I don't react well to other people expressing their emotions

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I rememeber a traumatic thing happened in my family and my sister was crying and everyone was shaken, I felt like everyone was staring daggers at me because i was sitting aloof enjoying a nice cavendish blend in my pipe.I rememebr the same thing happened when my dad died, I grabbed a guitar and just started fooling around......and I guess I appeared callous, but it was far from the case, I was merely ruminating...I feel for them.... I think I come off as cold and uncaring when people are really torn up and sobbing and what have you ....especially with my own family, beacuse i feel comfortable around them I feel no need to have to laboriously act, and make myself extremely agitated and uncomfortable........I worry about when people die in my family having to go to a funeral and be around crying people....it just makes me want to run away.....its so damn intense, it makes me excited as hell and I almost need to jump. I dont think Im a bastard, becuase I know I love my family and friends.....but I just dont deal well with other peoples outbursts...most of time.........I worry about being a narccisist sometimes.......but one of the big things in that is manipulating people, and I feel pretty incapable of doing that, although, im sometimes offended by little slights, I hope Im not a narccisist. On the other hand if I were a Narcissist would I sit around worrying about if I was one?...........I kind of trailed off there at the end, um anyways anybody else not deal well with other people sobbing ?

I never know how to react that things like that really. I usually try and avoid being around people when they're crying or something. It feels awkward though because I don't know what to do or say.

I cry in when I'm watching movies all the time, especially when the charactors cry...but for some reason in the real world, I never know what to do with a real crying person...I try to make them feel better, but I never know how, so I usually end up giving them a chocolate bar. After all, chocolate OUGHT to make everything better, always.

Maybe I'd do better if the real world came with a movie soundtrack, with all of the emotional music and whatnot.

I remember when my dog died.... she was a sweet lil pekingese. I still miss her, even now. Most deaths do not affect me, but this one did profoundly.

I remember... my father was the one who dug the hole. With characteristic Teutonic thoroughness, he'd dug it damned near deep enough to bury a person. lol.

My brother and I refilled the grave with dirt, after the coffin (yes, my father made one for her) was lowered to the bottom. My mother and father had gone, and here we were, refilling. He was bouncing around like he had a transformer shot up his ass. I was in absolutely no mood to deal with this (I was 20 at the time, grieving, and come home that evening from college to help bury the dog).

What pisses me off is this... I wasn't keening like an Irish housewife at a wake, although that is how I felt. Why? Because it would have been inconsiderate. And yet, here is my brother, carrying on like that... grr...

At one point, I finally said to him that if he didn't stop, I was going to hit him over the head with my shovel, tumble him into the hole, and just keep filling.

One look at me revealed I was in dead earnest.

He calmed down appreciably after that.

Now... why? Why in the hell should one have to be so ... so barbaric... to compel consideration from people? Ye gods.

yeah, it's the Hallmark commercials that touch me, it has to be really sappy and melodramatic for me to pick up on other's emotions, and of course, I reject it all as 'glurge'. I was recently at a funeral of an old and dear friend and you know, I really don't believe in death. I mean, the body dies, but the spirit goes on, right? So everyone is just moaning over not being able to be around him anymore, right? So, lets sing and be happy cause we are all going to meet again in heaven and that is a GOOD thing, right?
evidently, they talk a good game, but that is not what they really think.

Merle

I never know what to do, I offer pratical things, like a cup of tea. I never know if people want a hug or not, when its appropriate. I rarely offer any help at all really, but I care very much about people. I do not cry at funerals either, but I cry if one of my pets dies. I am a rubbish human.

