What I think that happens: my insula attached to the default mode network and is feeding information into it. It gives the ability of being much more sensitive at certain forms of empathy.
I remember before I went in thinking: research says I'll be better at emotional intelligence when I do this, I wonder what will happen. 10 days later I realized I became a lot better at empathy. So my emotional intelligence did grow :)
There's quite some research on this, but I'm going to be lazy and simply recommend Search Inside Yourself.
Disclaimer: the experience discussed in this comment is one of the reasons why I chose my username back in the day. So I'm biased.
The issue is: the practice that I got was amazing, but the theory is... not worth listening to. Fortunately, it was cheap, so 10 hours of practice and 1 hour of entertainment (is what I called it) was fine.
Though, if others have other Vipassana retreats, then don't consider this one as better.
Also: I wouldn't go in expecting that you'll experience my description above. However, you can go in with the idea that you're training your emotional intelligence, somehow. It's up to you to discover how it happened. For me the effect was screamingly obvious. But I can't guarantee that it will be for you and if it isn't then it's tough to distinguish it from placebo. With all those disclaimers in place, the above website is where I did a retreat (3 times now).
I noticed the same struggle when I talk to more extroverted people abouth the problems when approaching people.
That sounds like a dishonest way of treating people, and might be a reason why some people prefer to be more introvert.
Look at it like this:
I have a friend.
Friends try to do good things for each other.
My friend seems different today than they are usually.
They are sad.
My friend likes getting flowers.
I want them to be happier.
I will say something nice and buy them a flower.
It cheered them up a bit.
I will ask how they are, because I notice that other people do that for their friends and it helps.
On the one hand you could say, hey that's calculated manipulation. Which it kind of is and that sounds negative and dishonest.
But there is nothing dishonest about it. It's something many people might do without even thinking about which is why it seems odd to spell out as a rational process. But if you don't get it intuitively, you may have to resort to a rational process to figure out how to cheer your friend up.
I used to work with young adults on the autism spectrum at a ymca camp and the higher functioning folks lacked the ability to intuitively interact with others- the same way I might not intuitively understand engineering problems. I get frustrated by them and don’t know what to do. Imagine if that is how you felt interacting with people on a very basic basis.
When people are naturally good in social situations, they're primarily using system 1 for decision making such as "what should my facial expression be". It's kind of a state of flow, in which system 2 mostly just observes what system 1 is doing, without micromanaging every face muscle, intonation, sentence, etc.
This may also be a reason why introverts find social interaction tiring.
(This is just my understanding.)
Except when it's not.
It hold advices that can be generalized to improve your ability to learn without using analysis and develop natural actions in a given field.
Apply it to social interactions. Those are much better for everyone involved when you mostly instinctively react, yet subtly adjust using logic, not the opposite.
I think it's just a matter of effective control of yourself and a full understanding of the people and situation you're in. Most people on the spectrum struggle with the understanding bit, or the control bit, or both. I'm really lucky in that I'm pretty decent at both halves, so I don't think there's a true "secret to learn", it's more about capacity and ability.
The biggest thing I've learned is that I don't really like myself when I'm in full-facsimile mode, and so I consciously try to lower the facade whenever possible, but it's difficult after a lifetime of training by social sanctions.
Care to elaborate on this? What is the facsimile mode? My intuition tells me it’s the mirroring of the social interaction. If that’s what you mean I might have similar feelings towards it, I sometimes find some interactions awkward if I am too aware. If im lost in the flow it all goes much better
I am still not sure whether I am on the spectrum and wouldn't help me out much to be diagnosed, I've accepted a long time ago that I am somewhat different from the norm but not necessarily in a bad way, I simply am not a very good speaking person - I do excel in other modes of communication, just not with words. But I guess with hard work one can train to perform something that they're not natively apt to do just to get the job done, one doesn't have to strive to be best because that puts too much pressure and leads to stress. I hope you be compassionate and comfortable with yourself:)
Let me ask you one more thing. Do you dance at all? If not can you describe why not? I'm very curious.
I have danced, and do dance, but it's not exactly my favorite thing. Not super compelling to me.
Sometimes they want to do fraudulent things and are obviously willing to implicate others and I just steer them away and give them another option. I think they like that they are spotted but not shunned.
Or maybe I'm a mark to them, or maybe I'm a sociopath too. To the top of society you say? That's the plan..
But they aren't retreating because they've been found out. I just point out how the legitimate way is actually more lucrative.
(ie. maybe they want a commission deal on an impossible financial product that a client is interested in because the risks haven't been disclosed, I tell them we can offer a legitimate financial product with 2% management fees and 20% of profits and make way more money)
I've heard sociopaths even excuse their "eccentric inattention to others" as possibly having asperger tendencies! Most people still lack experience to even understand they are poles apart.
Regarding projections, burn the "rule book". Setting up "outside" people for failure is common but not enough to distinguish. Bullying, condescending remarks, getting others to chime in. It starts with boasting about the last victim, then you're next.
Only thing that can stop it is people stop tolerating abuse in their environment. USA is now "it".
I also realize I wasn't clear here, so lets says you have a person A who is a sociopath talk to person B. After that interaction person A comes to person C (me in this example) and says "I don't know, they strike me as a sociopath."
Now in these cases, when I've had enough interaction with Person A in other situations, to feel confident in my understanding of their challenges, and when the feedback on Person B from other sources are not reflective of that perception, and are typically hard over the other way ("this person is so empathic" kinds of things).
I hypothesize that the body language of Person B was signaling to Person A that their masking was not as effective as they would have liked.
The other thing I wanted to be clear about is that it isn't a judgement about them either way, people are who they are. What is important as a manager is understanding the dynamics of your team and how they perceive the world and evaluate it. One has to do that if you have any chance at all of working together effectively.
If A is not a conscious bully (for lack of a better term), B could be perceived as artificial, weak, blunt, out of bounds, insulting, exploitative, etc. Reaction is to push "out" and "defend", maybe "as if" leader. Introspection at A may overcome reaction, though may need reassurance from respected source (=leadership). A and B will probably never work great together, though minimal interaction can work consciously. How A and B relates defines span of real org culture (in heaven).
It is much more productive to simply watch the videos how people are doing it.
A lot of extroverted people are intelligently sociable and are very aware of what's going on, to the point it's natural for them.
I think that most of those people kind of assume others are the same way and so might not be quite as sympathetic to those with low EI.
The question of authenticity, though interesting philosophically speaking, I think can be safely downgraded to simply "how it works in practice". Most people seem to do it out of some sort of instinct, and most people really are telegraphing their true feelings and intentions to varying degrees.