I don't know if I'm just a sociopath or what. I don't think I am because I sometimes have emotional responses to movies and television, but I don't really ever feel anything that deeply when reading a book. Some examples of something terribly upsetting in a book is when the little girl Delphine in Between Two Fires gets ripped in half or the Sanza brothers and Bug dying in The Lies of Locke Lamora. Don't get me wrong, it sucks when things like this happen. I don't enjoy it. Though I don't experience any substantial emotional reaction like others do.
by Ryn4
24 Comments
I wouldn’t say I’ve ever *cried* cried, but I definitely teared up at the end of *The Road*.
Not much to understand, I guess. We’re all wired differently.
I love art but I also can’t ever cry because of something that happened in the story. Maybe I’m heartless.
Empathy, sympathy, and suspension of disbelief. I rarely shed tears but I feel like as I get older its easier to get misty eyed
I have read a couple that made me tear up a bit. Usually autobiographies. Maybe you have not encountered the story that does that for you.
Maybe you haven’t done enough living to have had really emotional past experiences that trigger when you read certain books. Or you aren’t reading the right books. I rarely cry when reading books but I will when there’s something I connect with especially. Poems too.
I have cried writing my own novels, I have the rule that I must move myself first if I expect to move anyone else, but I don’t think I ever cried reading another person’s work.
The Song of Achilles was close, it made me sad, but I already knew the ending from the beginning, so I didn’t cry. My best friend was devastated.
No need to overthink it. Maybe you’re more moved by visual experiences. Maybe you have aphantasia?
I get a different emotion when reading books – like I won’t cry but I’ll feel my heart wrenched out of my chest lol
You’re not a sociopath because books are just words on a page so you’d need to be imaginative to really be present with what you’re reading. But if you compare this to crying to a movie it’s so much different because movies at least can add music in the background and visual tricks to make you more susceptible to crying
I cried at Before The Coffee Gets Cold, which was the first time in a long time I’d cried at a book.
I’ve cried at two books in my life and it’s because I can personally relate to whatever is happening to the characters
I cry when reading or watching something for I put myself there as the character in a way. I feel for them or it breaks my heart sometimes and I cry. Just like I can laught.
Can also be for I am veery emotional.
My fianće laught at me when I cry at these things and think it’s cute while he never cries. He isn’t a crier and that is okay!
Some just are easier to cry then other amd it doesn’t make you a sosiopath or anything. You are just not a cries maybe. We all diffrent!
Sorry for rant amd misspels!!
Idk, those action scenes don’t necessarily sound like scenes built to make you cry. Normally, things in writing that make me cry are deliberately tapping into my emotions, not just depicting something sad. I don’t really emotionally connect to someone getting ripped in half but might relate to a character saying goodbye to a dying parent or thinking about a lost friend. Like, would you cry at the same scenes you described if they happened in a film? I don’t think so. But think of the scenes you would cry at in a movie, now in a book, have you read that before? Did you not cry then? Or maybe have you just not read anything liek the things that make you cry in movies
I think the saddest I felt when reading a book was finishing *How Apollo Flew to the Moon* as it really took you on the journey with the astronauts and it felt sad it was over.
Plus knowing that in reality that was the high point of human space exploration right up to today.
I very easily cry. So I cry a lot when reading books when something sad happens. I couldn’t tell you why and I often wished I didn’t because it can make reading books in public a bit awkward.
But I never get angry at characters. People love to hate villains or they just hate villains for being horrible people. But my reaction is always like: “yeah ok Umbridge sucks”. I often feel like I’m missing out because so many people seem to have a strong dislike or hate for characters and I just can’t connect to that at all.
Maybe you’re a more visual person
Maybe I’m not in the norm but I have cried mannnny times from a book. Maybe I’m lucky to have found some really moving novels over the years.
Oh, I bawled yesterday reading My Sweet Orange Tree. It was so painfully sad and heartbreaking.
Some of us are just crybabies. I cry all the time! Books, movies, music, commercials… Whatever. Recently I cried hearing a song *I don’t even like* because I thought “wow so many people really love this song, imagine thousands of people at a concert singing along to it, how amazing must that feel for everyone”. It’s a spectrum, my friend, and we are at opposite ends!
I’ve cried a couple of times, usually then the book taps into something that really gets to me, and reminds me of stuff in my own life.
Cried my way through The Travellers Wife, and there was a few things in The Body Keeps the Score (for example reading about 9/11), watch evoked a strong emotion.
It depends how much you’re able to immerse yourself in a book. It is easier to empathize fully with people in movies/series, because you see them as humans. Reading puts an extra barrier between you and the characters, because you might not see actual human beings represented in situations, but just experience an account written about what happened to them. It more or less depends on how you process written material while reading.
Some people see it acted out in their minds, so it’s way closer to a movie than it is to others, that read and interpret what it written when reading.
I feel the same way. I don’t think you’re a sociopath.
I identify as a person who cries a lot. A lot!
I cry over sad things, happy things, beautiful things, if I’m tired, over heartache and love. I cry over songs, books, movies, other peoples stories, at speeches, funerals, weddings, holding a baby for the first time, a good hug.
I just wanted to let you know, that I might have cried your tears before you get to cry them 😅
Honestly, though, I think we express feelings differently and that’s okay 😊
I don’t understand either but I have definately needed to stop reading from crying cause I couldnt see anympre …
I read The Unbearable Lightness Of Being at a time in my life when my relationship was a mess. And just in general my life was a mess. I bawled my eyes out while reading it.
I probably wouldn’t cry so much at that book now because my life is completely different.
So in this instance the book itself is quite heavy reading but the subject matter was also relevant to my personal situation. And the combination of that made it a visceral reaction from me.
But I also very easily immerse myself in whatever I read. I can completely lose myself in the books I read.