Pathos and Pedestals, how the mighty have fallen

I am truly terrible at noticing if people change the furniture in their home, get a new car, lose weight etc. It gets me in trouble with my family all the time.

Here is what I never miss: I will notice if you did not get enough sleep, if you twirl your hair when tired, fidget when you lie, or if you got laid right before work. I know if someone is preggo before they start to show by the changes in their skin. Once I know your cadence and expressions good luck getting something by me. If you are a badly damaged person I can sense it after 5 minutes or less of conversation. Likewise I know if you have had good therapy after talking to you for maybe a half an hour. I know if your parents were alcoholics. I know when you are lying or about to lie.

I have a girlfriend I work with and when I noticed she had a tremor I was very worried about her health. I asked our other friends and none of them had noticed it. I approached her about it telling her I wanted her to see a neurologist. She laughed and told me I was the only person in a year to notice that she had a mild tic due to tourette's..

With this extreme pathos I find myself with an ability to see heroic flickers in an otherwise unremarkable person. So far this pans out with them falling off the pedestal in rapid fashion. A flicker alone is not usually strong enough to survive and be a dominant quality.

I find myself wondering, is it a gift or a curse that I have? Is it possible for me to hone these skills to include sensing the deficits as easily as I sense the strengths? I know that I developed these skills as a young child trying to read adults that often kept things from me and talked in whispers. Later when working with non verbal adults all I had to go on were gestures, facial movements, sometimes just the flick of a wrist.

If you wonder, yes I am also painfully aware of both my weaknesses and strengths, I try to push through the weaknesses with sheer will, with mixed success.

I was recently told by someone that they hated people.. I never feel that way. I love people with all their flawed humanity and feet of clay.