Food for Thought

[deathpixie]

Back when I was fifteen going on sixteen, I spent a year in Japan as an exchange student. It was, to use the cliche, a life-changing experience.

One of the things that stuck with me most was a conversation I had with one of the American students, who had done her year and was about to go home just as I arrived. We'd met up for lunch and she was giving me various tips on how to survive the year and in the course of things, I started blurting out, as I had a tendency to do back then, the whole sorry story of being ostracised and picked on at high school.

She looked at me and asked, without any kind of ill-feeling: "Why did you tell me all that?"

I was a bit non-plussed. "So that you'd know what awful things had happened, I suppose," I replied. "So you'd sympathise."

"But," she said. "Which would you prefer? Someone to be your friend, or someone to feel sorry for you?"

I didn't have an answer straight away, and we went on to other topics. But that conversation has stuck with me, all this time. And it's slowly shaped how I relate to people and react to them. Sympathy and someone feeling sorry for you is good - it validates your suffering, means that you'll always have someone there when you feel bad. But it's not a basis for a friendship. There's an inequality built in right from the start, one person perceived as being weaker than the other.

What would you prefer? A friend, or someone who felt sorry for you? I know which one I prefer, as hard as it can be sometimes.

Comments

[trishalynn.livejournal.com]

Gyah! That's one of my therapy hot-button issues. I like it when people feel sorry for me, but I know so many kick-ass people whom I count as friends (yourself included) who won't put up with that shite. At the same time, living up to other peoples' expectations of you is hard, which causes (in me at least) more wailing, gnashing of teeth, and angst.

Stupid Catch-22.

[stratford-girl.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I've been beating myself up about that SO MUCH lately. That was totally me yesterday, actually, and very much regretting it now, but doesn't excuse the feelings in the first place. This is why I hate that I've been doing so much whining to people, because while yes it is nice to know that people sympathize, sympathy is NOT a foundation for a real friendship. I've said to Nic and Andrea many times 'yes, it will upset me but I'd rather you be honest with me instead of telling me what I want to hear.' I find it hard cuz I perceive myself as being weaker with everyone, but at the end of the day I always try to remind myself that I'm not going to get better or grow or learn or all that junk if people just tell me what I want to hear all the time. Of course, it doesn't help during the initial flare up of Irish temper to keep me from being a melodramatic banshee, but it's always in the back of my mind and lately I think I've been getting better at keeping the real friends vs sympathizers thing in my head to kep myself from doing irreparable damages to my relationships like I used to in the past.

[threnody.livejournal.com]

My life in school has had such a hand in shaping me that at some point when meeting new people, it HAS to come up. It just does. I wouldn't be me without those experiences.

But, I don't pour out whole sordid tales. I just refer to it as needed, say 'yeah, I had a hard time in school. Sucks' and move on. Which I think is the healthy way to look at the whole situation anyway. :)

[qodarkness.livejournal.com]

There's so many reasons I love you and this would be one of them :)

A

[alestar]

Hmmm. I'd caution you to keep in mind that the person who set up that dichotomy for you was a teenager.

I think the desire is to show somebody your bloody heart and the whole gnarly exposition of yourself is, in many cases, the desire to manipulate others' emotions in order to shape their actions. But sometimes it's a genuine appetite for human contact. My father once said that what most people in this world want more than anything is for someone to look them in the face while they talk about themselves. I think that's true-- and not because most people would sacrifice anything for allies & caretakers, even dignity, but because most people are hungry for connections. IE, they are lonely.

[dumbphilomel.livejournal.com]

I think the truth is somewher in the middle--if someone doesn't know much about you, about the experiences that shaped you or were important to you, they likely won't understand you well beyond the superficial. At the same time, while you can sympathize with your friends, and you should--it should be give and take, I think. Not about one person telling and the other person listening (there's a weird control dynamic there, from both ends). It should be about being interested in each other's lives, not just one person telling and the other person listening. Not every exchange, but througout the friendship, you know? Which is all just to say I'm really agreeing ith alestar, above :-)