Edit: This is going to get philosophical Is Pity the opposite of Love? I played an rp game this weekend based on intimacy. It had a bunch of interesting mechanics but the one that stuck with me was Love vs Pity. After each scene, the giving player decided whether they loved or pitied the asking character more based on what had happened (you had to assign a point of either one.) The points in love ended up representing how close your character felt toward the other one. I realized that pity is kind of the opposite of love, maybe even more then hatred when it comes to fostering a relationship. That doesn't seem to make much sense but it feels true based on my experiences. Relationships that are based on pity fall apart. Pity is pretty toxic to friendships as a main motivator. Is it because pity is all tied up with guilt in a way that sympathy never is? Also that Pity and Sympathy should mean exactly the same thing except they don't. What do you guys think? Is there major differences? Is pity toxic for a healthy relationship? Has anyone had run ins with people who seek it out specifically? I'm thinking that pity might be emotional labor that starts off as altruism but ends up being based on guilt. I wasn't sure where to put this thread so move it accordingly.
Thats an interesting take on it! I know my moms relationships tend to have all been pity based because shes a fixer. She sees someone whos " broken" or " unloveable" and shes gotta help them, for self validation. Its a big part of codependancy, i think. Can confirm it edit:CAN lead to some pretty toxic relationships.
I think itd also depend on how you define love as well, come to think of it. There's lot of definitions to love.
Oh man, I used to do the fixer thing when I was younger because control issues. I don't know how anyone can stand it for very long though, the person isn't going to change and the fixer will just get upset and frustrated that their efforts aren't working. Relationships are hard in general, it seems easyish to end up with a friendship based around pity even if it didn't start off that was.
Not really, no. I don't really have an opposite to love as I just can't think of a good one that doesn't come off as too simplistic to me. Especially not when I have like...multiple kinds of love that I recognize. Some are passionate. Others are expressly dispassionate. Pity's its own weird little thing that might intermingle with love or hate or other feelings entirely. But then this is an entirely personal matter based on like arbitrary thought things about emotions. So pity is thus both the opposite and not the opposite of love.
That's a tough one, love is feeling...close to a person? Being able to sharenjoy things with a minimal amount of guilt and fear, wanting to do nice things for them (again without guilt or obligation), wanting them to be happy. But that's just how I see it.
@Aondeug interesting! Could you possibly explain dispassionate love? It's not something I've experienced. Edit: Pity is difficult, maybe it's being beholden to someone because they rely on you for support and not out love or feelings of intimacy. Is it...one sided intimacy?
The sort of love I'm referring to when I use the term is typically "metta". Which is what is often translated into English as "loving-kindness". Metta is a sort of emotionally detached and entirely unbiased and unconditional love for all living beings. It is the want to see those being well, happy, and healthy. Not because you like them or really even feel emotions for them at all, but because that is the right thing and you know that pain, if unwanted, is really super shit. There's also no real closeness in this sort of love, save perhaps in that fashion that you understand that all living beings share the exact same lot in life. So the closeness would be more in the line of coming to accept that you have no actual self to speak and that neither does anyone else, but that doesn't mean that right here, right not in this phenomenal existence that suffering isn't terrible. Because it still is terrible. On a more confusing note, if I am talking about the concept of love from a Buddhist perspective this tends to be what I am referring to. Especially if the word true is before it. True because it is Enlightened and perfect, and thus without end or change. Because Buddhism is really fucking picky about what it declares true and real.
Id put forth pity isnt involved with support but instead enabling, because pity is less like love and more like a power game i think. Except a lot of the time the pityer doesnt know they have power. Love can be supporting someone, and support doesnt mean them getting to keep doing the thing it just means help getting somewhere healthier
That makes me think about how I really despise pity directed at me. I kind of hate pity in general. It's very insulting to me. For me that being a matter of HOW DARE YOU I AM BIG AND STRONG AND TOUGH FUCK YOU. I don't feel that pity is inherently awful though. I just personally tend to loathe it.
pity and love together always just makes me think of homestuck, with moiralliegance and matespriteship. i am not sure how closely those quadrants actually are to the human concept of pity or love for that matter, but i would not be surprised if i, in a quadranty mood, ended up using the word "pity" in the homestuck sense about someone i love or about how the characters i ship feel about each other. this doesn't have anything to do with what pity and love mean or whether they are the same or whatever, but is the main thing i associate with both these words together.
