He also happens to be quite handsome (of course I am not impartial in that). It is amusing to see how many of the little girls at the dance school go out their way to greet him (while he hardly acknowledges their existence). I think he will be OK.
Haha. I think of my 4 year old the same way. The girls in his school always approach him to say hello, and he usually just ignores them. When I tell him "June said hello to you buddy. Say hi to June.", he looks at her and says "Say hi to June.". I joke to my wife that he will charm some sweet girl with his looks when he is older and she'll be willing to look past his "quirks".
Of course, feeling empathy and being able to express it are two different things. I'll often feel extreme empathy towards someone, but won't be able to find the words to let the other person know how I feel.
This is something I struggle with too. I tend to get overwhelmed and end up just saying nothing sometimes. I very often resort to (sometimes long winded) emails to get my feelings out. My 4 year old might be too young to really see how he will be in this regard, be he always approaches the person "having an issue" with a look of great concern, but does not say anything to them.
Still, he deals with things that I've never had to deal with and takes other things in stride when I struggled with them. For example, he dives head first into social situations even if he doesn't fully understand how he's being inappropriate. I was always more socially-timid, afraid that I'd make a misstep and embarrass myself.
I have a similar situation. My son jumps right into social situations and actually LOVES observing what everyone is doing. He is totally unaware of his "social mis-steps", such as not saying hi back when someone says it to him, or repeatedly saying what someone is doing over and over when excited. At times, he also resorts to humming and "flapping" in excitement (though not as intense as I've seen in some other children). When I was his age, I used to hide behind my mother in similar situations. I have also been socially timid all my life due to "over thinking", and have learned to "put on an act" to hide this fact in most situations. In fact, many people are very suproised to hear that I am so socially timid.
The first version always gets thrown away.