True or false?

Sympathy is an emotional affinity in which whatever affects one correspondingly affects the other, and its synonym is pity. The Greek translation of the word sympatheia, is to suffer together also. The true meaning of this word was manifested in a wholly opportunistic moment from some friends of my mine who seem to share my sob stories. Initially it really felt good though the magnitude of the anecdotes was apprehensive. In hindsight it seemed like a desperate attempt to recuperate to my own dysfunctional ties.


Empathy on the other hand refers to the ability to perceive and directly experientially feel another person's emotions as they feel them, but makes no statement as to how they are viewed. Sympathy, by contrast, implies a degree of equal feeling, that is, the sympathizer views the matter similarly to how the person themselves does. It thus implies concern, or care or a wish to alleviate negative feelings others are experiencing.


I heard a few sob stories in the past few weeks from some friends and temps. The aspiration was to invoke the above two emotions and it did. When you talk to people of the darker side of your life you pretty much create a bond of trust and the listener does feel special. It is a sounding board, an outlet to express pent up emotions. But the strangest thing happened when I heard the sob stories told to me had been around to a lot of people’s ears. It made me feel used. It was because that specialness of being an agony aunt wasn’t that special after all. It made me feel like I was just there and then, an object to talk to!


You are bound to do such deep analysis to make people feel you understand the magnitude of their dark experiences, but only to realize that it ain’t worth it. I am not using this platform to criticize some somebody exponentially. For me personally it talks about a person’s loneliness. The reason why people talk about their dark phases is to find about what exactly the other person has gone through. I myself have felt so lonely even while in a party talking a wholla lot of people. You try to compensate it with personalized experiences. I had this done to me when I heard about a friend who told his/her story to whole a lot of people, I sort of felt they told me their experiences because they sort of felt a connection with me but it seemed more like a desperate attempt to be accepted more than anything else. More than anything else I felt pity for them. It seemed like an outcry to be heard more than anything else, or a desperate attempt to be accepted.

Empathy and sympathy seem to be the two most exploited values in establishing a relationship. It seems like a lot of people take it for granted that these are the two attributes in establishing and sustaining a relationship. It seems shallow that people do so. As humans is it a necessity for us to connect on an emotional level as such? At the risk of sounding maimed in the head ‘keep it simple, silly!’

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.