My empathy is reserved for...

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People who are like me. People who have no friends, who are the odd one's out, and who others take advantage of. To those people who seem to be having it tough, or are struggling to cope. I can feel their hardship, and pain...

However for others, who are experiencing hardships in ways I haven't felt, I feel almost nothing. The only thing I feel is knowing that I should be sympathetic. Examples of this would be at a funeral, when people lose those very close to them. I have lost all but one grandparent, but I never cried, or felt a thing. I was never really close to any of them. I was always distant and isolated unlike most of the other grandkids.

Another example, my next door neighbour was seroiusly injured in an attempted robbery. Again I felt nothing, although everyone around me spoke of how horrific it was. When I watch the news and hear about killings by murder or war (some may say they are the same thing), I feel depressed because I know that it is wrong to live in a world of chaos, but when I see others cry at the plight of others, and not a single reaction comes out of me, I feel sad because I feel that it is what is expected (or what is deemed appropriate).

can anyone relate????

I'm the same way. I have more empathy and sympathy for people who get no empathy from society as a whole. I don't automatically see someone's death as sad. If I think the person was a jerk I'm not going to feel bad about their death.

Ye i did some things which ohters would be proud off got a article in a newspaper got good feedback and everything but i didnt feel proud nothing at all then there was this meeting for people like me the vistor showed us pictures of things and asked us how we felt but i couldnt answer it i felt nothing i see things on news and such like death and such i just couldnt feel anything
i get called emotionless b****** but i dont get angry or anything just nothing even when my grandad died i felt nothing

This could be what is meant by 'lacking a social imagination'; because we haven't been through an experience, we can't relate to it.

To be honest, I'm sure it's more common than you think- I don't think many people who haven't experienced something similar would 'feel' their pain either; many are just acting.

I don't think people with AS lack empathy, just maybe it doesn't come as fluently; we have to physically think back to previous experience. For example, in order to know how my friend feels when she loses something valuable, I have to think back to how I felt when I lost something that I liked too. I then think how other people reacted in that situation when I was in her shoes and try to emulate it (if it made me feel better).

If something bad happens to someone I don't know but within somewhat close proximity to where I live or knows other people I know, I doesn't seem to effect me like it would anyone else. If something happens to someone closer to me, I will feel something, but not outwardly or externally so people would think that I don't care about them but that is not true.

I seem to get more sad over the fact that I have problems getting sad then the actual sadness its self.

Its like, why can't I get sad like everyone else around me? awe that makes me a little sad. hmm. indirect sadness? or substituting one sadness for another?

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Yes, that's an excellent point. I don't see myself as heartless because I know I am not. I suppose if a funeral happened everyday after a while I would understand exactly how to respond as everyone else. Most instances of outward negative emotion by others seem foreign to me and over the top, because I keep my emotions in. I guess if I also expressed my emotions the same way, I would see others response as natural.