Feeling empathy for inanimate objects

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I'm not sure I do but I found these two tools cute yesterday which was a bit weird , they felt like a parent and child - I've probably said too much on this subject

I call every inanimate object "him", as if it's alive. I'll say "I have to wash him" (towel), "I can't find him" (book), "He's pink!" (a shirt), etc. For some reason nothing is ever called "her".

I even use my less-nice tea cups or other items on rotation, because I feel sorry for them being ignored.

Cute & funny! The Queen is relatable. Also, I do the "items on rotation" as well.


Why do we Aspies do these things?

I call cats "her" -- even if they are male cats. Because I like snuggling with cats and I don't want to snuggle with man. One of my ex-s kept correcting me when I would call her male cats "she", and I would say "no no, it is a she". I actually liked that little game since it drew attention to just how much I insist on calling cats a she.

As far as my toys, the ones that I had as a child used to be both genders -- depending on the toy. Like the lion toy was a "he" because in Russian the word lion is masculine. Similarly, I had a boy toy that was also a he since that was how he was made. And the girl toy was a she. And the dog toy was a she as well -- but that was because when I bought her she had a name tag "fuksa" which is a female name.

However, the objects that I feel bad about here and now are all she -- probably because the thoughts about them being poor and defenseless (which is what triggers my sympathy) aligns more with them being a she. The one exception to this was when I had a dream about a male toy dying.



I haven't thought of it this way. If anything, I remember thinking the opposite. Like I remember when I was little I had a bed sheet with flowers, and I was thinking that it would be really bad for those flowers to go into washing machine. And, similarly, now as an adult, there was a couple of sweaters that I felt were alive so I decided to never put them into washing machine either -- which meant I stopped using them. So I guess, along those lines of thinking, I "could have" been thinking that cups with flowers shouldn't be used since the hot water is bad for the flowers, but I never thought about the cups thing.

Why did you throw them away? Did your parents force you to or what happened?

why do NTs call so many boats "she" or hurricanes and such "she"?

I don't relate much to the rest of the thread, but this I have a deep-seated love for old objects, books in particular. But I also love cleaning up and restoring/repairing other stuff, mostly some mechanisms and furniture. I'm fascinated by the love and attention to detail that went into that kind of work and how you had one craftsman that would put together and understand the whole object and its function, not just a piece of it.

My wife (who's an archaeologist) took as a hobby restoring Victorian jewellery. Sometimes she spends months on very elaborate, punctilious pieces and she told me she enjoys a lot thinking about the person who created them and all of those to whom they brought joy - it's like a form of meditation for her

Oh. My. God. Does she work with mourning jewellery, made of hair? Isabella gulps and tries not to faint. I love it.

Yes, she has quite a few mourning pieces (sometimes works with textiles too so hair wasn't a completely different medium), but I think her favourite Victorian style is the Etruscan revival. And she actually manages to wear them with modern but classic outfits in a way that looks harmonious and non-jarring, which I find quite astonishing. You don't meet a lot of people who understand this kind of stuff, some ask if it's "steampunk"

I'm into archaeology----but I way back in my primary interests----to at least the Upper Paleolithic (Upper Pleistocene) LOL

I do enjoy reading ancient history, though----but as far as painstaking archaeology of those times are concerned, I don't have the detail-oriented personality to be able to do well in historical archaeology.

^
I'm pretty sure you would get along very well with my wife anyway, she's one of those people who have compassion and kindness as first reactions towards people - not unlike you

My dream job is to be a curator, especially of literary relics. (*melts with incessant sighs*)

There was a woman here, about 3-4 years ago, who was an archaeologist seeking stuff from the 18th century in Virginia. She also had a son on the Spectrum.

Feeling empathy for objects rules my life and I think I need therapy.

We have an old fan in our bedroom, and it can only sit at a certain angle because the bit where you can adjust it is broke. It looks a rather sorry sight, but it still does its job. My boyfriend says we should get a new fan, but I feel sorry for this fan if we got rid of it.

