Have you ever met someone who has no empathy?

[Wivern]

I was wondering about this today after I met up with a friend who meets this description but who I still value a lot because we have been friends for a long time. It made me wonder how many people are like this which we never realise unless they do something absolutely horrific and cruel. The latter are probably the ones that get noticed but I wondered about the ones who don’t because they just blend in and don’t commit crimes?

Me. I don’t even really know what it is. Genuinely. Do you pretend you are there, or imagine it happening to you? It seems utterly bizarre to me that someone can watch something news worthy like 9/11 and cry when they aren’t there and don’t know anyone there. I can tell that it would be sad and horrific and life changing and dusty and tiring etc etc but it doesn’t affect me so I just get on with my life. I can’t actually share those emotions, I’ve just sort of learnt to think ‘how would a fireman working there feel?’ Sad, dusty, probably working over time, hoping his wife is okay just incase a conversation comes up. It takes a lot of effort as it’s not natural at all. I’ve learnt to mask over the years, and not say something like my example above as it appears most other people feel more connected to people they don’t know because a big thing has happened. I’m charismatic, people are drawn to me and everyone seems to like me. I’m very kind to animals and know the difference between right and wrong. I wouldn’t run anyone over or leave someone on the floor collapsed and I’d probably lend you a tenner even if I didn’t know you.

I’m very similar. I will emphasise and offer support and advice etc. I’m a very practical person, I always have a plan and know how I’m going to achieve things etc. I’ll always offer support and advice. I get very frustrated listening to the same woes over and over again. If someone is doing something inane or just won’t do anything to help themselves, it makes me really angry.

Sometimes, I do have to mirror other people’s reactions so they don’t think I’m really cold and uncaring. Words of comfort don’t come easy to me and I have to think about what to say. Grief makes me very awkward. I’m not ND. I’m a nice person, I do consider other people’s feelings, I do nice things for people, I would never be cruel to people. I just hate wallowing and inaction. I am the person who will offer you practical support. I’d do your shopping, clean your house, take your kids to school etc. I’m not the person who would listen to you for hours.

Strangely, I really care about animals and any cruelty towards them really upsets me. I think it’s because I prefer animals to people.

My husband has a friend like this. He phones my husband and obviously I can only hear my husbands end of the conversation but all I hear is, aha and mmm’s. His friend basically does a 30 minute monologue.
He was telling my husband how he has difficulty finding women. My husband asked me for a women’s perspective as to why he can’t seem to have a successful relationship. I said yes, he has no interest in what other people have to say, it’s always about him. My husband who is a nicer person than I am said he thought I was being harsh.
My husband’s younger brother died suddenly . He was at home on his own so we had autopsies and coroner’s court and police involvement. It was very traumatic for my husband and this friend phoned my husband just after we’d found out, wanting to meet up. My husband explained what had happened . Oh said his friend ok well what about tomorrow. No I’m sorry for your loss or is there anything I can do. My husband told him that he wasn’t up to socialising. Oh ok how about the day after tomorrow.
My husband still sees this guy but not regularly and knows now that he is a complete narcissist. And no he still doesn’t have a relationship .

thank you, yes that makes a lot of sense. I think what I find jarring about it is that I can feel that so deeply. I used to cry at You’ve Been Framed and Jackass too as an example that’s maybe a bit less dramatic. It was the thought of people being tricked, humiliated or even physically hurting themselves, yet feel nothing when something terrible happens to someone I love if it makes sense that the terrible thing happened!

This has made me think and it’s interesting to hear another perspective.

When I was about 13 I watched the Elephant Man and knowing it was based on some truth I became completely overwhelmed with sadness for him and cried myself to sleep. I wasn’t imagining myself to be him or it happening to me, no. At that age I wouldn’t have been able to imagine that and I wouldn’t have had any life experience to relate anything to. It was just quite visceral but I realise that doesn’t describe what it is at all.

We are talking about "empathy" not "sympathy".

There is a difference.

Define?

The word seems to have different meanings for different people. I've posted that I don't have (or even believe in) the emotional replication some call empathy. I am sympathetic and compassionate, though.

What is it DW feels you lack, yet doesn't need you to have?

I think I first came across the term 'empathy' during A level English Literature and it was defined by my teacher as a deeper form of sympathy when one has direct life experience of something that someone else is going through. So for example I could empathise with anybody with struggling with a newborn baby as I have lived experience of that but I could only sympathise with someone who has experienced a pregnancy loss no matter how good I am at imagining how i might feeling their position. That makes perfect sense to me. I'm not sure what everyone else is on about! But maybe my teacher was wrong. Or I've remembered it wrong.

I dunno, @LGBirmingham, that also sounds presumptive although in a different way. My experiences of pregnancy loss are not the same as every other woman's. My rapes were, I would say, 'less bad' than many but 'worse' than some whose survivors suffer deeper trauma.

Thinking about it, there'd be no need for psychotherapy if having experienced a thing gave profound insight into everyone else who'd experienced it!

