6:32am January 8, 2012

“I don’t mind that I have to do this work. I enjoy intellectual challenge, I am interested in learning about how people’s minds work, and the sense of achievement when I manage to connect meaningfully is exhilarating. I don’t think communication would be nearly as interesting and exciting if it were something that just came naturally to me. But I do mind when in spite of so much effort I still miss cues, and someone who has much better inherent communication ability than I do but who has not even taken a close enough look at my perspective to notice the enormity of the chasm between us tells me that my failure to understand is because I lack “empathy”. If I know that I do not understand people and I devote all this energy and effort to figuring them out, do I have more or less empathy than people who not only do not understand me, but who do not even notice that they do not understand me?”

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