Indifference can, in certain contexts, reflect a true lack of emotion. When a person has never had a reason to care about something or someone, it’s not at all unusual for them to display no sense of connection. Why should such a person invest in a different emotional reaction to something they have never known?
To be indifferent is something quite else, however, in a situation where emotional attachment once was strong. In such a context, indifference is felt as a kind of cold rejection, a rebuke, a refusal to care. It is to show no love where love was once confidently expected. As an emotion, it is a commitment to a lack of commitment, as expressed in the lyrics sung by Astrud Gilberto in the song How Insensitive.
How insensitive
I must have seemed
When he told me that he loved me.How unmoved and cold
I must have seemed
When he told me so sincerely.Why he must have asked
Did I just turn and stare in icy silence?
What was I to say
What can you say
When a love affair is over?Now he’s gone away
And I’m alone
With a memory of his last look.
Vague and drawn and sad
I see it still
All his heartbreak in his last look.Why, he must have asked
Could I just turn and stare in icy silence?
What was I to do
What can one do
When a love affair is over?