Yes. She is related to me. She has no empathy or sympathy for anyone. If a woman is killed by her partner, it's the woman's fault for dating/marrying them in the first place, same when women are raped - why was she there in the first place?, she also thinks if people die in a car crash they must have been drinking/high on drugs and she might say a local death is sad occasionally but only if they aren't "foreigners". She cannot put herself into other people's shoes. She read a book recently that briefly mentioned a religion that isn't her own so she declared the book "rubbish". When someone is diagnosed with cancer she can't just say it's sad/she hopes they will recover, she says their diet must have caused it or something. When my mum had to be checked out over a breast lump (not cancerous, thankfully) she shrugged and said "I've never had cancer".

She has a professional job and is very religious. She's racist and homophobic too. She also doesn't seem to believe the Holocaust happened. She hasn't said it outright but she's made off hand remarks over the years that suggest she thinks it was made up.

Yes I do. They are autistic.

It is quite obviously triggering for people with autism who have a different presentation of autism with much better empathy because historically it was generally recognised as having an empathy deficit and there is more recent evidence of differing autistic presentations with empathy but I work in a field with a significant amount of highly successful autistic men who do not have good empathy so I think it is one of those spiky autistic profiles.

Oh and there is no chance of those autistic men ever putting themself forward for a study on empathy, they would not give enough of a shit about it to partake, which I suspect is how they are being missed in more recent studies where autistic people with decent empathy are far more represented.

I know someone. She's an extremely interesting person - a successful writer (she's a crime writer and has won several significant crime writing awards, including the Silver Dagger ward, which is a big deal). She's eccentric and lives life very much on her terms.
But I came to realize that her interesting perspective on the world, which makes her such a good writer, is actually a complete lack of empathy. She just has no capacity to understand other's feelings (their existence and their nature). I found her fun until I had a child and I was just stunned by her absolute horror at the fact that I had chosen to do such a thing (she couldn't understand that I would love this infant, which she saw as a burden, and that I would have to keep loving and caring for him for the rest of her life). And then I gradually realized that this lack of empathy actually extended to everyone else.
She is a dreadful teacher, not surprisingly. (She teaches creative writing, but very poorly, and is extremely disdainful of her students, who she regards as stupid and uninteresting).
She was in a relationship of many years with an interesting man who shared her passions (another writer) but dumped him suddenly when he got older and began to lose his hearing a bit. She did this absolutely without any feeling for him and his distress.
Strangely, she adores dogs and always has one, but also replaces dogs very quickly and has lost several in careless ways. One was eaten by a crocodile in Florida, for example, and she was fascinated rather than distressed.

Yes. A former boss. I had a meeting with them immediately after I’d learned of a former colleague’s death in tragic circumstances. They thought it odd I seemed a bit distracted!
I hate to diagnose but I seriously think he was a sociopath.

Yep, my FIL. He’s not a bad person. He is incredibly logical and cerebral. Highly intelligent. He just doesn’t understand that people’s emotions can sometimes drive their behaviour. Or that emotions can be hurt to varying degrees. It’s like a different language to him.

Why do you think some nurses are drawn to the role if they have no empathy?

I don't feel other people's feelings - that is actually impossible.

No, it's not. There is a lot of science around this. Mirror neurons. You may be lacking in them.

Power over vulnerable people.

I take issue with the idea that mirror neurons cause emotional or sensory transference. That isn't what the research says.

Like a lot of people, I'm squeamish about eyes. When I (force myself to) watch an eye operation on TV, I feel horror, revulsion. I squirm. I might whimper a bit. Some people are too horrified to watch, some are fascinated by the technical operation, some aren't interested. Nobody's literally feeling a scalpel cut into their own eye.

If I see something harrowing, shocking or fabulous happening to you, you will see the emotions reflected in my face, voice, stance and so on. I'm not faking: this is sympathy. I'm not a crier but some will cry at your sad experience. I will definitely laugh at your comic actions. These are responses, we aren't experiencing the same as you.

Mirror neurons are mimic neurons with a range of intricate, subtle functions that are still being discovered. They aren't magic. I can't experience your emotions, because what you feel is unique to you. I haven't got your brain, your biochemistry and body, all of your past experience and your personality. I've got my own, and my neurons reflect what I believe you're showing me. I'm not in your head.

People with psychopathy have mirror neurons - they can learn and mimic - but their brains lack most emotional connections, so that mirror function doesn't work although they can copy your expression and my response.

People with congenital analgesia lack nociceptor function, so they can't mirror pain. They can copy the expressions but, again, it's fake.

It may be that 'empaths' have disorganised emotional or pain connections, leading them to think your experience has transferred to them whereas they're really mirror-responding. As far as I know, there's no science on that.

The inside of your head's all yours, though! Nobody else is in there.

@GarlicAnywhere So are you saying that some people understand empathy to mean they are literally experiencing the same physical sensations - like pain from an injury someone else? I didn’t realise this. I thought it was more the cognitive and/or affective reaction in themselves to someone else’s pain or suffering? (Or I guess their joyful or successful experiences too) Rather than meaning in a literal sense that they feel it all themselves? That’s bonkers! I’ve heard lots of people claim to be empaths but never understood that to be what they mean.

I agree, it is bonkers.

Also, That’s not the generally recognised definition of what empathy is though is it? I’m wondering if I’ve completely misunderstood the concept of empathy or if you’re speaking about specific claims that people have made?

Empathy or sympathy? They are very different concepts.

We’re way past that debate now. We’re onto mirror neurons now

This is me too. I almost have to fake it.