What does it mean to not be able to read people?
It means I can't read sarcasm. There's a lapse in communication because people will tease with no ill will but it never seems that way to me. It seems like judgment and I don't like being judged so I react. That reaction leads to "I'm just messing with you, or I'm just kidding" followed by an air of awkward silence and realization, particularly if I'm in a group of people. Sometimes if I linger in my reaction I'll get an exhausted and frustrated "I'm just being sarcastic Martin!" or "You take everything seriously."
When I was a child my reactions could be taken advantage of and I got teased more for the reaction and everyone's amusement. As an adult there's more consideration but people tend to withdraw from me because I'm not fun or laid back enough.
Another source of fun or another facilitator of withdrawal among social peers: my intense love of what I love. I cannot read their lack of interest or their apathy towards me talking ALL DAY but everything I love. I can talk about the following subjects all day: movies, travel, hockey, and my dog. I'm easily excited about things that I get into. The amount of times my friends hear about my ever-rotating travel destination list is too plenty to count. Despite no one's interest in hockey I'll start quoting +/- stats. If there's a mistaken fact for a movie I'll immediately Google to prove everyone wrong and find that no one cares as much as I do. My close friends will do this for amusement.
While it amuses people to see how I can't read people, it frustrates them to not be able to read me.
"Why would you say that?"
"You didn't need to send a message. You could've just left it alone."
"Why don't you smile more?"
"Why don't you look into my eyes while talking to me?"
"Are you ok? You don't look ok."
Yeah, I'm fine, unless you keep asking me that. When I was an Edgewood club with a couple of my friends I had such a blank neutral face that wasn't ecstatic but that was shy of RBF that my friend kept asking "do you wanna go?" "No I'm good." I would be asked the same question 10 minutes later. I would be asked again and again until my other friend just said "let's go" and said after we walked out "if everyone wants to leave then someone just say so" targeting me. I didn't want to leave. I was fine. I enjoyed the Soul Train music. I was even creating silly dance moves such as the "Katniss" (a dance move involving the pull and release of an imaginary arrow).
This misreading didn't happen overnight either. I can remember J----- R------ getting on to me for not looking in his eyes when talking or Mrs. G---, my law teacher in high school, going straight up to me in the hallway waving her hand in my face "I'm waving at you Martin." Why would she do this? Because she and others would wave at me or smile at me in the hallway and I would not respond or would remain blank. My reasoning was that I didn't know if they were targeting me or someone else.
Miscommunication happens, particularly on an online environment. Yet this is too frequent and too atypical or atypical among people who have normal, healthy social lives that I know and care about. This is illiteracy. I don't think of myself as illiterate, however. I am literate but I have a different social language. I call it Cavespeak.
...
What is Cavespeak?
When you hear that phrase your immediate conception is grunting and neanderthal, which is close to my idea. Its origin lies more in the idea of living or growing up in a cave. There's social typical language, then there's cavespeak.
My cavespeak means that I speak in what people perceive in either a cold or overly intense/excited way. There's no middle, cream-filled laid back and warm way of speaking. Warm is intense/excited, laid back is cold/neutral. I'm honest/transparent, which is a positive element of my cavespeak because people know I'm not trying to manipulate them or do harm and that the worst of me is on the table.
Through the years I've worked a little more on learning and speaking social typical language. If someone says something that's seemingly insulting but dry I'll ask if it's sarcasm if it's particularly biting or just assume so.
I've also learned to be more tactful. I remember in Theatre History 1 at college the class was asked if Renaissance theatre was more influenced by ancient Greece or ancient Rome. After a classmate said ancient Greece I immediately countered with ancient Rome and an explanation with evidence that was sharp in a negative way. I shut down my friend and seemed too intense. My classmate said "I guess I'm wrong." The class was silent. I immediately felt self-conscious and withdrew in a sense.
No matter my progress there's still issues in my ability to communicate. When you learn a language the difficulty of learning and speaking that language comes in your mental Rosetta Stone. Fluency doesn't just mean you can speak or write a language, but you can think in that language. Before that fluency happens when you hear or read a foreign language you have to translate that to your native, original language, then translate a response or an understanding in the foreign language. That's my process with social typical language. I experience a social situation, I translate this social moment in cavespeak, and try to communicate in a socially acceptable or socially typical way. This lag time...doesn't always win hearts and minds.
...
There is a term for what I am describing that's not just cavespeak. I'm reticent to use it yet but I am investigating and I am interested in a professional diagnosis. I've taken online tests and it always comes up the same. It's hard to rely on self-diagnosis so I use the term cavespeak.
Why would I even investigate, however? The impetus for casually looking into this came when I would see articles about how sarcastic people are more intelligent from people I didn't particularly care for saying "look at me I'm SOOO smart LOL." I wanted to know why I couldn't perceive sarcasm so well.
Then I got ghosted. What I mean by ghosted is that after dating someone for a month, having made meaningful anniversary plans, having met this someone's sister and brother-in-law, and after sharing mutual and reciprocated "I like you's" and "I'm glad we met's," not only did this someone bail on me for our "anniversary date" but after telling me she was bailing...she ghosted me.
Ghosting and silence for someone who speaks cavespeak is emotional cruelty. In my dating life it happens...all the time. One person who said she liked me on a first date ended up not really texting unless I texted and found a new boyfriend in the meantime. Before I met this 1 month someone I was ghosted by 4 different people I had made serious communication or met up with--even multiple times.
Even worse is after a first date having someone say "you're nice, you're interesting, you like things I like, you have ambition, you have stuff together, but I don't feel anything romantic" or "I see you as a friend."
If the 1 month someone was isolated I would give this a second thought, but with all of this I realized that it can't just be them, but me. There's something in the way I communicate and there's something in my intensity that turns people away or leaves people cold. There's a coldness in my cavespeak that leaves people apathetic to my positive attributes, like dedication, honesty, and giving a shit.
That's why I write this. I often write things for myself (but share in the sake of openness). I write this because I want to know more about my cavespeak, why I'm not fluent in social typical language, so I can communicate about myself and my differences better. While dates are mostly turned off even my friends will find it challenging to communicate with me. The amount of people who text or call me without me prompting usually comes to 1-2 people per week.
Now I say all this with frankness but I do want to add--I'm not sorry for myself. I don't consider myself a victim. I say all this to share a journey I'm beginning to find the truth of my "cavespeak" and how I can communicate better.
