A closer look at empathy

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I think I can tell up to a point how another person is feeling, but I can't "use" it while talking to them because the extra work
of that takes all my attention. If I sat next to them, or looked at them, or remembered them after the event, I could tell a lot more than
when I am in the middle of trying to talk to them.

Does this mean something to anyone? Perhaps its a bit like saying, yes I can steer a car, but not at 200 kph.

Yes. I can figure out emotions from pictures, but I can't do it in a conversation, unless it is really obvious. There are just too many things to keep track of during a conversation.

Still, I think that empathy is a bit different from being able to discern emotions. Somehow, it seems to be the ability to feel emotions. It seems completely foreign to me.

Yes, it's definitely about "feeling"--not just emotions, but entire brain-states, physicality, etc. It's about running complete "simulations" in which you "feel" all aspects of another being.

Going back to the Obama example I gave in the original post--the thing that really got my attention was that my S.O. reported how much larger and heavier Obama's hands are, and how she could feel the difference dramatically when he gesticulated. Now, if you asked me to imagine being Barack Obama giving the state of the union address, I could intellectualize all day long and come up with little more than vague guesses as to very general feelings--like "nervous" or "confident" or "energized". But the weight of his hands would never occur to me.

Keep in mind that it took my S.O. all of a second or two to run this "simulation". I said, "Imagine being Barack Obama giving the state of the union." She got a thoughtful look on her face, and almost immediately said, "Got it." Then I asked, "What did it feel like?" She proceeded to give me an extraordinarily detailed description, the sheer volume and diversity of which seemed utterly impossible to generate as quickly as she did. But the hands were the clincher for me--how was this one-second "simulation" so utterly comprehensive that it included observations regarding how much heavier his hands are (than my S.O.'s, who has small hands)? Part of the reason seems to be that it's not a linear, "intellectual" function--it's feeling/gestalt/etc.