There’s this thing I see *a lot* in fiction. And I feel like I see it around in Tumblr. And an intellectual part of me gets it, but not a big enough part.
Pity is treated like one of the worst things someone can feel for another. I kind of get it. But also I don’t. In many ways, pity is used to describe the act of someone else feeling sorry for another out of a sense of compassion. The definition even suggests this to be the case.
It’s used as tho someone feeling pity for another means that the person feeling that pity thinks the other weak and helpless. But I don’t get that? Bad things happen to the strongest of people. Even the strongest of people feel hurt and pain and sorrow. I don’t understand that someone feeling sympathy about this and pitying that situation is a bad thing.
I understand if that’s something someone sees everywhere they look that it’s bad. I even get if someone who you don’t feel close to you shows pity unwarranted.
But even in the cases where someone is showing vulnerability to another, it that other person shows pity, it’s treated like a bad thing. Maybe I understand the cultural use of it wrong. The pure definition just doesn’t sound bad but it definitely has a negative connotation.
There seems to be a feeling of patronizing attached to it. But I don’t see why pity had to be inherently patronizing. Someone being actually patronizing seems almost to still be preferrable to pity.
I don’t want anyone only ever looking at me with pity, but if I talk to someone about say this shit with my dad relapsing and they pity me for my situation, I’m inclined to feel comfort in the fact that they understand that it’s an emotional situation and care enough about me to, at least for a moment, share a feeling of compassion.
I just, feel like I’m missing something I guess. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Thoughtfulfangirling 