I'm actually really good at reading people

not sure if this qualifies as an autistic thing, but I like to think that one of my "talents" is actually reading and analyzing other people better than neurotypicals do.

I'm rarely surprised by someone's actions and when meeting someone new it takes me only a couple of minutes to "catch a vibe" and I already know what kind of a person they are. it's pretty subconscious and I believe it's some pattern recognition or a survival mechanism. in order to protect myself I just learned a bunch of shit about people and now I can't stop myself from judging everyone around me.

it's what made me question whether I could even be autistic. I can catch vibes from someone's body language, the way they talk, who they interact with, who they ignore, how they dress, etc. and I'm almost never wrong. it turned into an obsession of a sort, since it's so interesting to me how many humans behave in a similar manner and how easy it is to protect myself (since that's my main concern).

I still suck at interacting with people though and have no idea what to say or do so that they would "accept me as their own", but knowing who to avoid and who could land a helping hand if need be is a very useful skill.