Nobody Tells the Truth — And That's Not Actually the Problem
"Judge people by their actions, not their words."
You've heard this before. So have I. And honestly — I agree with it completely.
People can say anything. Plenty of people talk beautifully and do nothing. I'll be the first to admit I've been guilty of that myself 😱
But I want to set the "lying is bad" conversation aside for a moment, because there's something more fundamental going on here that almost nobody talks about.
The truth is, no human being is capable of speaking 100% truth.
Every Word That Leaves Your Mouth Is Already Distorted
This might sound harsh. But stay with me.
When you talk about another person — even with the most honest intentions — you cannot possibly convey the full truth of who they are. You don't know their complete history. You don't know what shaped them. And you certainly don't have access to what they truly feel on the inside.
That part, most people accept.
But here's the part that's harder to sit with: you can't even speak the full truth about yourself.
The moment you put an experience into words, it gets filtered. Through your ego. Your pride. Your need to be understood a certain way. Your emotions in that moment. Your values and blind spots and the story you've been telling yourself for years.
You aren't lying, exactly. But you're not delivering raw truth either. You're delivering your version of it. And your version is shaped by everything you are.
And then — even if you could somehow transmit a perfectly accurate account — the moment it reaches the other person, it passes through their filter. Their past experiences. Their assumptions. Their wounds. Their worldview.
The same sentence lands completely differently depending on who receives it.
By the time words travel from one person to another, they've already become something else.
So What Do You Actually Trust?
If words are inherently unreliable, what do you use instead?
Your instincts. Your gut. The quiet knowing that doesn't need a reason.
Reading between the lines — picking up on what someone means rather than what they say — requires something that can't be taught in a classroom. It's a sensitivity to the invisible. To tone, timing, behavior, the things people do when they think no one is paying attention.
That inner signal is worth developing. Worth trusting.
A Different Way of Looking at Social Suffering
This brings me to something that's been on my mind.
When we talk about reading between the lines and understanding unspoken feelings, one thing that comes up is “Asperger's syndrome (ASD) “— specifically, the difficulty some people experience in reading social cues, understanding unspoken rules, and functioning comfortably in group settings.
For anyone navigating life with those challenges, genuinely unseen and misunderstood by the people around them — that must be incredibly isolating. I mean that sincerely.
But I want to ask a question that I think is worth sitting with:
Does every single person with these traits actually have a neurological condition?
What if — in some cases — there's another explanation?
"I can't read this person's emotions." → Maybe this person simply doesn't matter to you. Maybe you genuinely don't like them. Maybe your mind isn't investing in someone it has no real reason to invest in.
"I can't function well in this group." → Maybe this group is doing something you don't actually want to be doing. Maybe you just don't like these people. This might not be your place.
Of course — real diagnoses are real, and I'm not dismissing that. Some people do have genuine neurological differences that deserve proper support and understanding.
But consider this: not being able to deeply read someone you don't care about, not being able to bond naturally with people in a place where you don't belong — that's not a disorder. That's a completely human response.
What looks like a symptom might actually be your inner compass working exactly as it should.