I thought this was true most of my life...until someone suggested to me that I had Asperger's. Upon deeper investigation, I found out (to my great surprise) th

I thought this was true most of my life...until someone suggested to me that I had Asperger's. Upon deeper investigation, I found out (to my great surprise) that most people's experience of communication is different from mine in a profound way. They really are taking most of their cues about meaning from things other than my actual words, and they were trying to communicate a great many things to me without words that I was missing completely. I (obviously) don't know you from anyone, but if this claim has seemed as transparently false to you as it did to me, I'd just encourage you to try to keep your mind open to the possibility that your experience is anomalous. The good news is that once I knew this was true, I was able to focus on trying to learn to compensate. It's almost like people are speaking two languages at once, whatever they're saying out loud, and then another whole set of things in a kind of full body sign language that most of them picked up intuitively from earliest childhood and use constantly without even being aware they're doing it. All languages are learnable if you're determined, so once you know to look for them, you can start. If you want to come at it from a formal angle (which might be necessary), check out the old TV show "Lie to Me." It touches on the science of interpreting body expressions and facial cues. I think it'll help you see some of what I mean.