Do you feel that NTs actually inhibit your empathy issues?

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Albeit unwittingly / without them realizing it?
This is a paradox I've struggled with for some time now, whereby I was constantly told that I need to put myself in the other person's shoes, and see things (intuitively) from their perspective, but needless to say this was a very trying exercise for me not merely because of my inherent lack of social intuition & inclination towards using analytical reasoning for figuring out the "why" of situations (inefficient, by NT standards), BUT it was encumbered IMO by NTs always "othering" me or making me feel inferior. Not just overt bullying or harassment, but dismissive attitudes, ignoring or shunning, telling me useless cliches like it's all in my head or "mind over matter" which didn't do jack sh**.

I mean maybe it sounds like a classic chicken-and-egg argument, but how the heck are you expected to feel empathy towards someone who covertly refuses to show you the same???

Didn't Stephen Covey (the "7 Habits" guy) say, "seek first to understand, then to be understood?" - seems like the onus is unfairly placed on the "minority".

The psychologist Marshall Rosenberg (google him), the father of nonviolent communication, seems to be more understanding of this lack of empathy entrapment. He's even spoken and moderated Israeli-Palestinian conflict which is like the epitome of "othering" or believing the groupthink norm that those who are inherently inferior aren't deserving of the empathy of the "great umblemished majority". Then, of course, the ancestors of the Israelis were subject to this same lack of empathy bias in Nazi Germany. It seems like a recurring them, sadly enough.

The psychologist Robert Sapolsky, who recently authored "Behave" (read this please!!) also talks extensively about how we unconsciously or consciously "other" people and treat them as if they deserve no mercy or have no human rights that the majority take for granted.

So THIS is why it frustrated and saddened me, back in my school days, why others couldn't just "see through" this, and even my parents stuck to the line of telling me that I had to make greater effort to understand others feelings when I already was but just didn't get the help. Only manipulation to the point were I felt that others were collectively "crying wolf" and I ended up with a cynical, paranoid-like stance. Incredulously, when I told a couple of former girlfriends that "I wish that I could understand others better" they retorted with "sigh, you see Jayo, you make these things all about YOU" (duh!)

So that's the paradox, that NTs in my cases have inhibited their desire to imbue folks like me with greater intuitive empathy. It's like they had a more abrasive stance of "just be normal yesterday already!!"

Well, excuuuuse me, but when a typical young NT came up to me saying that he/she was betrayed by a friend, they only have 10 friends when others have 50, they can't "meet a normal guy who treats them right", cry me a frikkin' river! !! It's analogous to a well-off person complaining to a poor black dude on the bus about how they were passed up for a promotion/raise at their firm that they're already making great money at, and someone this fella is supposed to feel sorry for them. In the grand scheme of things, all human beings are self-centered and lacking empathy for others to varying degrees, but someone "other" folks like us get scapegoated for this.

I'm in my 40s now, so much wiser and have a family and great career and can completely pass for normal except for the radar of pathological personalities (like psychopaths and narcissists), so this is less a concern, but it still irks me that this is one apparent barrier that the human condition can't seem to overcome.

I do not blame others for my lack of any skills.

May as well blame others for not getting a date or for not having a job, regardless of whether or not you are attractive or employable.

This isn't about blaming others for lack of skills. It's about the psychological barriers against harmony between two superficially different groups.

I find if I don't do something that someone else would do, they'd criticise me for it. In fact I find this is human nature.

If I someone had anxiety of injections and made a bit of a fuss when a needle was going into them, another person with the same anxiety would empathised. But a person who isn't bothered by needles would most probably criticise, "don't be such a wimp, it's only an injection!" And will probably talk to others about how wimpy the person was, etc.

But I usually try to empathised with everybody's fears and anxieties even if I don't have a particular fear or anxiety myself. I don't like criticising.

Your subject line says otherwise...

There are NTs who lack empathy, yes. This seems ironic at first glance because autistic people are supposed to lack empathy.

Many times, the perceived “lack of empathy” is due to a disorder in conveying empathy. On the part of NTs and non-NTs.

The cause, though, could be different in autistic people. It could be a disorder in processing, immediately, the need for empathy—in “real time.”

^^ THIS. Yes, for NTs it's more about spontaneous emotional intelligence and being "attuned" to others seamlessly. Whereas, we have to give it a certain amount of conscious thought to get on the same wavelength, which might cause a bit of that "uncanny valley" reaction in others. Which is kind of a mixed message when we get told that "you're not making enough of an effort" to empathize with others.

We all feel we are the other, which is part of the problem. All these labels just divide people, unnecessarily. I'd also say you're giving NTs too much credit, describing their experience as THE experience. Isn't that what they do?

NTs are not necessarily better at empathy. They are made to perceive and communicate similarly, so it's easier for them to read each other. They can assume a certain level of similarity. When dealing with other autistic people, do you feel you have the same difficulty with empathy? Or is an autistic person easier for you to read if they're more similar to you?

I'd say most of us are pretty mediocre at empathy and compassion, otherwise we'd live in a very different world.

The nub of the issue you are raising is in your question "why is the onus on the minority to figure out the majority, and not the other way around".

The answer is... because we ARE the minority. Life is unfair, and that's the way it is. We autistics are the ones who have to kiss ass because the majority doesn't need accommodate us because they are the majority.

NTs don't even have enough autism awareness to know who we are, much less know anything about autism issues. But we have to school ourselves on their ways and thought processes in order for us to survive.