Is it normal to feel completely indifferent to strangers' lives?

[AmusedTaupePlayer]

Hi all,
Bit of an odd one, but I’ve been thinking about this lately and wondering if anyone else relates.
I’ve noticed that unless someone is part of my life — family, close friends, maybe a few colleagues — I just don’t feel anything about what happens to them. Whether it’s good or bad. Someone winning the lottery, getting cancer, becoming homeless, whatever — I can understand it matters, but on a personal level, I feel nothing. Take homelessness — I get that it’s awful and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but emotionally, I don’t care. It doesn’t affect me. I don’t feel moved by it.
It’s not that I’m unkind or malicious. I just feel emotionally neutral about people I don’t know.
I suspect more people feel like this than let on, but whenever I’ve hinted at it, people react like I’m some sort of sociopath. So if it’s that common, why is it such a taboo to say out loud?
Is this just how emotional bandwidth works? Or is something off?
Genuinely curious — would love to know if others feel the same but just don’t talk about it.

Yep. Don't really care about people I don't know and like. I don't take the weight of the world on my shoulders.

Callous perhaps BUT it meant I was able to function very well on the frontline in homeless hostel night shifts for 11 years through some deeply traumatic shit without wavering and was thus able to cope very professionally with everything that occurred. No idea how many lives I've saved 'just doing my job' - a lot though - but I really couldn't if I'd been emotional about any of it. Burnout rates were huge, I don't think anyone else lasted five years in my role. I didn't truly care about any of the thousands of people I had responsibility for but I helped them totally and did my utmost to protect and assist them while on shift. I did a very good job and am untroubled now by it all.

Only reason I'm no longer there was I took the redundancy option.

I'll be brutally honest, I think it's unusual to feel this way to such an extreme and I'd consider distancing myself from someone who was open with me about it too.

Why should you care about others? Well you don't have to, on an individual level it isn't a problem. But if everyone felt like you then society would be a pretty bleak place. No health service because you don't care about the health of those you don't know. No child protection if you don't care for the welfare of strangers' children.

No one needs to sob and wring hands over the misfortunes of others but basically all the services the state provides exists because many people do care about strangers.

y is this a dislikable trait

We are a social species. Most people care because that’s what being a social species involves. It’s normal to be feeling connections, acting altruistically, participating in a wider society.

Some people only connect to a very tight circle, some people connect to everyone. I am grateful to the latter as they are the ones likely to try change society for the better.

I don't think it necessarily is but your friends obviously do. It depends on how much you want to keep these people as friends.

I think we are bombarded with suffering. I know Ive had to harden my heart just to cope with day to day life.

Thinking about just yesterday,
-I saw a poster wanting money for abused bears,
-then there was a tv advert about aid agencies in Syria,

• then lots of Facebook stuff on Trump's detention centres

-which then linked to the Holocaust and people still living with that,
-then the news which is always awful,
-then there are always beggers outside my local shop,
-then at work we had a talk from a mental health charity and the experiences of the people they sipport

• that was followed by a fundraising event for a food bank

-then my daughter wanted to buy some food to donate to a cat centre
-and Ive managed to get myself on charity mailing lists so most weeks I get at least one letter trying to guilt trip me. Yesterday was about cleft lips.

• I had to sign a letter to let my son go to a talk by an ex criminal at school.
• - and there is a campaign asking for unwanted uniform to pass onto asylum seekers.

I just cant process that every day. I wouldnt function if I had to have empathy for each of those causes. It doesnt reflect on them or me.

ETA - sorry -not sure what has gone on with the editing.

I’m exactly the same @AmusedTaupePlayer and over the years it’s come up in passing or I’ve made comments which have been frowned upon so now I just don’t say anything about it or just nod and smile.

I've tried to limit myself over how much news I'll consume because my logic is that I have no influence on international politics whatsoever but I might be able to help a friend going through a rough time. I will have much for capacity to help that friend if my mental health isn't taking a dive from obsessing over upsetting news stories.

I agree, as a species we aren't evolved to cope with the whole worlds sad news.

I think your response is not necessarily sociopathic but it is fairly abnormal. As a species we are wired to ‘care’ - and yes, to care for people we don’t know. It’s an evolutionary and social psychological mechanism that is hardwired on a neurological level, as well as reinforced culturally: every religion has it’s Good Samaritan story, doesn’t it, that illustrates that selfishness doesn’t serve ‘man’?

As a species our survival depends upon working together as a tribe/community to protect the vulnerable and weak. It’s not altruism because we all benefit vicariously: a society that protects and safeguards is one which is safer for us to live in as individuals, it’s one that is safer for our children and those people you also care about. It’s why we protect the elderly and children - children because they are the continuation of our tribe, the elderly because they usually carry wisdom and in most cultures offer support with the caring of women and children, which in turn ensure the continuation of the tribe/family line.

