>>14363069Empathy isnt so simple.
For example, suppose you were trying to say something that you were worried would upset the other another person. You would have to use information you know about the person and then think about how that comes together and then predict how they might feel.
And then people are not always upfront with how they feel, or why they feel the way that they do. You might have to be able to infer someone is happy or sad when they themselves might be trying to hide how they feel. Like for example if you say something insensitive, people might want to just bear the brunt of it and be patient. They dont show they are offended because they would prefer to smooth things over- but they are offended nonetheless. Or something might make someone very happy, but they want to conceal it because they dont want to be taken advantage of.
Or like, another example, my wife has told me that she doesnt like to ask for things from me. I can understand that, asking for something specific is transactional, it also makes it explicit that you are vulnerable. She would prefer I try and notice what she needs and then give it to on my own. Thats more work on my end, but it feels nicer for her. She is basically asking for more empathy on my part. She would like to know I am actively thinking about her needs. To passively think about her needs, only after she states them explicitly, is actually not empathetic at all. In fact its completely brain dead. A chimp could passively respond to requests.
Now that I have shared a number of examples, I hope you can see that empathy is actually a kind of mental calculating that takes real work, and smarter people can do this faster than others in the same way that smart people might be able to solve a math problem in their head faster.
