March 25, 2026 / Last updated : March 25, 2026 HG Tudor Emotional Empathy

Empathy Deficit : The Spider in the Bath

 

 As both narcissist and psychopath, you know that I have an empathy deficit. In other words, I don’t have any emotional empathy. It isn’t a case of it’s impaired or it’s slight. I simply do not have any. I have spent many years observing, watching, interacting with those that have emotional empathy. And its operation is something that I’ve become an expert at. Not in the sense that I have any, but rather from my frequent interaction with those that exhibited, I have learned. I’ve been careful to understand it, to see how it’s utilized, to see how it can be both a strength and a weakness for people. I understand that the role emotional empathy plays and I know that I have none. Where many people operate in a way which shows that they’re being regulated by the presence of emotional empathy, often without necessarily thinking about it, or the way that they talk in terms of how that emotional empathy feels to them. I find all of this very interesting and I absorb this information because it is a complete contrast with myself. I do have cognitive or fake or cold empathy.

 

This is a consequence of my cognitive function allied with the type of narcissistic psychopath that I am. I have the ability to understand what the appropriate reaction would be in a situation because I have learned from those situations. My imitation game is at the top of its game. So that imaginary cherry-picker goes away and almost seamlessly plucks the correct package that can be applied, so that I can look concerned, that I can look sympathetic, that I can look compassionate, that I know the words to say, that I know the words and their impact, I know the body language to adopt the facial expression even down to the look in my eyes. But all of it is an artifice. It is simply manufactured to enable me to fit in, so that I am better able to control people and get from them what I require. The fact is I have no emotional empathy and nor can you inject it into me?

 

Recently there was a certain occurrence which exemplified the difference in me with no emotional empathy and somebody else who naturally has it and is guided by it and it provided me with another interesting point to enable me to understand more about the behaviour of other people and add it to my growing arsenal of knowledge. Some time ago I had a guest staying at Tudor Towers, a male friend of mine. We’ve known each other for about 8 years, a thoroughly decent fellow who I see maybe once or twice a year. And I’d invite him to come and stay for a handful of days at Tudor Towers. And in the course of that stay I remember walking into one of the bathrooms and noticing that Incy Wincy Spider had made an appearance in the bathtub. Quite where Incy Wincy Spider had appeared from is often a mystery but there he was. I’m not sure what type of spider he was. Not particularly large and he was just minding his own business in the bathtub.

 

Now in many instances I would decide that it would be time for Incy Wincy Spider to go and that would necessitate me turning on the tap to flush him down the drain or in some instances where there is the shower attachment to the bathtub I pick that up and aim it at Incy Wincy Spider and thus he gets flushed away down the plug hole with a smile of amusement on my face. Sometimes I decide to leave him be. Why do I have these differing reactions? Well, when I leave him be it isn’t because I care about the spider, it isn’t because I think, oh spider it isn’t because I think oh I’ll leave you be I’m not going to harm you I remember when I was a child I were particularly relish in getting hold of spiders and pulling their legs off or chasing them with a homemade flamethrower incinerating them and I particularly remember this really small ones which had a hump on their back and they made such an interesting sound when one pushed one’s thumb onto them causing it to crack. But now it would either be the case of I leave it be or I flush it away.

The reason I would flush it away is obviously I’m not frightened of the spider and what can that spider do to me? Nothing. It’s a harmless British house spider. It’s not going to bite me or if it did its bite isn’t going to cause me any difficulties. The fact is that I find its presence in my bathtub an offence. It doesn’t belong there. It spoils the look and therefore it must be removed. It isn’t so much about wanting to harm the spider as it used to be the case, but rather there’s a shift in attitude. That the stimulation that I once got from seeing a spider suddenly turn into flame or watching it riding around as I systematically pulled its legs off. Having done that in the past, such stimulation doesn’t appeal to me any longer and now it’s more about the aesthetic. Looking at the spider in the bath and thinking, well that’s my bathtub and you want not to be there so you’re going to have to go. It never occurs to me to do anything other than to either flush the spider away or, if I’m busy about something else, I just ignore it and then invariably when I next return it’s disappeared. But on this occasion there was a different outcome as a consequence of my house guest.

 

After he had departed and headed off in his car I had occasion to head into the guest bathroom just to tidy etc and make sure all was ordered. And as I entered, I noticed that there was a piece of toilet paper, white, quilted, never half-coloured in one’s bathroom, ghastly. And it had been draped over the back of the bathtub and so that it had gone all the way down, and it’s a high-backed bathtub, gone all the way down to the tub itself. My immediate thought was, I don’t recall doing that. Ah, it must have been my guest. Why has he done that? Why has he decided to leave a piece of toilet paper draped there? It wasn’t the case of course that the bathtub was next to the toilet, so it might have been for instance that he decided that he was going to use it for himself, but no it was on the opposite side of the room. So what was this piece of paper doing there? I thought it was strange. Was he sending me some kind of message? Had he put it there for use? He didn’t take a bath in the time that he stayed. He used the shower instead. And I was at a loss, thinking, what a peculiar thing to do. I’ll have to telephone him and ask, what did you do that for?

 

It was rather strange. Had he perhaps decided he was going to make use of it and forgotten? And then, it dawned on me. strange. Had he perhaps decided he was going to make use of it and have forgotten? And then it dawned on me. I could no longer see the spider, and it was apparent that what my guests had done, and it took me a short while to work this out, was in effect create a ladder of the toilet paper so that the spider could climb out of the bath because of course the sides were too smooth and shiny for it so that if it attempted to exit and perhaps it already sought to do so it kept falling back in. Thus my house guest had decided to free the spider. And that made me realise there was another example of the empathy deficit. It would have never occurred to me to do such a thing for a spider. After all, it’s a simple arachnid. Yes, it eats the flies and might be said to be serving a useful purpose in that regard, but other than that it has no meaningful impact upon my life and therefore that’s why ordinarily it would be flushed away. But my friend, and I know that he’s kind and empathic, I already knew that, but I was interested to witness what I regarded as quite a small yet profound act of emotional empathy by him.

 

After all, what does a spider matter in the scheme of things? It does not. And yet, he had been moved quite evidently to have seen the spider, taken the toilet paper and adjusted it in a manner by which the spider could escape. I did not know if he’d witnessed the escape himself, that he’d watched over and satisfied until it occurred. I formed the conclusion that perhaps he had not done so, for if that had been the case he presumably, because he is a tidy individual, would have removed the toilet paper thereafter. And I suspect that he had just left it there in order to help the spider escape, and it seemed to have met with success, for the spider was no longer there. And this simple gesture encapsulated the presence of his considerable emotional empathy and underlined the complete presence of his considerable emotional empathy and underlined the complete absence of the same thing in me. 

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