Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Empathy vs. Sympathy

“I did not know how to reach him, how to catch up with him... The land of tears is so mysterious.” 

Yes, the land of tears is mysterious, whoever you are.  The land of tears is mysterious.  If you do not believe that ancient idea, consider one more current ...


“The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.” 

Take that, millennials. That's the difference between sympathy and empathy.  Most of you probably don't know.  You can sympathize with someone with whom you have not shared similar experiences, but you can only empathize with someone with whom you have shared similar experiences with.  And, therein lies the problem - at least as it is with this.

Most of you cannot empathize with me because you have either (a) been with someone for several years or (2) had a relationship with someone over the past five years.  If neither of those circumstances apply to you, then you can only sympathize.  It's simple fact.

And so, telling me to "grin and bear it" or find some other outlet for my grief is nice, it does nothing for the overall issue at hand.  
The other one who said "how come you think that people who live in a relationship have a) found the partner of their dreams, b) are not lonely, and c) haven't given up? Go figure."

Apparently, my struggles are nothing compared to people who have supposedly found their soul mate, and I'm supposed to belive that my loneliness is nothing compared to theirs.  Go figure.
Well, yeah - so, go fuck yourself "go figure."  In plain English.


2 comments:

Christina said...

As I see it, you must face your sorrow and your anger about having been dumped by two very important people in the past. Judging from the above post, there is A LOT of anger inside of you, which is absolutely understandable. It just moves me to see how a childhood trauma not taken care of can ruin a whole man's love life.

Anthony said...

I have faced it. Isn't that what I wrote about? And, I've been dumped by more than two people in my life. It's more like a half dozen, but who counts?
I'm not sure which "childhood trauma" you are referring to, although there are many. That isn't what has ruined my love life, in case you're wondering.

And by the way, who are you?