(H) Pgs. 118-134 Clark: Sympathy in Everyday Life

This chapter reminds me of a girlfriend I have. For a very long time, I had so much sympathy for her and I was empathic about her situations and always willing to accomodate and help. It took me along time to realize that all she was doing was tugging at my heart strings and manipulating my sympathy flow forcing all loss of sympathy margin. Now she has little to none. She broke all sympathy etiquette by using false claims to make me feel sorry for her to lend her money, or to give her rides to and from wherever she needed to go. She went as far as saying her grandma died and she needed help with rent because she used the money to help her family pay for the funeral. She told me she would be losing her apartment if I didn’t lend her the money and her daughter and herself would be out on the streets. Another time she told me she needed a place to stay because her boyfriend hit her, but yet I later found out the truth that she cheated and he found out so she needed a place to stay until he could move out. I invested a lot of time into a friendship that was manipulated by lie after lie and I have never been able to understand the reasons behind why a person would behave in this manner. I can say now, she cashed in all her sympathy chips and she’s got nothing left. If her current boyfriend “hits her again,” she’ll be sleeping in her car with her daughter.