Emotional Apathy?

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Hey everyone!

Is anyone else here "emotionally apathetic"? There probably is a proper term for this, but I am not familiar with it.

One thing that I have noticed is that "normal" people are a lot more emotional than I am. They get upset so easily (from my perspective). They find the most mundane things exciting. I am generally happy with my life. I am not depressed or anything. I am just really flexible. If someone were to drop me in a remote village tomorrow, it would not bother me. I would forget my old life and get going on my new one. I would miss individual people from my old life, but my focus would be on succeeding in my new life.

I also don't get why "normal" people can't do things by themselves. They can't go to movies alone. They can't go on vacation alone. ect.

I have come to realize that a lot of my social anxiety comes from this. I find other people's emotions overwhelming and they take forever to do the most basic things. I will GLADLY support anyone if they are actually in trouble i.e. death of a parent/spouse, eviction, bankruptcy. However, I don't care if Bill talked to Suzy or Hannah and Jane got in a fight. I find romance gossip extremely dull and I don't get what all of the fuss is about.

I care about people, but I find that spending a lot of time around normal people gives me a headache because they are such emotional roller coasters.

Is anyone else like this?

I'm similar, but i am super emotional or express many different thoughts, ideas, etc..

but when there is a lot of stress or trauma around me, i just shut it out. i don't attach to what the people around me are feeling. i'll be supportive the best i can, but i am just like... don't feel it right now. can't feel it right now.

so i'm a little different? but i get what you're saying. for me i get apathy when there is just too much to take in.

I cant remember who I heard talking about this but they were talking about apathy and made a really good point, that apathy is almost like a default setting for most people. It would almost be impossible to walk down the street and feel empathy towards everyone you meet, for self preservation you have to detach yourself from most people and not worry about everyone's feeling and what is going on in their lives. I know that is a bit of a generalisation and maybe doesn't apply strictly to what you are saying, but I think a lot of people feel that any level of apathy makes them a bad person. As a result there is a sickening level of fake empathy on display, especially in social media and the like. Most people don't really care about the trivial occurrences in other people's lives, but it is a social nicety to pretend, even if only to mean that when you are complaining you can expect the same courtesy back.

It is probably detamental to you to think that you are any more apathetic or care any less than anyone else. No one really cares about anyone, we are all designed to be selfish, just maybe others are better at hiding it than you.

I am a little like this, but less so when I was depressed. At the height of my depression I could be cruel towards people deliberately due to the sheer weight of my emptiness. Sounds corny in words, but there are no words for depression, really. Others seemed very emotional compared to me and still do, now.
This christmas my older sister confided in me she has suspected borderline personality disorder, which is interesting. Ironically I made a slight enemy out of a girl with the same condition in a therapy group I stormed out of; her frequent outbursts of anger and crying spells left me feeling very awkward indeed, with no idea how to help and a sneaking suspicion that saying literally anything could make her feel worse.
Now my sister is putting herself in the BPD category I've been wondering about a few things - when staying with me and our folks she always agonises about whether her boyfriend misses her when away, even for a single day, and she'll take on a haunted look at all attempts at consolation. I wish I could comfort people I care about better, but the emotional lack-of inhibits things. I think in general the more emotion one has, the more hidden depth there must be to every word and deed and so the more pit-falls.

I am not an emotional person. I can do angry and amused, but beyond that... nah. I have no idea how and why it is that people get so worked up over what seems to me to be nothing at all. It takes a lot to get me worked up and I forget others are not like me. In general I find people to be not only overwhelming and exhausting, but generally confusing as well.