This isn’t an emotion, but it is related – it is a social evaluation and related to how people express emotions.

A warm person is somebody who has affective empathy and mirrors the emotions of people around them. They Care about the people around them and show it (through non-verbal signaling). A cold person is somebody who is not warm: they don’t react to the emotional states of people around them.

NT people sense this lack of warmth at a very low level – it is a danger signal. Typically a person is not cold all the time, they use it to signal to others:

• defense – they are hiding their feelings so others don’t see
• punishing – that want to Shame others by expressing disapproval
• power – they show Arrogance and dominance through silence

Being cold to someone is typically hostile. At best it might show indifference, which is an insult in itself. Being called “cold” is a grave insult for NT people.

Am I Cold?

I wouldn’t describe myself as cold – I think I am friendly, polite, helpful and have strong Ethics / Functional Altruism.

That said, most NT people would probably think me very cold: my lack of Social Salience means I don’t pick up any non-verbal signals or emotions. I don’t mirror at all. I have Flat Affect and Mid-happy Default. I don’t behave as expected and this might come across as being an Arrogant display of power.

I am not withholding warmth. I can’t perceive the signals and have nothing to mirror. I wasn’t even aware this was a thing. Now that I know it is, I still can’t see it.

For example, I was in a parking lot putting away groceries in my car. A street vendor approached and tried to sell strawberries to my wife. She asked if I wanted any and I said “No, thank you” and the man left. My wife told me he was scared and ran off – my lack of eye contact (I was loading the car) and flat tone were apparently danger signals. Lack of signal meant I was unpredictable and potentially dangerous. I didn’t mean to scare anyone, in fact I thought I was being polite with what I said.

So, am I cold? I certainly appear to be cold, but it doesn’t signal what NT people think. It is a case of mistaken identity! I can’t express warmth like this and it is read as hostility.

If somebody were to call me cold, I am indifferent. There is some truth to it from their point of view. I don’t want to be called cold, but it doesn’t bother me. I do realize (now) that it might not be a good label to have, but I feel no Shame and from my point of view it is just an opinion.

Curiously (to me, anyway), this very lack of care at being labeled “cold” is in itself the ultimate sign of coldness. If I wasn’t cold, then I would care and be enraged.

I think people who know me see it differently. They have observed my behavior and see that it is all the time. There is no malice or power display. I am helpful. Silence is my natural state and I run on logic. I suspect I fall into the “eccentric” category and they chalk it up to some strange behavior I have. Maybe.

Autism Experience

I have read that autistic people are sometimes considered “cold”. The mechanism is slightly different and the impact is different.

For autistic people, there are two things that may be in play: their Theory-Theory Theory of Mind can be laggy and noisy. The mirroring of emotions may not be in sync time-wise or content-wise. The second item is that there is comorbidity between autism and Alexithymia – the emotional state may be unclear.

Additionally, most autistic people are probably not indifferent to being called cold. Many have highly sensitive social salience and social drive – they want to signal that they are warm. I think this is probably a cause of great distress.

For both of us it is a case of mistaken identity. We are not what we appear to be. A case of Double Empathy where NT people expect people to behave a certain way.