One of the questions I always have about Lwaxana regarding Picard and Odo is whether she was actually incorrect in her telepathic understanding of their feelings about her.

We saw that she was an incredibly powerful telepath. Riker observed right from her first visit to Enterprise that she always knew exactly what you were thinking and let you know it. She makes no distinction between what people say verbally vs what she’s hearing telepathically. And as Riker notes, she calls people on their thoughts all the time.

In the show, Picard and Odo’s protests that they have no interest imply that Luaxana’s telepathy is failing when it comes to men of her age that she finds attractive. Basically, she’s shown as being so desperate for love as an older woman that she’s getting their thoughts wrong.

But do we actually have evidence that her telepathy is compromised when she hears others’ thoughts about herself?

Quite the contrary. Even when distracted by her own situation she was able to uncover major threats to the Federation.

In personal relations then, if what she heard didn’t line up with what they were saying, and she persisted based on what she heard from their minds, should it be considered harassment?