I think I'm a partial sociopath (or just autistic, or just Russian) and while I have internal emotions, I am absolutely horrible at displaying positive emotions. Like I have a great smile if I'm laughing or having a really good conversation, but if I have to smile for a picture or just to be nice it's so god damn unnatural and feels and looks uncomfortable.

It shouldn't be hard. If you're an empathetic person, emotion comes easily, trauma notwithstanding. If you've ever had to learn to smile, you're probably a sociopath. I do things because they feel right or wrong, someone that has an inability to feel what others feel... how do they know what the right or wrong thing is to do?

You might just be properly grizzled, solro.

I knew a guy in high school that was a sociopath. He was really well liked and only a small handful of people I knew picked up on it. I don't think you can reason with the fuckers, just don't trust anything they do or say. It was like every emotion he displayed, positive or negative, was a calculated social performance - to his advantage. He got mad pussy.

I don't think so, telsa. He's saying ungenuine emotion doesn't come naturally. I think that's a sociopath's bread and butter.

I've known a couple people similar to what 15th described, too. One of them actually had an outright melodramatic emotional life but it was all centered around being freaked out if people around him behaved in ways that were outside his control. It's possible he could have been more of a BPD type, actually, but he was definitely good at manipulating and all of the signs of empathy he displayed (which were a lot, because being kind of self-righteously sensitive was his whole schtick) seemed very calculated.

Last I heard of him he was getting attention for raising a few hundred dollars for Planned Parenthood online in the wake of a recent harassment scandal at a place he used to work, which is weird to me because when I first met him he used to talk about "cougar hunting" and right up until he left town he was always the sort of person who would brag about sleeping with someone within 24 hours of doing it - stuff like that was the main thing that made me get sick of him, actually. The general self-promotion bullshit I could deal with up to a point but his attitudes toward women were gross. I have no doubt h's one of those white hipsters who self-identifies as "woke" now.

Also, he claimed he deliberately trained himself to have a different voice over the summer after 11th grade and it was the voice he spoke with ever since.


He's not the only person like that I've known, he's just the only one I've willingly tolerated for more than a couple months because he was actually legitimately smart and talented (most of the likely sociopaths I've known have been a bit dense) so for a while it was worth the bullshit to have him as a collaborator, but eventually I got sick of hearing my own ideas parroted back to me word for word as his own within days of us talking about them and having to hear him complain about how his life was terrible because he kept getting promoted at work or to many people wanted to sleep with him.

Also literally every time I've been in a conversation with him where I or someone else knew more about the topic than he did he would get visibly agitated and usually literally leave the room or just start injecting non-sequiturs until the focus was back on him.

Anyhow, he went from being a homeless junkie with no degree to being the head of Kurzweil Music Systems in 5 years (but he was only in that job for a few months before he freaked out under the pressure, quit, and moved to Oregon because any time he left a job or a serious relationship he would blame the city he was in for everything, declare it morally corrupt in some way, and move to a new one) so I guess sociopathy pays.

I was raised by people who had nothing closer than a vague memory of a fever dream's notion of right and wrong, so had to learn that concept from other people. That is, once I found some normal ones beyond the type of people I was attracted to as friends, who also knew fuck all about dick and shit.

Once you get over being ashamed of yourself, the natural human extincts to empathize with others tends to break through, but you have to watch out for the instinct to run away from any emotion that left you vulnerable while being raised by jackals. It's hard to come to trust that most people speak to each other out of a general fondness for some people, and share things with each other because humans share. That most of our interactions are not naturally weaponized.

I think SolRo is just cynical and grizzled too, by virtue of the things he complains about being something other than himself. It's perfectly normal human to lack positive emotional expression when everything the world does to itself pisses you off. Generally, you'll rediscover the positive emotions when you choose to save yourself first.

*instincts, not extincts.

Freud, you fuck.

Solro Tesla and 15 nailed it in the first few posts. My emotions run deep, always bubbling under the surface, I just suck at displaying things during times people expect me to. I was the worst at christmas/birthdays because I could be overjoyed inside but I didn't have the proper reaction externally.

Okay a simple question for my fellow emotionally deficient freaks; how often do you socialize?

I get the feeling all of this shit is mostly learned and practiced behavior rather that something someone is innately good or bad at.

It's probably both. Some people may be naturally better at it, like all things. Personally, I've had a lot of jobs that dealt with the public and I spent a lot of time in bars as a young man. So I was kind of forced to talk to people at length about things I didn't really care about. I'm good enough at it. It also became a lot easier and more natural as I aged out of spirit-crushing cynasim. Don't write people off too quickly, as I've done in the past. It's worth hanging in there for the handful of people that'll surprise you after you overcome the "how about this weather?" Phase.

I still don't pretend to be happy or bubbly if I'm not. Luckily, im just less miserable.

Wait I watched more and I take it back, this is absolutely PUA.

This guy's idea of normal interaction is like what I do when I have to work with someone I don't get along with and feel like I have to force some kind of conversation because not talking at all would be even more awkward.

I can't fake it at work. At all. Comes out so disingenuous that I just prefer silence and a forced smile to a forced conversation.

Small talk is fucking stupid. To me.

At least they have better posture.

I mean look at this guy, he's zigzags while standing still.

No kidding, when they say "he's no slouch" this is the last guy they mean.

A gaunt beanpole that seems overly affected by the earth's gravitational pull.

Yeah, PUA is just a bottomless pit of everything horrible about the Internet.

I guess the idea is you seem really affectionate, and the women that are fooled by this, or men from women, end up caught in something they have no control over.