Things going into the garbage really upsets me, unless they're so broken and useless. I just think the objects have feelings.

I watch too many Toy Story movies.

i have a 1950 Fasco metal fan, it weighs a ton, but it still works and i still use it to blow over me when i sleep to ward off night sweats. i keep it oiled and functional. if i was middle-class, i'd still keep the fan and use it because it is a classic.

SECOND UPDATE: I was able to finish the second (and last) step: I flew to New Mexico yesterday night and took that duck with me.

Actually that step was a lot harder than I thought. Normally when I fly to New Mexico I go by myself to the airport, but this time my mom wanted to accompany me. Also, my mom wanted to put a certain T-shirt that she sewed the hole to into that little pocket I put the duck into -- so I told her no don't put it there or else I won't find it since I never use it -- and then she said "can I see if I put anything else there" and I said "no you haven't: I checked it, it was empty". Then she wanted to put it inside the main part of the bag but she started putting it at the place right below that pocket, so I took it out of her hand and put it elsewhere, so that she won't feel the duck by putting it there.

The other thing I had to do was that, before boarding the plane, I had to take that duck out of that bag into the backpack. You see, I was going to check that bag in, so if I were to keep that duck there, it would both freeze AND suffocate in the baggage when the plane would get in the air. At the same time, I couldn't have it in the backpack since my mom might want to have me go through it in order to make it less messy. In any case, the point is: I needed my mom to go away BEFORE I were to check in that bag so that I could take that duck from the bag into the backpack. And I did. Here is how. Me and my mom went on metro to the airport. So I told my mom that if she gets out of the metro to follow me into the airport and then takes the metro back then she would have to pay, twice, for making multiple stops. But if she doesn't get out of the metro and simply goes back then she would only pay for a single one-stop-trip and save a lot of money. It worked. So my mom didn't follow me into the airport and I was able to take the duck from that bag into the backpack.

The unfortunate part, however, is that there is another soap-keeping piece in the appartment: the monkey. They used the duck in the bathroom and the monkey in the kitchen. I had a perfect opportunity to take the monkey as well since the girl whom my mom was renting the room to decided to move out without notice the day before I left. Now, that mom, that girl and that boyfriend were in her room looking at some stuff they were thinking they could have taken or not, and I was in the kitchen at the time. Yes, that room and the kitchen were connected by the door, directly, and that door was open. But they weren't looking at the door they were looking at the wall. So during their 10 minute conversation I could have taken the monkey and hid it in my room (and hten they would assume they took it since they were in the middle of taking things into their car) and after that I would have taken monkey into the airport too. Unfortunately I couldn't get myself to do that monkey thing I kept thinking of doing it, but kept not having the courage to. So I only saved the duck but NOT the monkey which is very hard to forgive myself to, it was such a perfect opportunity. But at least I saved the duck!! !

In general, from the outset, I felt more sympathy for the duck than I did for the monkey -- that was because the monkey had that big smile on her face, so I just told myself "well since she is smiling, it can't be hurting too much". Thats what I told myself a year ago, which is when my mom got both (I actually don't know whether it was my mom that got them or that girl -- my mom never had them until she started renting it to that girl, but then again that girl didn't take it with her when she moved out so who knows) But more recently I noticed that one of its eyes isn't totally black but a bit grayish so I was like "wow, she has a cataract, probably its from that soap", so that was when I started feeling more sorry for it. The duck didn't have the "cataract" only the monkey did -- so I told myself "well thats because I was washing the soap off of ducks eyes but not the monkeys eyes" -- although it might not matter that much since most of the year I wasn't there and that was when neither duck nor monkey got its eyes washed. I did wash out the monkey after I saw its cataract. So I wanted to take the monkey too but as I said I didn't -- which is very unfortunate since I had such a perfect opportunity to do it. But oh well, at least I took the duck.