What signifies a lack of empathy for you?

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Put it this way, think of things out there you are not fascinated by. That is the same way for roller coasters for everyone else who aren't fascinated by it.


When someone has a favorite movie or TV show and is obsessed with it but I am not obsessed with it. I see it as their Benny & Joon. They must feel the same way about that movie or tv show I feel about Benny & Joon.

I don't think I have ever thought everyone should like the same stuff I like but I didn't understand how can someone not like computers or books or Dinsey movies or video games or Home Alone or Jurassic Park, how can they not have seen 101 Dalmatians or A League of Their Own. Why weren't they interested? But I understand now. There are lot of movies out there I don't like or am not interested in so my favorite movies I had in the past felt the same way for other people I feel about movies I am not interested in. Yep you just have to think of yourself this way to get it and understand. That's the trick to normie skills in this area.

The thing is, someone has to be fascinated by roller-coasters or they wouldn't be designed or even properly maintained. If no-one obsessed about roller-coaster design and safety, the rides would collapse and injure people. By obsessing about design, designers are empathising with the need for people's safety. That is a kind of caring, but on a much larger scale.

If people weren't fascinated by a lot of supposedly obscure things, lots of people would be unhappier, perhaps even unhealthier. Someone one's got to do the job thoroughly and maintain fascination with the job or it wouldn't get done.

If no-one was ever fascinated with anything, no one could ever communicate and therefore inspire others (who might be interested) to take up that activity. The subject would die and no more items connected with that fascination would ever be made.

The trick is, communicating your fascination during the right time and social situation.
If people come up to you asking for help and the help they require involves your obsession, they're suddenly very grateful if you talk to them about it at great length. You get called helpful and kind if you do that. It is a kind of caring working away on something alone by yourself that will benefit others. If you design something that help solves someone elses' problem, that's being empathetic I feel.


I think that some 'normal' people are obsessed with the minutiae of social interactions and have a broad appreciation of the physical world.

Whereas, someone like me would be obsessed with the minutiae physical details and would have a broader appreciation of social issues.
It would be about caring for others, but more on the macro-scale.

But not everyone is fascinated by roller coasters or else everyone would be working in that field and none of the other careers would be taken or other fields in engineering. Imagine what the whole world be like if every one wanted to work with roller coasters? Everyone would be fighting to work in that area and all the other jobs would be open and there be no doctors and all. A lot more people would be unemployed and the lines be long from China to Japan to get on. That's why it's great that everyone has different interests and fascinations.

So true---it takes many different interests to make the world go around. The world isn't one big amusement park . But I do know something---place anyone in the front seat of a 400 foot tall roller coaster, and I bet they will get excited . I think so at least---but there might be a few that wouldn't get excited up there.

But yes, not everyone likes roller coasters. But I do know that everyone loves Schmidt Cassegrain Telescopes .

Empathy is literally being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and to understand why they feel what they feel. I don’t think empathy is naturally occurring—everyone has to learn it.

Mel Brooks once said, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.” To laugh when someone else gets hurt or experiences misfortune is a natural, animal response.

Empathy is a product of socialization and an instrument of social control. Any reasonably intelligent, non-psychotic person can learn empathy. Aspies and NTs who lack empathy are products of poor socialization. NTs generally have an easier time with empathy only because they have an easier time with socialization in general, and that’s only because they’re not mute and deaf to meta-communication like aspies are.

Aspie or NT, the ability to empathize is what separates human animals from human beings.

I'm the same way, and recently figured out that I seem to lack empathy due to the same thing... I have a lot of sympathy towards others, if it is very obvious that they are upset, but sometimes I'm just annoyed that they cannot find others to talk to about it and it's taking up my time having to listen to something that I just don't know how to relate to.

My boyfriend almost searches for signs of empathy at times... he wants the support and all that comes along with it, but often I can only just sit there with a blank stare, especially if it comes to anything emotion wise that he is sharing with me. He tries to prompt me into answering questions and being able to relate, but it's usually interrupted with "can we stop talking about this? I can't relate so can't give you the answers that you are looking for and it makes me and you both feel bad the longer it goes on."

Maybe that is some sort of empathy-the after effect of what I know I feel like when I can't offer the support he is looking for, and knowing he doesn't feel any better about it. But everything that leads up to it makes me feel just useless in the empathy department.

well there are many situations where people were disgruntled by my mental approach to their predicaments.

one was the funeral of my nephew and i failed to see the gravity of the situation and my sister wanted "love and support" from me after the service , but all i remembered about it was the carpet pattern and some anomalies associated with it. i switched off after the priest said a few words because i was not interested.

my sister was very distraught that i apparently did not care (in her appraisal) about the death of my nephew. i did. but i did not see it the same way as anyone else and i was reviled as "the fool on the hill" after the service when all the flailing octopus arms were waving at me for a "hug" and i rejected them.
i like that song so i took it as a compliment of sorts and left the funeral in my car and drove home.
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when my mother died i was very upset. at her funeral 3 days later, the female organist seemed to have some personality problem in that she dreamed she was a "star" and she kept playing a song over and over. she was not talented, but she was looking at the ceiling as if she was playing through the "hands of god".

the ugly priest who was going to say the funeral dialogue (who looked like a zombie) stepped toward her after a while and shook his head at her as if to say "thanks...you can stop now".

he stepped back to the pulpit but she repeated her song from a much earlier point, and did not stop playing, and he became rather annoyed. he sidled toward her (so as not to look unprofessional at a funeral) and whispered "thank's joan....i'll take it from here". (i heard it as i was fixated on the proceedings).

she took a breath and decided to play her last set of chords again and he frowned and i became gripped with laughter that i am sure all my relatives will never understand or forgive.

there are weekly "empathic disasters" in my life and i am inured to them because they do not follow me to bed.

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lol, I would have laughed, too... just because it's so extreme that she would keep going even after being asked 2 times basically to stop, lol.

It's a question about Theory of Mind.

Btw. I meet NTs all the time who say that they don't understand why I / others feel / like etc. this or that.
The reason why they don't understand it?
"Because I don't feel / like etc. it."
Eg.: "I don't understand how you're able to like bread without butter, because I don't like it and think it's dry."
But then, how come I can accept that they like boiled eggs on their bread even though I don't like it myself, and thus don't ramble on every time I see one eating boiled eggs like: "I don't understand you like boiled eggs because I don't".?

And they're suppose to have ToM - but don't use it??
In said example, I in fact use more ToM than they do, even though I, and not they, am on the spectrum?!
NTs are hard to understand!

It might be a question of "normality": it's more common to dislike bread without butter than to dislike boiled eggs. Oh normality, we praise thee...

Ironically, it seems like NTs tend to switch off their ToM when they smalltalk.

When my girlfriend and I fight, she gets all angry and accuses me of all manner of offenses. Impossible things like, "You ALWAYS do this, or you NEVER do that.

Then she cries...

She told me recently that I was cold hearted because I don't console her when she cries. I don't understand why she cries...if she's right and I am so guilty, then why the tears? I never cry when I am right.

When she cries I get uncomfortable and do nothing.