Feelings for people vs. empathy

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I do have feelings for some people, but I can't seem to feel empathy for them. I think many people assume that loving someone automatically implies feeling empathy for them, but that is not necessarily true. I don't feel anything when someone I love gets hurt/dies/etc. It's hard to explain, but it is as though my feelings for a person have nothing to do with what happens to them. For example, when one of my only friends died in a surgery several years ago (I considered him a really close friend), his death had no negative effect on me at all.

I'm the opposite. I (sort of) hurt when someone else hurts, but that doesn't mean I'll unconditionally like that person because he/she/it is hurting.

Yeah, I'm the same way. I had to force myself to look sad when the guy in my senior class died in high school, and everyone else was crying but me. I didn't cry when my grandfather died. I was playing Game Gear, and my grandfather was about to die, and I was called over to say bye to Grandpa. I held his hand and said bye, and then I went back to the other room and resumed my game. When my other grandfather died, I didn't want to go to his funeral, but I was forced to, because apparently it doesn't look very good if you don't attend a family member's funeral. Pinching my face in sorrow for two hours is a real chore. Everyone has to dress in all black, and people are morbid and negative, and the atmosphere is so gloomy. I hate funerals. I know the man died, why do I need to carry his coffin over to the grass?? I was RIGHT THERE when he was in the hospital, so I don't need to open the casket to make sure he is dead. It would be nice if I could just "pay my respects" my own way, but I can't.

I was not originally an empathetic person, but as I've grown in experience and accepted that I'm a flawed and vulnerable human being, I've grown more tolerant of and even loving toward other flawed and vulnerable humans. That still sounds cold, but it's a warmer cold, trust me.

I've only ever really been affected by one death. I was close to him in high school and, about a month before he died, he called me to get back in touch. Of course I didn't call him back, so I was really sad to hear when he passed. (I still didn't attend the funeral...)

I'm the same. I can deal with death. I will cry, but that is about the gaping hole without my loved one. I think death affects me less because I know that they've simply returned to the spiritual plane with the masses.

I find it very difficult to have empathy for people.

The times I find I do get feelings like that are more a burning anger when I hear of children, animals and elderly being abused or taken advantage of.

Basically I do feel sad for people with difficulties in life, but If someones crying about something it doens't affect me expect make me feel uncomfortable.

As a Christian aspie, I have serious over-empathy issues about people dying. We don't view death the same way non-Christians do because we firmly believe what the Bible says about heaven and hell to be accurate and literal. So when someone who was a believer has died, funerals are usually a celebration of the person's life, and we know we'll see them again and its just a temporary separation. We understand that they are in such a great place we don't grieve for them. We may grieve about them because we miss them and can't be with them for a while. In contrast, when someone we know dies as an unbeliever we understand the full extent of their torment that they are presently, and for eternity, experiencing. For an aspie like myself, this can be extraordinarily disturbing. I know what fire feels like and read personal accounts of people who were supernaturally forced to experience what hell is actually like but lived to tell about it. Read Bill Wiese's book "23 minutes in Hell" sometime, it will shake you. Because its worse than any possible mortal human experience, and never ends, I just come unglued when I think about people I care about having to be there for trillions of years and just getting started. So yes I believe we can experience empathy as aspies, but I don't think it takes on the same form as it does with NTs.

Disclaimer: If you don't believe existence after physical death works like this, I'm not trying to offend you.

That's precisely why I dislike the term "Christian", but if I don't use it, hardly anybody knows what I mean anyway. Its frustrating because there's no single word which describes the person who believes the Bible to be the literal word of God. Your statement illustrates how many people who call themselves Christians don't even believe the Bible to be true.

Oh well. At least we have the term Aspergers to differentiate from the rest of the autism spectrum.