How do empaths want to be treated?

A reader asks a question that amazingly hasn't really been addressed before (at least not to my memory). And I know that because I myself couldn't come up with anything helpful to say, perhaps due to my own somewhat limited success in this area:

I recently read your book and have started exploring your website. It's relatively easy to find articles on dealing with having a partner that is a sociopath (even though most of them say "run before he rips out your intestines and feasts on the bodies of your loved ones"), but I am curious on your perspective on how a sociopath should go about dealing with an empath.

My fiancée and I have two rules when it comes to my sociopathy; don't be manipulative towards her and don't completely "click out" when I get pissed. It is working rather well so far but I would like to know your thoughts on the matter.

I suggested that perhaps it would be most efficacious to ask the empaths who sometimes visit if they have any advice for how a sociopath could be more effective or better meet expectations in a relationship with an empath.

Degenerative brain disease causes pseudo-psychopathy

From a reader:

I found another article you might be interested in.
It's about a psychiatrist who started experiencing a degenerative brain disease (frontotemporal dementia) that eventually got him to exhibit behavior reminiscent of criminal socios.

I'm not saying that's why sociopaths are the way they are, but there might be some connection (e.g. similar brain areas being affected).

Here's the link to the article:
A Criminal Mind

Sociopaths on television: Doctor Who

From a reader:

I suspect you've heard this from many, but the latest Doctor Who seems to have borrowed not only your style but your name. You really might value seeing the latest episode, "The Woman Who Lived", about an involuntarily immortal woman who has lived so long she has ceased to feel or care, and who happens to be a thrill~seeking, nihilistic, face~changing highwayman in a mask. Being Doctor Who, the romantic morality goes places I would prefer it didn't, but Ashildr/Me is still a fascinating portrait.

DOCTOR: Anyone in that village would have died for you.
ME: Well, they're all dead now, and here I am. So, I guess it all worked out.

DOCTOR: Ashildr...

ME: That's not my name. I don't even remember that name.

DOCTOR: Well, what... what do you call yourself?

ME: "Me".

DOCTOR: Yes, you, there's nobody else here.

ME: No, I call myself "Me". All the other names I chose died with whoever knew me. "Me" is who I am now. No one's mother, daughter, wife. My own companion. Singular. Unattached. Alone. Anyway, I should get started. Jump on, I'll give you a ride. You can help me.

You can find the episode here:
https://www.animmex.com/video/10635/doctor-who-2005-s09e06-the-woman-who-lived

​~~~

​I read your book two years ago, and it started a process of self~understanding which has finally brought peace and sense to a perplexing life. In the process, I've gained an education in psychology and the diversities of the human condition more valuable than my degree in philosophy. Thank you.

I'm an escort, dominatrix, and live~in mistress, residing in a tolerant country which allows me a more~or~less openly antisocial lifestyle. I feel next to nothing for others, and in what people call morality I experience as something like a logical fallacy. I live a reasonably peaceful life entertaining people, but I think I could commit genocide and feel only curiosity, power, and excitement. "I am my freedom", to quote Sartre, and I would not wish it any other way.

[Continue on for spoilers]

in case you haven't seen the episode I should warn you (I didn't want to spoil), that the episode suddenly pulls Me's sociopathic personality at the last possible moment.

"Redeeming", softening, or retconning evidently sociopathic characters (Sherlock, Dexter, Rick from Rick and Morty, Capaldi's Doctor from last season) seems to be a thing television writers feel compelled to do. Just like lesbians used to be portrayed as going straight once they find the right man, and Jews were once supposed to convert to Christianity by the end of the play.

Lolita on identity

“I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. [...] Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them. Thus X will never compose the immortal music that would clash with the second-rate symphonies he has accustomed us to. Y will never commit murder. Under no circumstances can Z ever betray us. We have it all arranged in our minds, and the less often we see a particular person, the more satisfying it is to check how obediently he conforms to our notion of him every time we hear of him. Any deviation in the fates we have ordained would strike us as not only anomalous but unethical. We could prefer not to have known at all our neighbor, the retired hot-dog stand operator, if it turns out he has just produced the greatest book of poetry his age has seen.”

― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

Applauding intolerance

Today I saw a quote mistakenly attributed to Meryl Streep that has gotten a ton of traction for some reason on social media. It actually comes from (apparently) some relatively unknown Portuguese writer who is now attempting to have the quote correctly attributed to him for some reason:

“I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me.

I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.”

Ok, starts off sort of ok, then quickly turns to choosing not to coexist with certain aspects of humanity, not tolerating certain aspects of humanity (hating comparisons? really, hate?), avoiding people who are rigid and inflexible (are you rigid and inflexible in saying these things?), bored by exaggerations (which is probably the most pretentious things that I've read today, but I haven't read too much), and having difficulty accepting people who don't happen to find as much joy in animals as this guy seems to. Really? You're not going to struggle "accepting" someone who is not a fan of animals?

To me this on its face, and as evidenced by all of the "likes" and "shares" it has garnered, seems to be clearly celebrating intolerance. When I first read it and thought it might have been Meryl Streep, I thought, ok, you are maybe just a little like all of the other kind of racist/intolerant/bigoted old people I know who have gradually seemed to be less tolerant of difference, either in people, viewpoints, or activities -- things and people that may or may not directly affect you, yet you are still "displeased" with the very thought of them. 

You can't handily write off huge swaths of human behavior as being beyond tolerance, patience, or even coexistence and be seen as a lover of mankind. No one has to tolerate people who are easy to get along with or things that you already like. Tolerating only comes into play with things that are hard for you to deal with, displease you, or hurt you. And what does it mean to deserve someone else's patience? It really makes you wonder, who would be worthy of this guy's patience? It reminds me of another quote that I have seen in the feeds of my not immediate family "if you're helping someone and expecting something in return, you're doing business not kindness". Similarly, if you are being patient with someone who you kind of think is great or tolerating someone that is really pretty similar to you, you're not actually being patient or tolerant, are you? I'm not necessarily saying this guy is wrong for thinking or saying these things, I'm just saying that this is exactly the sort of thing that sociopaths get castigated for -- seeing and valuing other people merely for what effect they have on you rather than allowing them to be their own individual expression of humanity that deserves equal shrift to your own. 

See, as I type this I indicate to you that I clearly have a distaste for certain types of things. This type of attitude, for instance. But I don't think it's abhorrent or repulsive, or not deserving of my tolerance or patience, and I don't think that I can just choose not to coexist with people like this. Because everyone in the world is different from me. I'm sure there is no one who shares exactly my tastes and opinions on every single issue. The arrogance is not in assuming he is right to think these things, because of course when we form opinions that's a form of thinking we're right, that's what it means to form an opinion and we do it hundreds if not thousands of times a day. The arrogance comes from dismissing or punishing or otherwise treating people more poorly for having certain opinions dissimilar to yours, at least or perhaps particularly when those opinions don't affect you at all (how is this guy offended by whether I like animals or not?). 

But people love this quote for some reason. Why?