Weiner: I am an ’empty, soulless vessel’

Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) calls himself an “empty, soulless vessel” and says he maybe doesn’t “have the greatest connection with the emotional s*** going on.”

{mosads}In a lengthy profile in GQ magazine’s November issue, the disgraced ex-congressman likens his penchant for exchanging X-rated text messages to playing video games.

Calling sexting “meaningless,” Weiner says, “It was almost like a video game you played. One that didn’t have much connection to reality.”

Weiner plummeted in the polls and ultimately lost September’s New York Democratic mayoral primary after revelations surfaced that he continued sexting with at least one woman following his resignation from Congress. 

He expresses remorse for the effect the naughty correspondence had on his wife, Huma Abedin.

“I realized, ‘Wait a minute. It’s not very significant to me. But it’s significant to Huma. It doesn’t really matter what I think about it. It kinda matters, the impact it’s having on her,’ ” Weiner says. 

“And that switch going off made the game no longer interesting. It wasn’t like playing Madden! It wasn’t like playing an online role-playing game.” 

A week after losing the primary with less than 5 percent of the vote, the 49-year-old former lawmaker says his wife had been “traumatized by this whole thing.”

He says of Abedin, “I duck it as best I can, but her reputation has become the Woman Who Married an Idiot and Stuck with Him. More of it rolls off my back because that’s the way I am constitutionally. She’s more sensitive. I’m just an empty, soulless vessel, so it doesn’t hurt me as much.”

Weiner, who resigned from the House in 2011, told GQ’s Marshall Sella ahead of his primary loss last month, “Congress just isn’t a good job anymore.”

Saying he was “okay at it,” Weiner continues, “But why? Because I was a good talker about stuff, a good arguer about stuff. Not to overstate, but I was a pretty important member of Congress because I’d figured out the outside game pretty well. But if someone goes to Congress for 30 or 40 years nowadays? They’re doin’ s***. They’re doin’ nothin.’ “

Weiner says for all his personal failings, he sees himself as a problem solver, “Maybe I don’t have the greatest connection with the emotional s*** going on, but when it comes to looking at a problem in the city and how to fix it, that’s where I’m at my best. That’s where I’m good.”