system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Dexter] Dex says he has no emotions. Except, he clearly does. He gets scared, angry, happy, remorseful, excited, nervous. What am I missing here?

It doesn't appear that this is something Dex grew into either. Teenage Dex is a seething mess of complex emotions - he regrets hurting his sister's feelings, he gets angry at his bully, he gets nervous that he's disappointed his father. And this before he supposedly learned how to "fake it". Even 20 year old Dex committing his first kill is a nervous and worried wreck, both from his father's impending death and from the stress of committing the kill. And Dex's private monologue is a cornucopia of emotional reactions, including sexual ones.

Far as I can tell, the only emotion he lacks is the ability to get freaked out by screams of terror. Is Dex just bullshitting himself, and the audience by extension?
gpt
Dexter is a psychopath, or at least on the spectrum of what is now known as "Antisocial personality disorder" which Incorporated socio and psychopathy. He *has* emotions, but they're atypical and what he actually lacks is empathy and compassion. However, Dexter is probably not a "natural" psychopath in that his condition was the result of psychological trauma at an early age, e.g. witnessing the brutal murder of his mother. This means that his lack of compassion and empathy may be conditional, and seems to be so since he does seem to have these feelings for his family and for other victims, though much of that may just be moral justification for his compulsion for violence.

TL;DR: Dexter has feelings, but since he is callous, compulsive and selfish he has to work out intellectually how to act in order to appear normal.