Emotional thinking

I sort of share your frustration. This time, for the first time, I got no votes for either my short story or my flash fiction, though I liked both pieces.

As for the issue of emotion, and take words from a double-loser for what they are worth, everything I read about writing fiction suggests that a story is most effective when the reader is emotionally engaged. I don't think you must yourself feel the emotions, but you can certainly write about emotions and people who react emotionally. You've seen those emotions even if you haven't felt them. Have your character go nutz

When I look back at my stories this time, I find that neither had much if any of an emotional hook in it, so they probably got the votes they deserved. None.

As a writer, you're also an observer - go people watching. What are the people around you feeling? How can you tell? What are they doing, physically, that give you clues to their emotions? These are the same clues you can give to your reader.

You go to a restaurant and see someone checking their watch, tapping their foot. Probably anxious. They keep looking at the door - are they waiting for someone?
You go to a department store and see a man sitting on a bench. He's staring at the floor... now he's staring at the ceiling. He's absorbed in his phone -maybe a cute game or social media post. He's bored out of his mind, so why's he there? Probably tagged along shopping with a girlfriend or family member.

Even watching TV or movies - what are the actors expressing? How are they expressing it?

Reading and writing fiction is not about airtight plot, or confounding plot twists that surprise and engage the reader - these things help, certainly, but don't make up for characters that are not emotionally engaging. David Mamet says Drama exists to entertain - to show us the minds of characters who are very much like us, that we can relate to, or characters who are nothing like us - that entertain us. To entertain your reader, they have to get connected. To write good fiction, you have to develop strong characters - characters that feel things.