I don’t think its that unusual- I had a pang of emotion (not crying, but almost) during 2 scenes during I-Robot. One scene was where a mutilated NS-4 grabs Will Smith’s leg and moans, “run!” and the scene where they were going to ‘euthanize’ Sonny and he asks, “will it hurt?”
People display a wide range of emotion with loss. Proximity is a big factor, not just whether its an animal or person. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were the same way- what if something were to happen to Ardred? Would you display the same level of pain as say if something happened to one of your pets? More/less so?
I don’t think its wierd at all. If anything, people shouldn’t feel unusual for feeling under/over emotional about stuff like that, because everyone has their own way of dealing with it.
This is my story as well. It puts things in a whole 'nuther perspective after you have kids. Anything to do with children being killed, dying from disease, abused, etc. really hits home now. I turn into a blubbering pile of mush.
Before kids, I would have reacted the same as you-sad, but not upset. I don’t think you’re weird at all.
Honestly? I think a lot of it might be because you’re not a parent. I’d be the coworker bawling in the bathroom, because I have a child and I could imagine the horror of what my friend/acquaintance was going through. Before I became a parent, maybe I’d still cry (because I’m a softie anyway), but it wouldn’t have been the gut-wrenching heartbreak kind of crying that I’d do today.
It’s not so much I’d be crying for the dead, but crying for the person I knew who just had what is, in my book, The Most Horrible Thing Possible happen to them.
I’m kinda the same way. No kids, and I don’t feel upset about deaths of people I don’t know. I do have animals though. I’ve hit 2 animals in my life. 1st time, maybe 4 years ago, I hit a house cat by accident on a residential road. I got very depressed about it. I starting thinking about how that may have been some childs pet, and thinking about how they’ll be waiting for kitty to come home, but it won’t. A month ago I hit a squirrel on the highway. He jumped like 10 ft in front of me. It was either the wall or him. I was pretty teary eyed all the way to work and depressed the whole day. Don’t get me wrong though, people close to me that have been hurt or died, I’m am very sympathetic towards. Just not towards people I don’t know. I think most people tend to be like this.
Exactly the scenes that got me. Any of the older robots (with the round eyes) looking forlorn got me going.
I got to thinking about it, and yes, I would be a blubbering mess for weeks if something happened to someone or something close to me, especially Ardred and the pets.
I understand a bit more her situation now, too. I learned that she and the victim’s father became very close friends during their time working together as he was going through a painful divorce and custody battle and would talk things out with her.
All kinds of people have all kinds of emotional barometers. It’s a whole spectrum, and like other kinds of spectrum, only people at the extremes could be labeled “weird”. For instance, at one end of the emotion spectrum would be if you hit and killed some little kid with your car, and the whole time you were calling the cops, etc. you had no emotional reaction. That would be weird. If you were an emotional mess for two days afterward everytime you had to kill a slug in your garden, that would be weird. Everything else is pretty normal.
Me? I’m a crier. I cry more about child-related things now that I’m a parent. But I cry about all kinds of things. Heck, just these boards, in the past few months. when Persephone dies, I was a mess, reading the whole thread; ditto when t-keela and hlanelee, respectively, lost their wives. Like Abbie, I’m not crying for the people who died, but rather for the people who loved them. It’s empathetic crying.
Oh, and Incubus, that “will it hurt?” thing almost had me in tears, too.
