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?

It is to do with their selection and training. Once upon a time nurses were chosen for their natural people skills and learnt what they needed to do the job on the wards. Now they are chosen for their academic skills, learn in a lecture room and by the time they get into the wards it is often the case tjat they are not fit to do the job. They become graduates and think that the world owes them a living and basic nursing skills are beneath them. Not only does degree training produce poor nurses it actually weeds put many people who would make excellent nurses but who have not got the required paper qualifications.

Disagree completely with this. This nurse qualified in the early 90’s, traditional training, no degree or university involvement at all.
Just a whithered old stone heart.

Disagree completely with this. This nurse qualified in the early 90’s, traditional training, no degree or university involvement at all.
Just a whithered old stone heart.

Yes my DM but she was a narcissist. Even when one of my friends died when we were young she didn't get why anyone would be upset. She used to either be cruel to people or look through them.

If things happened to her then that was different.

My bf's relative hasn't got any either. Another one who looks through you.

My own mother died and I felt nothing. Kind of sad I’ll not see her again but, honestly it’s the circle of life and happens to us all. It’s completely how I feel. People can’t understand it.

I think we seem to go to either one end of the spectrum or the other. I'm autistic, highly empathic, but DS is also autistic and only learned as a teenager about how other people felt, he didn't understand other peoples' feelings as a child. I don't think it's natural for him, but he's learned. Whereas DP (also autistic) and I are so emotionally porous.

Wow, that's a very strong stance against empathy. Of all the things to have something against.
Empathy doesn't mean someone wailing with you. It's actually sympathy that can be faked by those who are incapable of the former.
And it means much more than being able to commiserate with someone. It means that if you have a problem with someone it helps determine how long it all goes on for and to what lengths. It doesn't mean 'incapable of evil' though because psychopaths don't have the monopoly on the human condition. It just means that if there is a consequence it is far less likely to be the kind of life-altering build your life back up from scratch kind of consequence that can come as a result of who and what people are. The chances aren't zero but they are far less to be THAT.
So, besides the snivelling there's a lot to be grateful to empathy for. Just about everything that is worth anything in life. Or.. worthwhile. The word empathy has been overused on social media to the point of it almost having lost meaning. But it is still better to have it than not. Because what are we even talking about. Lol.

In the post you quoted, @ChickNorris,I said I dislike the word. You've outlined what you understand it to mean. There are plenty of other interpretations in this thread alone; go wider and you'll find even more, including a large contingent fitting the 'wailing with you' depiction.

I dislike words with no clear meaning. Especially when the most popular attributions are physically impossible and/or exaggerated.

No idea. I suggest you ask her.
Whatever it is, we've stayed married for 40+ years without it.

I don’t have any empathy for people I don’t know, but I do for my family and friends.
I would say I am naturally selfish and just don’t see strangers as individuals so I don’t consider others, I can only see them as in the way or an inconvenience to me, another driver isn’t a person just a car in my way, queues of people are just a collection of pain in the bums who I need out the way, other people who are not happy are just whining and should go away, other people are competition for the things I want and yes I’d see a traffic jam as an inconvenience even if fatal because I would only see how it affected me.

I am also autistic but then sometimes when I see someone is upset I feel intensely sorry for them when I see their reaction or pain.
If I don’t like someone I don’t care about them but then if I am unkind to them and I see them showing emotion, I feel intense guilt and feel so sorry for them even though I didn’t care about them or like them before, like I’ve just seen they are human too.
I would describe it as not realising that people have feelings until they show them and then feeling their emotions as I see they actually have feelings too and then I want to make everything better for them because they are sad.
Very occasionally I might see a stranger and feel sorry for them, like a market stall with no customers so I’ll go and buy something.

Thats an assumption though
Often people who think they have empathy are assuming ie centering their own feelings
Empathy is listening and understanding how others feel, not making assumptions

While I can see the value in trying to put yourself in another person's shoes it's surely only ever going to be a projection because different people will feel and react differently to the same situation.

Yup, anyone who eats meat. Those within the meat industry suffer awful lives followed by awful deaths. Even today we are getting reports with supporting footage of dairy cows being punched and kicked. All in our fluffy red tractor farms.

Anyone with an ounce of kindness and empathy wouldn't fund it.