Hello everyone, I need help to understand emotions.
For a start, I think I’m born with an “emotionless” brain. I don’t feel any sort of what you call “happy”, “sad”, “angry”, etc. I just don’t have any capacity to “feel” any emotions. To make you understand, I suppose you can look at me as if I’m a robot that’s just programmed to do specific task and that’s it.
When my parents passed away, while everyone in my family and friends cried, I didn’t. I don’t feel anything and I don’t understand what it means to “feel”. The only thing that I was thinking was that I need to follow the procedure of the funeral and get it over with. The next day I simply just continue with my work. My boss told me that he’s letting me stay at home to “grieve” but, I don’t understand what is that, as I never felt any form of sadness. I came to work to finish my tasks anyways.
When my classmate earned her PhD, I noticed how everyone did this thing called “cheering” and “smiling”. All I did was following the social protocol and tell her “congratulations”. Everyone said I need to at least smile. But, I don’t understand why people smile. I tried once and it’s tiring and strain my facial muscles.
I also never understood music. Seems like everywhere, people enjoy listening to music to the point it makes their bodies move. I have tried listening to music, but, it’s basically just vibration of sound. It’s no different than the sound of people drilling on the wall. But yet, that makes people, what you call “angry” or “annoyed”, which I too, don’t understand. But it’s interesting to see that the vibration of sound makes people “feel” things.
Also, I rarely have any opinion on anything. Almost everything is objective to me and what you people metaphorically call “black and white”. When I do have opinions, it’s always based on logic, science, cultural history etc. For example, my PhD classmate asked me if the theme for her party should be blue or yellow. According to general cultural literature, yellow tend to signify “cheerfulness”, and seems like that’s what everyone does in a setting called “birthday party”, thus, I say yellow. I don’t even understand what it means to be “cheerful”.
The same PhD classmate said that although I’m different, she finds me “funny” and “liked” me. I don’t feel any sort of what you people would call “romantic attraction” to anyone. Apparently, she felt that towards me and said that I’m one of her reasons behind her success in her PhD, and she apparently “fell in love” with my personality. She said that she knows that I wouldn’t understand this but she said she hopes that I will think about being together with her. I’m guessing this is as equivalent to a mating call for humans? I’m not sure myself. I’m not accepting nor rejecting this idea of being her spouse. But, in my understanding, marriage will have lots of this “feelings” involved, which I’m lacking.
But now, I think I need help. Is there something wrong with me? Why do I not “feel” any emotions? How do I “feel” it? Is it natural? Or we have to work on it?
I expect to receive some help reading the comments here if this is ever posted. Or at least, that’s what my PhD classmate is suggesting it to me.
Thank you for reading all the way. Just following social protocol.