Why don't I CARE about things!?

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Don't get me wrong, I am not an emotionless android (not that there is anything wrong with that). I have pretty intense emotions sometimes! But... often people will tell me something seriously horrible to them and I just shrug my mental shoulders, though I will react how I should react because I don't like hurting people. These are people that should matter to me, people I should consider close friends. It happens sometimes when it does not ultimately affect me. Because I want to be a compassionate and loving person, this greatly disturbs me.

There are a couple of people who I would feel genuine pain for 100% of the time, but I can count them on one hand with a couple of amputated fingers. With everyone else, it's odd - sometimes I can have a lot of empathy, but quite often I just don't give a damn, and seldom know precisely how to react when they tell me their marriage has disintegrated or that their biopsy reveals that they may die in six months.

If I can connect with a couple of people enough to feel their pain and empathize, why can't this happen for anyone else who I think I am close to?

This happens to me too. I think what's important is if you care for them and want to help them, not if you feel their pain.

Sometimes it's difficult to determine if I want to help because of something inside, or because of something that is expected of me as a person. And something else that boggles my mind is why compassion would come and go!?

It sounds to me like you do very much care.
I'm afraid for us aspies our emotions don't come to the front and get expressed.
For me sometimes it is years after an event until I know my real feelings about it.
All that matters is the desire to help empathy can come and go.

*SHRUGS*

I am still trying to figure a lot of things out, and this is just one of them. Bear with me. I do very much appreciate your replies.

For me, I think it's because I can't connect with other people, so I can't really feel for them.

Are there ever specific individuals that you can connect with?

Welcome to WP!

Tim

There have been people in my life that I cared about a great deal, but I don't think they felt about me the same way in return, so I don't think I connected with them at all. I've certainly never been close with anyone.

I know exactly what you are talking about. I have the same issue. It makes relating to others very difficult.

I wonder. NTs seem to have a "knee jerk" reaction to most things - empathy included. I sometimes wonder if their grasp of real "empathy" isn't far less than mine.

Because I "think" through to my empathy, at the end I maybe don't have a strong "feeling", because what I am being expected to empathise with is just not important. So what if a couple I know splits up. Where's the disaster?

Your biopsy/cancer example I will have to pass on, because it's a bit too close to my case, at the moment. I'll get there.

We feel different. (Grammatical ambiguity intended.)