Seriously Folks, lacking Empathy ?

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Doesn't contradict my point.

And bullies DO care. They care because they want you to feel bad. And intimidated.

To sociopath you are just a piece of furniture to be used and exploited.

So being abused emotionally and/or physically mean they care about you? Or even being socially rejected, excluded, took advantage of and humiliated by my classmates at school just for being me meant these girls cared about me? They would say something nasty to me then go about their daily lives with each other, not even caring how upset and excluded I felt. They didn't even try to understand me, while I spent my whole school life trying to understand them and I was always nice to them. And if I did retaliate by telling them how they were making me feel, it just made them worse. So all they wanted was to see me alone and suffer in silence. I don't find that very caring to me.
In fact so many Aspies here have been treated worse than that by people, and to say these bullies do care about you will probably offend many of our members who have been through hell and back with bullies. Some of us have even had it happen in adulthood.
The bullies obviously care about themselves and what they are doing, but they do not care about your feelings. Some bullies think bullying is a game and they laugh their heads off while the poor victim is suffering and could even be traumatized while the bullies go on wrapped up in their own lives. Thankfully not all NTs are like that, but they do exist, especially in the lives of us. It's hard to see how a bully thinks and feels when you are a victim. You just see them as these heartless individuals that have nothing better to do than to bully others who don't reach their pathetic standards, instead of trying to understand.

But if an Aspie decided to make an individual feel bad and intimidated for the sake of social status, that Aspie would be "uncaring" and "lacking empathy". Why do NTs always get an explanation for everything they do, even if it's making another person's life a misery?

The opposite of "caring" is "indifference". Neutral. No emotion. The opposite of caring is not malice.

To "care" means to move away from indifference in EITHER direction.

If I am angry at you then I feel emotion. And am not indifferent. And might then seek to do harm to you and to kick your butt. Be motivated out of malice.

Or might do the opposite and wanna be kind to you out of concern. Either way I would "care". Care that you felt good if I were motivated out of concern, or care that you felt bad if I were motivated out of malice.

If it were on a number line indifference would be zero, malice would be in the negative integers, and concern would be in the positive numbers.

A school bully would be motivated out of malice, and not necessarily out if indifference. Not the same things.

I admit it came out of my pen kinda confusing. But to me if you're emotionally invested in an outcome then that is "caring" about something. The outcome can be either direction, negative or positive. To care that it IS a bad outcome means to "care". If you don't care how it comes out then....you don't care.

Well what you described is cognitive empathy.

Well...forget bullies.

What I am saying is that if you go by the text book description of autistic and that of sociopath you get opposite things.
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But having said that, I do kinda agree that in the real world it does seem like the description of autistics doesn't always work as a way to distinguish ASD folks from NTs.

Ironically I kinda agree with you that this lack of empathy thing doesn't seem to apply. There are times when NTs can be amazingly lacking in empathy for third parties that I do have empathy for.

And the main reason I say this is because of a certain running issue I had with a lady supervisor I work with. She would spout things out of her mouth that struck me as idiotic, and yet some of her little crew of subordinates thought she was cool. Stupidity is cool apparently. But here is the thing. The WAY this NT lady is an idiot is in precisely the realm in which NTs are supposed to be smarter than an aspie like me...in the realm of theory of mind and empathy.

The reason for that seems to be that NTs can quite readily abandon their prodigious talents for theory of mind for the sake of group think. And working with this particular lady illustrates that.

Its getting late. I finish this story later.

Am watching this thread.... being turned into something not intended ..by a very select few .
Have observed and speculated bymyself thus far . As to the idea / intent / concept .
Behind these digressions .. Have fear persons using this forum as a excuse for bad behaviour .
{Devising , their own appearances of aspies .} That seem to be geared towards effects of possible gaslighting of
People using this thread in the spirit it was meant in . Aspies in general are easy to victimize .
And for whatever reason these people get their kicks . Please beware . To read . Parts of this thread Now. With possibility of this going on . As originator of this topic .am sorry to see the fate of this
Thread. ......... ..>>>>>>>>>

You should report this to the mods then.

It seems like NTs get an explanation or an excuse for everything they do, which then makes it sound so acceptable.

Aspie: My friends don't seem to want to sit with me in class today, they keep moving away and giving me funny looks. It's upsetting me
Answer on WP: They're probably just non-verbally asking you to give them space

Aspie: My friends won't give me space and I've tried moving away from them in class but they are now getting upset
Answer on WP: If you want them to give you space then you need to tell them, because moving away from them will make them think that you don't like them any more. They can't read your mind and you need to think about their feelings


Aspie: At work in the office I was using a book to help me with a complicated task I had to do on the computer, and my colleague snatched it out of my hands and said I was using it for too long. I was so annoyed because they could have asked me first but didn't
Answer on WP: Maybe you were hogging the book and was unaware that others needed to use the book. I can understand how annoying that is for them. You should have asked if they wanted to use it because it's not up to them to ask you if you're taking too long with it

Aspie: At work in the office my colleague was using the only book to help her complete a complicated task she had to do on the computer, but I needed to use it too. After waiting long enough for her to quit hogging, I snatched it out of her hands and she got all bitchy with me
Answer on WP: She needed the book to do her work with and was most likely engrossed in the task that she didn't notice you needed to use it. The polite thing to do was to ask her when she's done using the book so that you can borrow it, rather than assuming that she knew you needed to use it and just snatching it away from her like that


Aspie: My girlfriend phoned and said she will get a takeout on her way home from work and said that I don't need to cook tonight. But when she came home she had no takeout and started yelling at me that I haven't cooked anything, and when I told her that I thought she was getting a takeout she said that it was just a suggestion and that I should have took a hint
Answer on WP: Typically NTs only communicate half-assed and expect you to listen to all the hints and take a good guess. Your girlfriend probably didn't want a takeout and was hinting that you cook the dinner being so you were at home and she wasn't, and she didn't like to tell you bluntly to cook the dinner

Aspie: I didn't want to bluntly tell my girlfriend to cook the dinner as it might look like I was expecting too much, so while I was at work I phoned her and said that I could get a takeout so she needn't cook tonight, and gave obvious hints that it's more of a suggestion than a plan. But when I got in I found she didn't take my hints and she cooked no dinner. I yelled at her and she said that she thought I was getting a takeout, and I told her that it was a suggestion and that she needs to learn to take hints
Answer on WP: When on the phone to someone you need to be more clear on things, as the person on the other end may not be reading your mind and if you suggested you'll bring back a takeout then your girlfriend agreed to it, maybe she doesn't like cooking and thought you were bringing back a treat for tonight. You can't expect her to start guessing the opposite of what you're saying. You need to be more blunt otherwise people won't understand


I love writing these - can we have a separate thread just for these little summaries?

Oh...I'm sorry I derailed your thread. I didn't derail it completely, I was just trying to explain my views on empathy and was agreeing with you.