“b-but bears are actually dangerous!” Shut the hell up.
I don’t think that any amount of empathy allows me to know if a stranger is dangerous.
If it’s alexithymia or such I hope you have trusted people in your life you can ask about random people.
On the flipside if that kind of thing is due to being on the schizo spectrum I can say with personal authority that yes it’s very much possible: Figures it’s not that I can’t do it it’s that I had a life-long habit of actively avoiding tuning into random people, the resonance being so strong that their neuroses get me all cramped up and swamped with random shit requiring clean-up after the fact. But deep dives aren’t really necessary for a threat radar what you’re primarily looking for is their attitude towards relating on eye level, whether there’s an inferiority/superiority thing going on.
Not OP, but look, if someone, let’s say a stranger, has nefarious motives, they have an incentive to fake their mannerisms, this means relying on your empathy and social intelligence alone is a mistake since they may be used as a vector of attack.
In order to be safe, one must make sure they are not harmed or endangered in any way, this includes avoiding certain situations with strangers.
Also, don’t just randomly pathologize people just because you don’t understand where they are coming from, even if done with no harm in mind, you will come off as very disrespectful.
Now I might be schizosplaining here but faked mannerisms are glaringly obvious. Especially when it comes to what I recommended doing, and that’s checking out the willingness to relate at eye level as the only way to do that is to actually do that – if you hide something you’re either on the demure or arrogant side of things.
Also, don’t just randomly pathologize people
I made no diagnosis, I was talking about a possibility. A possibility that might be true or false, if it’s true then I might have saved someone’s life as they finally understand that something’s different about them, if it’s false, then they can brush it off. If they’re so up their ass that they’re getting their underwear in a twist over that well then at least I tried, I’m willing to be the asshole in that situation. And so should you if you value your fellow humans.
