Is this normal?

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Last week my girlfriend told me about her dog getting ran over the previous night - I felt no emotion about it.
When people inform me of things like their mother dying - I feel nothing about it.
When people tell me about really sad stuff that happened to them - again, nothing.

I just don't feel any emotion about things people tell me happening to them, and I've always been this way. I do my best to display the appropriate feelings when people tell me these things, but I don't feel any change in emotion. If the bad things happen to me, I have the reaction, just not when it happens to someone else, even someone really close to me.

Is this normal? Do NT's not always feel a reaction? Do people on the spectrum not always feel a reaction?

Not sure about NT teenagers or NT men, but I think it's common in Aspies to have trouble feeling emotions over certain things. I do actually feel emotions, even if I feel embarrassed to express them, I still feel it inside. But I am unusual for an Aspie.

I am the same way-if people get emotional around me I feel nothing and do not know what to do. Its a foreign concept it seems to me.

Yeah, I'm the same. I know what to do and as far as I know I can show the proper response but every time I do it leaves me exhausted after. Even if it's a brief conversation, being emotional really seems to take a lot out of me.

you don't have to feel the appropriate emotion to say the right thing. If somebody died, use the cops' formula, "I'm very sorry for your loss," If it's a pet, say, "Aw, that's rotten" or "I'm sorry", just to let them know that you care and sympathize.

Same here, I did a thread on it (clicky clicky) which sparked some interesting discussion.

I generally find it easy to fake emotions though; I have been doing it my whole life, after all.

I find it hard to feel anything about anybody else's relatives or pets dying because I didn't know them myself. I imagine that if my own friends or family died, it would be different. But then, my grandfather died a few months ago and I barely felt anything at all for him. I don't know what that says about me, perhaps except that maybe I just wasn't too close to him.

I feel this way all the time. I hardly feel anything for others. Only time I actually feel is if it's going to effect me. But I do remember when my grandfather died, I was in shock. I knew he was going to die but I wasn't expecting it to happen that soon. Everyone was shocked. But I did not feel sad about it. I still don't understand why others would cry over it, he was already gone when he was alive because of his Alzheimer's. When my mother in law passed out and ended up in the hospital, it didn't effect me so I didn't feel scared or stressed about it or sad. When my husband was upset about it, I couldn't feel it so I kept doing my normal thing.

I'm like this about every emotion. Anger is pretty obvious to me but I don't get angry unless someone's heavily in the wrong and my face is usually enough to get them to back off. People always ask me why I don't smile more or show more appreciation for things and it's sickening and tiring to me. I'm a generally happy person but all around emotionalism is something I'm disgusted by. I always show my respects but I don't really feel anything. I've forced myself a few times because I felt fake.

An example, I was trying to take care of my neighbors cat because they were letting her starve to death. The neighbor told me she had died and I was disappointed but not really upset. It felt strange and wrong to me not to feel anything but that's just how I am I guess. I did love the cat and I miss her, but the grief was extremely short for some reason. It could also be because I was criticized for acting like a girl as a child (funny as I am a girl). No crying, no wearing your heart on your sleeve, no overjoy. Nothing.

Alexthymia, difficulty in recognizing or interpreting ones own emotions, is common in AS.