As I mused the fire burned

[4277311]

Lately whenever I've been around people who don't know me very well, I start to feel slightly Stalkeresque. Because of my 'keen eye for detail' as the colloquialism goes, I tend to know far more about people than they've actually told me: like how many kids they have and when their birthday is or how many biscuits they had for lunch

Comments

[sevenjades]

Oh, boy, do I know this intimately. I like to call it my Secret Agent side, but if I'm not very, very careful it can be a Stalker side. Never mind I don't really care about the details or what they say about someone's life - I just happen to notice and bring it up.

The other side of the coin, of course, is I can be completely oblivious to certain details around me, just not caring at all. So I can sort of understand why NTs don't believe me when I tell them this side of me is harmless. It has to be an all-or-nothing deal for them, which I sort of resent, but oh well.

I like to think about this as a Secret Agent power because a) it sounds cool, and I like thriller/crime/spy stories, and b) it gives me a way to effectively deal with it. A spy would never reveal everything they know and would be very careful with the details they reveal. They have to maintain this illusion that they are just like everyone else. The difference between me and an agent, of course, is I'm not trolling for information or intruding on their lives. But the mindset of being careful who you reveal to is useful, and it has proved fruitful for me.