15 Dec 2025, 11:45 am
15 Dec 2025, 2:04 pm
15 Dec 2025, 6:05 pm
15 Dec 2025, 7:05 pm
I bet.
I know I have that sort of empathy where you can recognise somebody's emotional state via body language, being affected by it, and even working out what could be causing them to be behaving that way.
For example, at work a woman has been giving me the silent treatment. Quite subtle but I still picked up on it very quickly because of her body language and I could feel the mood. Then it didn't take me long to figure out that she was feeling pissed off because she had been given the most tasks to do, that were written on a list, and she felt I should have been given some of those tasks. So, although I'm not the supervisor and I don't make the rules, she's giving me the silent treatment but nobody else. Nobody hinted to me that this was the reason she wasn't speaking to me (nobody hinted to me about her body language either, I just picked up on it instinctively), but I just figured out why she was feeling this way by using my imagination a bit. And it turns out my assumptions were right, because I overheard her talking to somebody today at work about how unhappy she felt that she had more tasks to do than me. So I was right all along.
Not boasting or anything, I'm just sharing an example that proves I don't seem to struggle socially in this way, and this isn't an isolated incident. I'm pretty quick at working out other people's feelings and intentions and why.
I get how she feels, but I don't feel it's fair to blame me when I'm not the one who gave her the list. The supervisor explicitly told me not to do her tasks - even though at first I did ask the supervisor if I could help her out, as even I felt it unfair for her to be given so many more tasks to do than the rest of us.
But I should be used to things happening at work through no fault of my own yet bearing the brunt of it because somehow I'm to blame.
Happened often to my mother too. She'd be getting on with her own life, minding her own business, not getting involved in any dramas, yet people would get themselves into dramas and blame my mother, just out of the blue. No wonder my mother became distrustful of people.
16 Dec 2025, 8:38 am
16 Dec 2025, 8:47 am
16 Dec 2025, 11:02 am
17 Dec 2025, 1:21 pm
17 Dec 2025, 2:45 pm
The real lie is defining empathy as something "moral" or "good" or that it means "to care" or even "a prerequisite to one's humanity". BS.
The reality is that empathy is more like literacy -- and everything else is toss up to the person's character.
It is akin to, well, the mistake (or outright lie) of saying the ability to be really good at languages, to read, write, speak well is a sign of intellect and cognitive capacity. 
And those who couldn't are all dumb and deficient.
Therefore, the same vein as to the (outright) lie that "lacking empathy" meant "uncaring", "narcissistic", "evil" and "morally deficient".
I think the world is beginning to realise this now. Maybe some of us show empathy in different ways but inwardly I think a lot of us typically feel for others a lot.
Definition check required: low empathy is a characteristic of being autistic alexithymia, which happened to be common with autism.
There. Fixed it for you.
Until then, I definitely don't think that alexithymia is a diagnostic criteria for autism.
Simple. You don't have alexithymia.
And not all autistics have alexithymia and struggle in matters around emotionality, in the same vein that not all autistics have dyssemia and struggle with body language.
That is to say, an alexithymic can be empathic; in a sense a colorblind person can be a really good with using colors.
Last edited by Edna3362 on 17 Dec 2025, 3:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
17 Dec 2025, 3:04 pm
17 Dec 2025, 3:07 pm
I never had, either.
I wish I *did* instead. I wish I have. I wish I'm alexithymic.
I hate empathy.
Really. In more ways than one.
Having and understanding feelings do not make me a 'better person'.
Nor ever caring about anyone or anything.
Just more crap to regulate and take account.
More noise. Unwanted noise that do not help me navigate the world better, let alone turn me into a better person.
17 Dec 2025, 3:15 pm
17 Dec 2025, 5:25 pm
17 Dec 2025, 6:07 pm
Oh man this knocked something into place for me
I think it has to be true. A glimpse of another person as they actually are. An instance of actual connection.
I think if the other person would not recognise themselves in the glimpse that is caught, it is something else.
If it is projection it is ego. If it is wrong it is ego. No judgement intended (glass houses)
You see someone as they are or you see some version of yourself. Empathy exists; the illusion of empathy is pervasive. The difference is real but unverifiable and in many cases, especially in modern society, possibly not all that relevant. Responses that are not empathy can be just as meaningful and transformative for the person who experiences them... possibly also for the recipient. But actually seeing another human being for a brief moment in time and space is magic.
(This is not at all a theoretical view. It is just what makes sense to me personally. I am using language very loosely.)
17 Dec 2025, 6:26 pm
17 Dec 2025, 6:38 pm
I believe that is normal. When one is unhappy and/or in certain environments. I've been in offices where it's hung like a miasma in the air.
Also I think that many people really are quite unhappy.
It is a weird thing maybe because we are social animals. I don't think we've necessarily evolved to keep the line between self and other clear and inviolable. I'm not sure we're always supposed to know in the moment what's what - that doesn't seem entirely realistic to me.
I am glad there are people like Tamaya and Edna3362. I think what they describe is very good for the sanity of society but probably a heavy burden.
And I am confused again 
one word, many concepts.
