What emotion don't you "get"?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

[QUOTE=winterhawk11]
Maternal instinct.

I have zero. I don’t like babies or small children, and the idea of wanting one of my own is so foreign to me that I feel like a Martian when confronted with it. I won’t say I’m completely devoid of the nurturing instinct because I love my cats and love doing what it takes to keep them happy, well-fed, and healthy, but the thought of doing this for a human child is just…nonexistent in me.

Ditto lust. I love my spouse dearly and feel desire for him, but I’ve never been in the grip of out-and-out lust in my life. That’s why I have so much trouble understanding how some people can risk everything for it.
[/QUOTE]
…are you me? :dubious:

42

I don’t understand crushes.

I never have, all through high school my friends would swoon over various guys and unless they liked me I wouldn’t waist my time falling all over them. I just didn’t see the point.

I also don’t feel lust. I love my fiance, I like sex, I just don’t crave it. I don’t even get horny. Sex is just something that you do, it’s really no big deal.

43

I do have to wonder if those who have never felt hate or vengeance, whether they’d truly ever experienced some sort of violence or emotional hurt. I don’t know if it’s a sign of my immaturity or if it’s human nature, but the few times that I’ve been really truly hurt, physically or emotionally, or when my HUSBAND was hurt…I was loaded for bear. I just wanted someone to know FIRST HAND the suffering that he had felt, to know EXACTLY what they’d made him feel.

He called me Lady Macbeth for a while.

44

Worry.

A couple minutes every once in a long while contemplating that I might go blind because my eyes are throbbing, or deaf because my ears are ringing but that’s really it. It must be terrible to worry about every single thing in life.

45

Pride of place or status or family or country or name or any of those things that I didn’t control. I don’t get it.

46

I would say shamelessness if that was an emotion, but it’s the lack thereof.

47

[QUOTE=fatgail]
I do have to wonder if those who have never felt hate or vengeance, whether they’d truly ever experienced some sort of violence or emotional hurt. I don’t know if it’s a sign of my immaturity or if it’s human nature, but the few times that I’ve been really truly hurt, physically or emotionally, or when my HUSBAND was hurt…I was loaded for bear. I just wanted someone to know FIRST HAND the suffering that he had felt, to know EXACTLY what they’d made him feel.
[/QUOTE]
I’m a pretty laid back person. I don’t get wound up about someone hurting me. I’ve been punched in the nose before and took the time to figure out why they punched me and decide they had a pretty good reason for it. And other times decide that it wasn’t a very good reason and used violence and pain as appropriate. But I was never angry about it.

I got married. Had some kids. There is some deeply primal thing involved in that sort of anger. I would do terrible horrible things to anyone that hurt my wife or kids. Still don’t much react if someone threatens me.

48

I get hating someone who has deliberately harmed you or someone you love. It has to be blatant, calculated malice, but yeah, I can get there, and have a handful of times. What I don’t get is hating a large group of people you don’t know personally because they share a certain characteristic. Really, hating millions of people because they’re gay or Muslim or French or whatever… it’s quixotic, and a waste of energy.

49

[QUOTE=Edward The Head]
Sure there are people I don’t like
[/QUOTE]

It’s me, isn’t it! sob

Just kidding :slight_smile:

I’m not sure if there is a name for the emotional state that makes people want to be part of a team or not. I’m not talking sports team (though it would qualify) but any kind of group effort. Some people just seem to have an emotional need to do activities or achieve goals as a group. I don’t understand that. Sometimes I need help with something, sure. Sometimes I’d rather do something with a friend/friends because it’s more fun or whatever, sure. But that whole “being a team player” type of emotion I don’t get. When it comes down to most things, I’d usually rather do them alone, because I can control the outcome and I know my own abilities. But some people really seem drawn at an emotional level to the concept of “teamwork” for some reason, and I don’t get it.

And throw me in with the crowd who don’t get obsessive jealousy in romantic relationships.

50

Careerism. Meaning the kind of power-tool ambition that becomes an end in itself, and that people constantly confuse with the work ethic and the desire to create, nurture and provide.

Sick humor. I’m not talking Helen Keller jokes, I’m talking more like the '70s, Nat Lamp, deadpan druggie comedy where the creator is basically laughing (or sneering) at you fror being such a sucker as to read or watch the stuff.

Authoritarianism.

Sadism.

(Anybody want to try and give a reasoned defense of either of the last two? What use are they to humanity? How would this be a lesser world without them? Or are they really what I think they are, pathologies?)

51

[QUOTE=Beware of Doug]

Sadism.

(Anybody want to try and give a reasoned defense of either of the last two? What use are they to humanity? How would this be a lesser world without them? Or are they really what I think they are, pathologies?)
[/QUOTE]

Well, if you actually read the writings of the Marquis de Sade, you would see that the true definition of Sadism has been twisted to fit into the BDSM acronym. True Sadism is to follow the call of Nature, to live solely for oneself, not for love, or God, or the Government. The idea is that Nature has no moral code, it is life at its basest level, giving in to its basest instincts. Of course, his books are largely violent sexual fantasies, if not psychotic ledgers of mass murder. It was, I believe, a way to take his ideals to an extreme in order to illustrate the point. If you want to poop in someone’s mouth while they tapdance, wearing a suit made of pancakes, do it, and don’t worry about social constructs or society or the law or sin or anything like that.

