One marker for our level of emotional intelligence is the speed with which we differentiate between those who care about us and those who pretend to care about us while their interests are aligned with ours.
This is particularly challenging because folks in the pretend group can be savvy social operators with high emotional awareness themselves.
In those cases, the only real identifier is a gap between what they say and what they do. While it is hard to spot that gap in the short run, it almost always shows itself in the long run.
The higher our emotional intelligence lever, the sooner we spot these gaps.
