I think in my case this is a combination of 2 factors: having very self-absorbed parents (I would classify one as non-N and one as N) who really just didn't give a crap about my interests or inner life most of the time, plus one symptom of my being on the spectrum is that one very specific input wire is pulled and I have trouble 'just knowing' whether somebody likes/dislikes me assuming they have any talent at pretending to be friendly and want to hide any dislike. Like I think most people have a built-in that does that for them and mine is unplugged.

Also my parents were very intelligent, and unlike a lot of Ns or N-adjacents, they were nice enough to pretend to give a crap when they were being nice, and like .......... now I can't tell when other adults of sufficient intelligence are doing it these days? and I don't even have a warm/cold sense unless they give clues, and it takes a whole lot of effort to watch for them and doesn't come naturally?

Does this make sense? It sounds like an anxiety/shame complex under a very thin veil but I promise it's not, because I don't ... really react to things in that way?? I realized over the past 5 years or so that I really just cannot temperature check people's like/dislike toward me unless they are very clear about it, like if I start to have questions about somebody I have to sit down and think it out and it still doesn't compute, and since most of the people in my daily life are (good hearted) snarky types who have been thru a lot of trauma, everybody is nice but keeps their cards close to the vest and I can never have any good sense of where I stand. It's always a big question mark. "Just talk about it" doesn't work because these people don't do that, and I suppose neither have I ever outside of a romantic relationship. (edit: and my 3ish closest friendships)

I hate this but in some sense I'm not even trying to complain, this is just how it is, people make films about this culture, it's literally because civilization has only developed this far, I guess I'm just wondering how common it is to have this exact problem after being raised by Ns, orrrr if it's maybe more the autism. K THANKS BYE