when you're feeling poorly, can people around you tell just by looking at you (if you don't make a show of it)?
- yes44%
- only close friends/family31.6%
- no24.4%
291 votesFinal results
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Conversation
i think basically everyone has this ability and lots of people are deliberately refusing to pay attention to it so it’s hard to tell if it’s happening
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oof sad
i feel like some people are just very expressive when they're ill, though? 🤔 apparently my face just goes blank and i talk less, like i put less effort into being expressive for other people's benefit?
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yeah that’s extremely noticeable if anyone would actually bother to notice it at all
i went through this transition where i like... gave myself permission to notice other people’s faces and body language and it was horrifying. everyone around me was so anxious and so unhappy
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nerds in particular vastly vastly underestimate how transparent their emotional state is to an even slightly practiced observer. it’s just that often the state is “blank and frozen and dissociated” which looks kinda like but is actually completely different from “neutral”
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oh yikes 😬
what was it like before you gave yourself permission? did you get the cues you needed for communication but not the extra information?
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i just never allowed myself to look at people really. i’d look off to the side and sort of studiously avoid putting too much of my attention on anyone’s face or body. it felt rude
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i still have trouble with looking directly into someone's eyes. it truly feels like staring directly into their soul.
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i actually think this is an instinct worth listening to. eye contact is incredibly intimate. starting to think i should ask for permission before doing it
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it is a solemn thing, i think. much of my awkwardness comes from an awareness that i interject a meta-awareness into social situations when i enter them. it is not always kind to make people who have things to do *particularly* aware of themselves or me.
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