52

[QUOTE=Yumblie]
I’ve felt anger of course, but I guess it’s a certain degree of anger that I can’t understand. The type of violent anger that leads you to want to break things or hurt people. Maybe I just live an easy life and have never run into any situation to make me that angry, but violent anger like that just completely mystifies me.
[/QUOTE]

Yes! I think about this more often that I should but I am so perplexed by this behavior. And I wish someone could explain it to me so I could actually understand it. I feel like angry people are just children who never grew up, especially when it involves raised voices, hitting inanimate objects, and shuffling things around violently.

Also, finding enjoyment in the misfortune of others. Someone falling on the sidewalk evokes empathy, not laughter.

Hating differences rather than be fascinated by them. I grew up on a farm in rural America. We had two black kids in our school, but it wasn’t until college that I met people who had grown up in other countries. I met my first gay person in college. I am fascinated by human diversity, so I don’t understand hating people who are different from oneself.

Competitiveness. Even in video games, I prefer cooperative play where we all gang up against the game. It loses a lot of the fun if I’m winning at the expense of another person.

Combine those all and you get bullying, which isn’t confined to childhood playgrounds. Adults bully. Does not compute.

53

[QUOTE=Charger]
Also, finding enjoyment in the misfortune of others. Someone falling on the sidewalk evokes empathy, not laughter.
[/QUOTE]

I think there are three types of laughter in this case, and I understand two of them but not the third:

  1. Horrified laughter – when something so comically awful happens to someone that you can’t help but laugh, even as you try not to. Basically the reaction to the guy who drowned during a Polar Bear Swim as he clutched what the news report solemnly described as “a green inflatable octopus.”

  2. Revenge laughter – when the misfortune is poetic justice happening to someone you hate. Conrad Black going to prison, for example. Usually restrained, and not that funny anyway.

  3. Sheer, nasty glee in the misfortunes of innocents. Just pointing and laughing at distress and grief for no good reason other than that it’s distress and grief.

54

[QUOTE=matt_mcl]
I think there are three types of laughter in this case, and I understand two of them but not the third:

  1. Horrified laughter – when something so comically awful happens to someone that you can’t help but laugh, even as you try not to. Basically the reaction to the guy who drowned during a Polar Bear Swim as he clutched what the news report solemnly described as “a green inflatable octopus.”
    [/QUOTE]

I believe I am on record as saying that when I die, I hope I die such that it can be said later “she died in a tragic home canning accident” because at least then it would be funny and not just sad. Of course, the fact that I don’t do home canning makes this unlikely.

55

[QUOTE=winterhawk11]
Ditto lust. I love my spouse dearly and feel desire for him, but I’ve never been in the grip of out-and-out lust in my life. That’s why I have so much trouble understanding how some people can risk everything for it.
[/QUOTE]
While I do feel lust and get ravenously horny and have a greater sex drive than almost anyone I’ve ever compared myself with (we’re talking conversations and stuff, not going all Annabel Chong), like you I don’t get risking everything for sex. I don’t get working really hard for sex, lying, spending entire evenings just to possibly get some sex at the end of it, nothing like that.

56

[QUOTE=OpalCat]
I believe I am on record as saying that when I die, I hope I die such that it can be said later “she died in a tragic home canning accident” because at least then it would be funny and not just sad. Of course, the fact that I don’t do home canning makes this unlikely.
[/QUOTE]

I think it should be “home pickling accident.” You can take up pickling at any time, and few words are inherently funnier than pickling. :smiley:

57

Worship. Not just of the religious variety; I mean the satisfaction people have in worshiping and idolizing everything from this or that god to celebrities to nations.

I’m not sure how to put this one; perhaps “satisfaction in false praise or confirmation”. The fact that some people enjoy praise or approval that’s coerced out of people ( any number of dictators come to mind, and innumerable obnoxious bosses ), or get satisfaction from such things as confessions induced by threats or torture, or show trials with predetermined outcomes has never made sense to me. It’s not surprising that ruthless people do such nasty things; what I find odd is that they find any satisfaction in it. What satisfaction is there in false praise that you know is false, a fake election that everyone including you knows is fake, or a show trial or confession that no one believes ?

58

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Worship.
[/QUOTE]

I’m gonna try to explain this one, though it is probably not the kind of answer that you were looking for or that will satisfy you.

I don’t follow any religion at all, or believe that God sits in the sky, answering prayers, so I will talk about the only kind of worship I understand.

I had a friend once. He was a male friend, but he was not my man…just a friend.

This man, let’s call him Bobby, Bobby was smart, funny, cool, handsome, confident…I could go on and on. Over the years of our friendship, I elevated him more and more. To me, he could do no wrong. I was in awe of him. Bobby’s wife, kids, home, hobbies, interests…they were all perfect in my eyes. It was weird. I have no idea what kind of bond we had, but it was weird. Bobby saw me as a friend. He never returned any of this worship that I had for him. He was aware that I worshipped him though. We never stated it, we just knew it.

Once in a while…once in a long while, he would say something to me that indicated that he really respected and loved me the way I did him. He would say ‘sorry’ if he hurt my feelings, or he would admit a mistake…tell me I am right and he is wrong. The feeling of having god tell you that you are respected, loved, and right is exhilerating. Having god tell you that he is sorry for anything is enough to make you feel divine yourself.

I wonder if on some deep level, certain Christians feel like their prayers change God’s mind? Is it possible they believe they are powerful enough with their prayers to have even God bow to them? 'Cause that could be a strong motivator for worship.

As far as celebrity worship, I think that is more like admiration run amok. You see someone with amazing talent and you become enamored with their ability. Not the same as other kinds of worship…I don’t think.

59

Well, isn’t the entire point of prayer to petition god to do something? What if that something is contrary to his will and you don’t know it?

60

Love. I don’t understand it, and can’t say I’ve ever felt it.