Mishell BakerA social #protip that changed my life and made me 1000x socially safer is this: for the most part, *people believe others are basically the same as them.* Whatever someone says "people" are like, they are generally describing themselves.
Now you know why I keep misanthropes at a distance.
This is not something I'm making up; I was just reading an interview with a neurologist/psychologist who said altruism exists on a spectrum and that people who doubt the existence of altruism are generally on the callous and uncaring side of the spectrum themselves.
I find this interesting because with my borderline "splitting" thing, my opinion on what "people are like" changes with my mood. That suggests: so do I. So yeah, maybe you WANT me to do positivity.
But the main lesson to take out of this is, if you're on a date or conducting a job interview and you want to know what someone is like, don't ask them to describe themselves - ask them to describe other people. That will give you a much truer picture.
Bonus protip: this same highly educated person, in the same interview, mentioned that people's online behavior tends to reflect their true personality without the "mask." If they seem nicer face to face, it's because they've learned there are unpleasant consequences if they are not.
I will close this thread with an anecdote. Once when I was working as a background actor I listened to a young woman monologue about herself for hours, barely acknowledging my responses. At one point she said, "My mom was a narcissist and she raised two narcissists... my brother and my sister."
Wait, no, one more thing. I said in the OP that this is why I avoid misanthropes, but there's another reason, and it doesn't require a PhD.
If you "hate people," you hate me. I go where I'm loved.