People skills are they pre determined at birth, developed over time, or just something some people will never have? Today, a woman asked me if I liked her and when I answered truthfully (with a no) she seemed genuinely shocked. At this point my utter brazenness took over and I asked her if my opinion of here would significantly impact on her self worth and she said it would. I may not have an empathic enough brain to comprehend this concept but it seems to me if the opinions of others affect you so much you may be better not leaving your house. I am rather like Tim in the above picture (original artist unknown) in that if someone does not like me it will neither upset me nor affect any part of my life and I have come across some situations where this has been problematic or just down-right dangerous.

As a creature with a cold, calculating brain and no desire to please anyone I have a tendency to be brutally honest and that has been an issue on many occasions (for example when talking to my supervisors or people who are bigger, scarier and often drunker than I am) but I can’t seem to turn it off!

As a result of the above I have a devil of a time holding on to friends. I never seem to be able to maintain more than one friendship at a time. My longest friendship lasted three years and that particular chum was extraordinarily good at dealing with all my….emmm…”eccentricities”. Some of those reading this may find this a strange sentence but I don’t seem to have the same desire to make friends as others. That’s right….no desire to connect with others (and perhaps anticipating some reader’s views, this blog is not an attempt to connect with people but merely a method of contacting them). I can’t really explain it other than saying I am content on my own much like a wolf, cougar or gopher tortoise….hmmmm, that last one didn’t sound as cool as I thought it would.

Now, for those of you who have read my previous posts you may be thinking “Hold up there Optimurse…have you not previously claimed to be a nurse? A profession which by all accounts is at least 30% ooey gooey feelings and stuff?” and you would be right my big brained and handsome reader.

I will admit here and now that I am neither a sympathetic nor empathic person and that has had a somewhat larger impact on my work than I originally anticipated. It has cut the areas I can comfortably work in practically in half. I recently spent some time on an “end of life care” type area and I did not fit in at all. All the staff there enjoyed sitting talking to patients reassuring them and comforting them. While that is nice, some of us just aren’t that good at it. A patient does NOT want me sitting by there bed telling them that “…yes, I do think death is the end, nothing more, nothing less.” On the upside I have found that I thrive in an A&E (or ER for our american readers) environment. I can distance myself and work on, for example, a patient minutes from death and not be phased by their rapidly falling heart rate or the blood gushing from their femoral artery.

No matter what way I rationalise it, I miss out on a huge part of…and forgive me for using such a flowery term…the human experience. But I wouldn’t want to chance my objectivity for all the feelings in the world.

I would be interested in other like me, who feel like their lack of empathic thinking is an advantage or those who can provide a grounding as to why my lack of empathy is a bad thing.

Laters,