Calling fellow people with ASD, my curse of TL;DR, a simple question that becomes... this:
I understand that Theory of Mind means: 'the ability to understand that others have their own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, which may be different from one's own'.
I am autistic and I get that intellectually but I feel like I must be missing something here.
How does theory of mind (ToM) impact relationships?
Assuming people are not bad people with terrible political takes upsets them a lot, is that ToM?
Assuming people have good vocabularies upsets people a lot, is that ToM?
Assuming people will not take a dim view of my subjective interests only to be disappointed then pulling them up for making it obvious I'm upset about their response, this upsets them a lot, is that ToM?
Am I supposed to apologize for giving people the benefit of the doubt? Am I supposed to edit the way I speak, my better takes and enthusiasms to make space for bad takes so people with bad takes don't get offended? Seems like a take on 'trying, reading and being thoughtful on things before committing to a strong opinion/being authentic is bad' and 'using careless heuristic takes based on little but groupthink and deindividuation is good actually' to me.
It's not that I'm invulnerable to making decisions and reflexive responses without thinking first but experience, I'm 47, has shown me the times I regret are the times I DON'T put in the effort BEFORE committing to a POV. While I don't like to upset people if they are wrong, what special angels are never wrong, not me that is for sure. IMO that's a them problem, what I HATE is upsetting people only to find out later they were right and I was wrong because I didn't do the work first.
Why? I hate being talked down to by people who haven't done the work as if I'm wrong and they are right when I KNOW they are wrong and I'm right and I can explain it to them in excruciating detail through 4 different disciplines with quotes, graphs and if you give me time, a laptop and the right resources, and if necessary, Harvard referencing.
I think I'm OK at these things, I did a counselling theory course back before my diagnosis, but it might be a Dunning-Kruger thing where I just think I get it because I'm not as good at it as I think I am. I still find most people and social situations hard to read when it expands past more than just me plus one other person with a lopsided interaction where I attend to them fully without checking in on my self enough for it to be a satisfying back and forth or I monologue at them trampling them, it is as if I get stuck exclusively on send or exclusively receive.