’s a pretty simple puzzle to solve. At other times I will proceed on a completely incorrect assumption and find myself wildly far afield before I realize my error. There has been a lot of damage done from such mistakes.

I have no idea how one becomes better at such things. The options seem to be either:

A. improve
B. react less

By reacting less I mean disconnecting my behavior from the behavior of those around me; internalizing the motives of speech and action to a high degree. This has proven to be successful but only in those situations where I am not particularly invested in outcomes. We’ll call this the “I don’t give a shit” approach. When you really don’t give a shit there’s no need to calibrate based on feedback – you do or say whatever you choose to do or say and call it a day.

Clearly, this is less useful when you are invested. Pretending not to give a shit offers all the downsides of not caring and none of the advantages. It’s also an awful, disingenuous way to treat someone you care about. We’ll throw that one on the woodpile.

In the interest of possible improvement, I spend time studying those who handle this process well. Of particular value are those who, like me, take the long division approach of watching and calculating but somehow achieve better results. The friend I’m thinking of specifically seems to follow my format but does so with more accuracy. At some point in the processing stage she is able to take the same information I’ve gathered and know better what that information indicates. I don’t know how. I’ve asked her and she doesn’t seem to know how, either. She suggested that I am over thinking things. That’s definitely true, but not tremendously helpful. Watching her to see how she behaves in such situations brings us back to the beginning so no solution there.

In the short term maybe the best practice is to trust such people. I’m hesitant to do that. It’s not a matter of pride so much as it seems to be a weakness; a dependency of the sort that is so deeply unattractive. Sounds like a pretty weak objection. Perhaps trust really is the operative term here. She’s good at such things, I am not, and so when in such matters we disagree I should consider her position quite seriously. There’s something else in there, what’s it called? Oh, yes, being supportive.