For most people it is enough that the recipients of a charity are human like us to establish a connection, we don’t need to be biologically connected (although given most of us share at least some of the same DNA, we are nonetheless biologically connected). We respond to animal charities for similar reasons - we are wired to see helpless, small, vulnerable living creatures [babies] as needing our care and the neuropsychological processes often don’t distinguish between vulnerable humans and vulnerable animals. ‘Caring’ is what essentially makes us human.

This is why the arts - paintings, novels, music etc are so important. They open us up to other people's experience and broaden both our knowledge and our empathy - leading to our preparedness to do something about eg poverty, injustice, illness etc etc.

All big political changes have come about because more, or even most people have FELT that there is a gross injustice. Knowing that there is a problem is one thing, feeling it means that you can no longer tolerate it and you have to do something to alleviate your own unease and upset.

I personally don't feel like this, I do feel things when they happen to others even if I see someone get hurt I feel pain inside myself as well. I just saw that a footballer has died in a crash and I didn't know him but the article mentioned his partner who he had just married but they had been together since they were teenagers and had three children, that made me very sad for her. I also feel sad and angry when I see the victims of the current wars.

I guess everyone is different but I think most people do feel something when they see others suffer.

I don’t understand why you’d tell people that you were indifferent to strangers news. Even if your lack of interest is because of ND, you must theoretically know that someone living in Gaza must be living a horrific experience.

If you truly didn’t care then you wouldn’t care what other people thought about your feelings. You’d shrug it off and think “Whatever”

I think that most men people aren’t thinking about others very much eg the person in Gaza but when they do, they feel sympathy rather than indifference. They will at least think that it’s good that it’s not them stuck there which is sympathy and not indifference.

As for good news, I think that most people want the world to be a happier place so something like meeting a stranger with a new baby would attract positive comments like congratulations because that was a happy time in their life too and to a certain extent it’s expected. They certainly wouldn’t be indifferent but at most happy that someone else was happy iyswim.

I see sad news stories every day. Most of them don't affect me very much. I might think "oh, that's sad" and move on. More callously, I sometimes think, "well, that was a stupid thing to do".

Occasionally, a tragic story gets to me and plays on my mind. For example, the missing Titan submersible and the thought that the passengers could be trapped nearly 4,000 metres under the sea, running out of oxygen. As sad as the outcome was, at least they were spared that ordeal.

Like PP's, animal stories often get to me. Animals often seem so vulnerable and they must be so bewildered and frightened by natural disasters and human cruelty.

If you truly didn’t care, then you wouldn’t care what other people thought about your feelings. You’d shrug it off and think “Whatever”

I care cos it affects my social capital... wich affects my abulity to take care of myself

But its not that simple

When your asked a question about whatever is going on in the world, some get really annoyed when the response is "ahh thats a bit shit i spose but i have no idea what you even talking about' So they explain and are still met with a blank expression cos i really dgaf
Then they start dropping heartless and ignorant comments

or when MIL would talk about her random friends having xyz issues and expecting the genuine 'oh how sad, i feel terrible for them, wish i could help' and the response is pretty bland 'oh that sucks' and move on - i just dont care, havent missed that talk now we NC

If people could handle an honest response the OP post wouldnt be needed cos people would accept and it not faze them when people dont care like they do

Yeah, same here, and don't feel bad about it, I suppose the way I think about it is that, why would I care about someone I don't know, when they wouldn't care if something happened to me? If someone famous dies why should I care about that, but not care about someone completely unknown dying a few streets away?

I would beg to differ. I think it is unusual. But I am an empath so perhaps I would say that.

it sounds as though you may have narcissistic traits, which is why you feel for people close to you. They are part of you so you effectively only feel for yourself.

I should correct my initial statement and say that what you describe is not unusual - for a a narcissist.

Honestly, I think it’s really sad if you feel zero empathy towards people you don’t know. I’m actually kind of shocked by how many people are saying the feel the same way. Looking at the state the world is in, maybe I shouldn’t be so shocked! But the world would be even more depressing if everyone felt like you. Tbh pretty horrific way to feel / live. I’d say people who have zero empathy (which is you, empathy doesn’t have strings attached - like it has to be someone you know) probably are sociopaths 😂

@AmusedTaupePlayer
No it’s not unusual. You don’t have to do or feel anything because someone else thinks you should.
I wouldn’t pay much attention to virtue signalling, you are not a horrible person. You’re a normal human being.

Leave your imaginary colleague alone fgs. Op is either mega pisstaker or is trying yo do gotcha about "see no one likes people who don't care"

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5362621-why-is-my-22-year-old-apprentice-colleague-so-helpful-to-me-when-he-clearly-dislikes-people-like-me

I actually think it’s quite chilling to display such a lack of empathy for others and if one of my friends disclosed this about themselves I would probably distance myself to be honest.

I think it’s an interesting that a previous poster brought up art. So you feel anything when you see painting Op? Or read a book about other peoples lives? Are you ever moved by films?

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for
whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee." —John Donne

You call it virtue signalling because you don’t have the capacity to comprehend that people can experience genuine empathy for others without faking it “for likes”

Survival and privilege

I think this poster is on the wind-up tbh. Answers keep getting more and more goady. They're looking for a reaction for whatever reason.