Positive empathy and fearing gifts.

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People often talk about negative empathy, not being able to show you are sad if something bad happens to someone, so then other people think you don't care.
But what about more positive empathy?

When I was a kid during Christmas I always feared getting presents because I was afraid that I would not be able to show that I cared. People would often think that I did not like what they got me, or they would think that I don't care that they got me something.


Like all the other kids, they would open their present, and would be jumping up and down and would be very happy, me I would be excited and happy too on the inside, but on the outside I would just be standing their holding my gift.

I would think to my self, "muhuhhaha (evil scientist) I finally got it" and then quietly go to another room and play with / build / whatever with what I got.
But to other people looking at me, it looks like I might be thinking "eh this is dumb I can't believe I got this, stupid grandma doesn't know what I want"


I didn't fear the gifts them selves, I just feared not being able to show I like them around people . I am still that way, all though I am closer now to not actually wanting the gifts them selves directly because of the people.

Last edited by unreal3x on 13 Jan 2009, 2:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I still fear getting presents, to this day. I fear that I won't like the present and I won't be able to hide it enough, it'll show and it'll hurt the person's feelings. Even if I don't care for the person, I feel this.

Like you when you were a child, I don't like having to open gifts in front of people, especially the person who got it because no matter how much I may like it, I can't show it.... so the person doesn't know & it just makes me feel bad.

Tell me about it, I can love something and people ask are u sure u like, it,

it's awful when i'm asked "what would i like" as well, because if it's not the exact something i wanted, that can put me off,

and if i get something s**t, i really really can not hide it, even if i really try my best, it just doesnt work

Sometimes I do get stuff that I don't actually like, and its hard for the other person to know what you want especially if it involves what your are really into. Like if you are into computers, if they buy you a computer, chances are its not going to be anything in it that you wanted, but they think its good because they spent alot of money on it. Its like, I don't want surprises, I want exactly what I want.

Odd. My family don't flail their arms about or weep when something terrible happens. It just isn't our style.
We send cards like "with deepest sympathy" because we really do care deeply and really do feel pain when something bad happens to anyone close to us. We recognise that bad things happen and that's part of life, but we tend to withhold expressing our feelings openly and "move on". Dwelling on past pain that can't be rectified seems to do more harm than good for us: I've been advised against dwelling on intense painful things myself.

As for the gift receiving, I also feel embarrassed about receiving gifts for the reasons the other posters have stated.
I hate having to lie to people if I don't like it.
When I do like a gift, I do genuinely feel happy.
I always try to smile politely whatever happens, but I feel nervous, even in front of my family because it's a social event.
Sometimes my voice almost sounds robotic then manically excited, then back to robotic again. There's no nice socially at ease in between mode.

Receiving gifts is a social activity and I often "jump the gun" in opening my gift because it usually has shiny paper and is fascinating for me to look at. I often don't know when my turn is to open gifts and have to be explicitly told. My issue is that my focus is on the gift when it should really be on the people who were kind and generous enough to give it to me.

If it's some puzzle/gizmo thing, I make myself scarce for the rest of the day. I tinker about with my "new toy" for hours, which isn't really that unusual for me anyway.

Awesome post! I've always felt really guilty for not visibly communicating excitement or gratefulness properly. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one that goes through this. I usually dread my birthdays and Christmas because of that guilt but I've never connected the dots and come to the conclusion you made. Definitely going to share this with my family.

I always hate the presents I get which is why I tell people not to get me anything. When they get me something anyway, I don't disguise my disgust.

f*****g NTs with their "oh she's just SAYING she doesn't want anything!" No. I have aspergers. I say what I mean and mean what I say.

I don't get why people think presents are something you have to do. I've been telling people for like five years now not to get me anything, yet they still do, knowing they're not going to get anything in return and that I'm going to hate what they get me.

Wrong planet is great, when I first discovered it I found many posts from other people that already described what I was going through, I never thought that to be possible before or knew of so many people that go through the things I do that no one seems to understand.

I hate recieving presents too as I feel embaressed and can't express my emotions well so I seem ungrateful or sound sarcastic. So I have always kept my birthday a secret from people so they don't get me presents.

I don't show any outward emotion after receiving a gift, so I usually force a 'thankyou', 'wow', or 'awesome' out of me. When I was a kid I used to just open a present, put it to the side and then open another one. I had no emotion at all.