Ryan, you would drive me nuts. I’m an emotionally mature adult. I do not need or want people’s empathy. Your friend has it right. It is polite to pass things around the table, because people sitting at the opposite ends of the table cannot reach the other side of the table. And I most certainly wouldn’t want food from your plate.

That’s not empathy. That’s simply the way you were socialized. You believe that what you’re doing is what people want. From long experience, the people who have been the least helpful to me in life (and the most irritating) are those who think I need their compassion, sympathy, empathy, in order to feel better. No, I actually needed their money to get out of the situation I was in. I either want practical help or just get out of the way.

I also understand that there are a lot of people these days with a victim mentality. They desperately want acknowledgement and attention from others. So they totally love people with empathy and compassion. I cannot relate to that.

For much of my life, I would draw hope from people who empathasized with me. In my mid-40s, I realized that these people were all talk and no action. They were all about telling me everything was going to be okay when nothing had ever been okay. Since then, forgive me, but I have developed an aversion to people who ‘feel my pain.’

Ryan, some people have emotional needs. Not everybody. Generally people who are emotionally mature can stand on their own two feet emotionally. That is what emotional maturity is. Most people today never arrive at emotional maturity. They don’t have the hardiness. This is not a good thing. Of course, I fully understand that if someone has just lost a loved one, they feel deep dispair, and I can certainly relate to some of their pain, and I can understand some of what they are going through. But saying to someone like that, “I understand what you are going through,” is not helpful.

The best one can do is the conventional “I’m sorry for your loss.” The next best thing we can do is wash their dishes, bring them food, etc. These are logical actions. One doesn’t have to be an empath in order to do them. And that is my argument. Doing good things (benevolence is comprised of ethical acts) has nothing to do with empathy.