We had a vigil for the students killed at Virginia Tech here at my school, and my school is so far away from Virginia that there were only 3 of us (out of 60,000 students) that had friends that were killed. I'd been crying in my room for the past few days, and by the time the vigil came around I was done with that. I'd been online and watching TV and reading and whatever else because I was so tired of thinking about it, and when it was time to go to the vigil people I barely knew/never met were knocking on my door and calling me to see if I was going/ask why I hadn't been there. The thought of being around 500 students being emotional for no discernable reason (they would have had to intentionally work themselves up because even for things like the genocide in Darfur and some kid you don't know at school dying of cancer, it's hard to cry unless you knew them), and the thought of being around all that "emotion" and being expected to cry as well was more than I could handle. I know people thought I was being a dick because when they came to ask why I wasn't there I'd be watching TV and laughing or playing online games or whatever but honestly for me emotions like grief and sadness and other "weak" things are VERY private and I don't like when other people share them and I hate myself a little bit more when I express them in front of other people. I wouldn't have had the first idea of how to behave at the vigil and it would have been miserable. Besides, I think it's a little inappropriate to go express my private grief over the death of my friend by crying along with 500 people who don't even know someone who's BEEN to Virginia. So basically because my solution has been to just stop thinking about it/pretend it never happened as a way of coping, everyone now thinks I'm a callous as*hole.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Every funeral I've ever been to, I had to fake a somber expression/demeanor. The hardest part was restraining joyful outbursts when I would see a person that I hadn't seen in a very long time. Or, when my family would be stressing because my grandpa was circling the drain or something... I'd have to make myself scarce so as to keep my dad from flying off the handle at my apparent lack of empathy. It was more like being too confused about it all.

And goodness knows I squirm with discomfort whenever someone bursts into tears or something.

I guess I become a bit wary of people who cry at anything.
I guess I don't show that much emotion, I guess the most obvious would be crying - I just don't see the point in it - it does nothing for you and wastes energy, and most likley salt from your body too.
A slightly wierd analagy would maybe be that I tend not to shiver when I'm cold, I control it since I know that shivering actually does very little for you and is an inefficient way of heating. I feel the same way about physical signs of emotion, other than broadcast how you are feeling to the world they do nothing. Why everyone else needs to know how you are feeling I don't know...

I can get emotional - I remember I sobbed at my maternal grandfather's funeral, and when we buried the ashes of my dogs and had to bury my cat.

Those things I have no problem with - it's when people are getting excited over something I find deeply trivial (like a game of football) that I have trouble connecting. And even when I do get involved, I don't truly get involved - I just sort of pantomime what I think I should do.

I know the pantomine feeling - a couple of summers ago I was service crew at a Scout Jamboree; after 2 weeks were up and people were getting on coaches to get home, there were all of these people crying about having to leave each other - they had only known each other for 14 days at most, it was rather wierd and I felt they were totally over reacting.
Was I wrong? was tha behaviour normal???

I believe it is fairly normal behaviour, yes. I think NTs are far more able to connect with people they haven't met before than we are, and to do so far more quickly, too.

yeah, NTs can bond over finding out they know someone in the same city, and they don't even have to know the SAME person in that city. Its absurd to me, but they bond so fast and for such strange reasons! unless there is like some sort of smell they both have that bonds them and they just use the words as like a cover or reason of why they bond. Maybe the reason why they bond doesn't need the words. It's all very confusing, but I have seen it happen all my life.

shakes head with total incomprehension,

Merle

Somehow I doubt there have a 'bonding fragrance' but I guess pheremones are some of the most potent things on the planet.

Could it just be, as generally rational thinkers - we see futility in lots of excessive emotion and so don't waster our time with lots of it. I'll feel sad when a family member dies, but since that is obviously what would happen I don't need to broadcast it to all around.

Music can rouse intense emotion in me, as can specific scenes in movies, and maybe even, sometimes, large scale things like the holocaust, but put a weeping person in front of me and I get intensely uncomfortable. I remember when my mother used to cry, I would have to leave and go to my room and play music to avoid it. Sometimes, I feel...but most times, I feel nothing when I should be feeling something. I think it takes time to register things for me too... I mean, basically, I have to see imagery for things to register. It is no good telling me such and such a number of people died in such and such a disaster. It isn't real to me until I see pictures, and even then there is no guarantee I will feel anything...and sickeningly, I sometimes get excitement from such things... not sure why. It isn't because I think it is cool people have died or suffered...I think it is like a mixed signal or something.