Dr. Alok Kanojia

So, you know, the parts of our brain that interpret tone, body language, things like that, like people are becoming like, you know, we're seeing a rise of like ADHD and everyone also feels subjectively like they're autistic.

It's because they're losing some degree of social skills because we text back and forth.

And our brains don't, our occipital cortex is not interpreting that.

visual information of people's facial expressions.

So that part of our brain like literally kind of shuts off.

So people are having a lot of difficulty with ambiguity.

You know, people are saying like, oh, this person is sending mixed signals.

Like that's the point.

In a relationship, you are going to have mixed signals.

In a friendship, you will have mixed signals.

We all have ambivalence within us.

I want to eat a healthy lean protein during lunch, and I also want to eat a fried protein during lunch.

So ambiguity is actually not something to be avoided.

The really interesting thing, another transdiagnostic factor, really important one, the intolerance of uncertainty.

So human beings who are capable of tolerating uncertainty

better mental health outcomes, more resilient, improved quality of life, right?

So everyone needs defined answers.

So I'll pause there for a moment just to address your flirtation example, but you're spot on.

We can tell what the signals are at either end.

The point of human interaction is that way we can adapt to each other.