Psychopathy and Love: The Deception of Language, and the Language of Deception
I didn’t know I was lying to my partners.
Psychopaths are famously said to “know the words but not the music.” Ironically, and unsurprisingly, it took me a lot of introspection to begin to understand this. From what I have gathered, I experience roughly 5% of typical human emotion, small flickers that are barely detectable and always short lived. If I barely experience my own emotions, how am I supposed to experience anyone else's? A fantastic example is that there is a big difference between what I mean when I tell a partner I love them, and what my partners mean when they tell me the same.
When I say “I love you,” I mean:
I’ve assessed this relationship and it’s valuable
I respect and admire you
I choose to maintain this connection
I enjoy your company and our compatibility
I grant you continued access to my life
I’ll act in ways that sustain this partnership
When a partner says “I love you” they mean all of the above, plus:
I think about you constantly.
I miss you when you’re gone.
Your pain hurts me.
I’m afraid of losing you.
I feel incomplete without you.
My happiness is tied to yours.
One of these things is not like the other one. Right? And neither is more “real” they’re just completely different experiences using the same words. The neurotypical version involves involuntary emotional attachment, fear of loss, and constant emotional engagement. Mine involves conscious choice, respect-based commitment, and sustainable partnership. Mine is a strong preference, theirs is a genuine attachment.
The thing is, I wasn’t aware until very recently that I have been saying something completely different, despite using the same words. It is an assumption in English language that love has the same general shape for everyone, even if our individual outlines all look a little different. So why is my version so different? Because an entire category of empathy is missing from my experience. Ruh-roh.
There are three main types of empathy:
Cognitive empathy: mental modeling or “I understand what you feel/think and why.” People on the autism spectrum tend to struggle with this.
Affective/emotional empathy: emotional resonance or “I feel what you feel.” People on the autism spectrum often have an abundance of this.
Compassionate empathy: prosocial response (“I choose to help”).
My cognitive empathy is strong like ox, it comes extremely naturally for me to know what someone else is thinking or feeling, regardless of having had a similar experience or not. I do not experience emotional empathy. This means I am not affected by the pain of others. This is not a choice, it is a difference in my wiring. Compassionate empathy is hit or miss for me, do I care enough to donate to a cause or volunteer? Not even a little. But if a close friend tells me their relationship blew up, best believe I will be picking up their favourite snacks and heading over to their place to support them at my earliest convenience. Same if an old lady trips and falls on the sidewalk. I don’t need to feel anything to understand when someone could use some help, and to provide that help if I am the person most equipped to give it at that moment. Yes, even psychopaths help little old ladies sometimes.
Affective empathy is my missing piece, and is exactly what separates my "I love you" from theirs. When my partner says my pain hurts them, they mean it literally. Their nervous system registers my distress as their own. I genuinely had no fucking idea. When I say I care about my partner, I mean I've made a cognitive and behavioural commitment to act in their best interest. The words sound the same. The underlying experience is not even close.
And that’s the problem. I am an honest liar. Not because I set out to deceive, but because English doesn’t have separate words for these two entirely different experiences. Whenever I said “I love you,” I meant my version, and assumed that is what others meant too. But my partners heard their version. And I didn’t know there was a difference. How za fuck was I supposed to know?
This is why psychopaths are known for being manipulative. And now I get it, I really really do. It looks pretty damn damning when someone says all the right things, behaves like a loving devoted partner, and then when the math stops mathing for them, they can drop you like a hot patate. Then end up in a new relationship with someone else so freaking quickly. It feels like you have been conned. It feels malevolent, intentional, and somehow both personal and impersonal all at once. Ouch!
But here’s what no one considers: I wasn’t speaking a different language on purpose. I was speaking the only language I had. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?
No one sits you down and picks apart the concept of love like a forensics crew at a crime scene. No one asks, “When you say you love someone, do you mean you feel a persistent emotional ache when they’re absent, or do you mean you’ve decided to prioritize their wellbeing as long as it doesn’t mean deprioritizing yours?” We don’t do that, because why the hell would we? Language evolved for the majority. The words for love, attachment, bonding were all built by and for people whose neurology rewards and reinforces lasting emotional connection… Not for psychopaths. If you’re part of the small percentage whose wiring can’t do that, you still learn the same words. You just map them onto a completely different internal experience and have no reason to suspect the mismatch exists.
But NOW I know. And knowing means I can finally name the gap instead of unknowingly asking someone to fall into it. Now I can tell a partner what love looks like for me, explain what they are getting, what I can and cannot realistically give them, and that I am not giving them a “lesser” version of their love by choice. It’s my neurology. I am finally honest. And for the first time, it lets the people in my life choose me with their eyes open.
When people say psychopaths “know the words but not the music” they’re absolutely right. The reality, at least for me, was that I didn’t know there was music. I thought the words were the damn whole song.