Pity friendships: a different perspective

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Narcissistic personality disorder immediately sprang to mind.

You just want someone in your life who you feel is beneath you so you can feel better about yourself.

But then I just grew bored of reading after this.

I didn't say I am pitying her. I said she is pitying me. In other words, I am beneath her, and she is the one giving me some crumbs.

Are we reading the same thread? I find your perspective weird. Somebody wants to be your freind, and the first thing you think of is 'how can i screw with this person? That's what it looks like to me...

Last edited by theprisoner on 19 Dec 2021, 1:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Yes we are.

Just quote the parts you are confused about, I will clarify.

If you think I said I was doing her a favor by condescending to speak to her, please quote where I said it.

The only thing that I can find that can be construed that way is the term "pity friend". But it has two meanings:

a) Her pitying me

b) Me pitying her

I meant to say "a", you interpretted it as "b". Which makes sense since "pity friend" can mean either of these things.

Well, now I clarified its an "a".

So what you are saying is that because she is pitying you you want her to stick around so you can play games, ignore her and continue to shoot her down?

You did say that. If that is not what you meant then do need to clarify things or let us know why it is OK to treat someone like this.

If you read the entirity of the OP, you will find that she only wanted to be my friend after I threw temper tantrums about not having any friends. Up until then she never talked or acknowledged me. Thats why I am calling her "pity friend".

As far as "how can I screw with that person", the only thing I did was to ignore her facebook messages. Now, looking at how many people ignore my facebook messages, I don't think I did nearly enough to even the scores. Since ignoring messages is apparently considered normal, you can't exactly classify it as "screwing with someone".

Well, I guess you would say "if you did something normal that everyone does, why did you go on to write walls of text about it?" Well, for the same reason a homeless person would write walls of text about being offered some crumbs. In other words

a) It is no big deal that someone talks to you. But it is a big deal to me since nobody else gets to talk to me

b) It is no big deal if you ignore someone's messages. But it is a big deal to me, since I didn't get to do it with anyone else.

So, to make long story short, I did two things that most people do multiple times on a daily basis. But since I don't get to do those things the way most people do, thats why I made such a big deal over the fact that I finally did them.

So you're taking all the frustrations you have with the whole population out on this one person just because she happened to show you some pity.

Yes. But if you read what most people said in response to my post, they also said they won't accept pity friend. So in terms of my *actions* I don't see how they are any different from what most others said they would do.

The only difference is that they wouldn't come over to WrongPlanet to talk about it and I did. But thats only because I have no friends and so any friend -- even pity friend -- is enough to get my attention to write those walls of text.

As far as "playing games", from outside perspective ignoring facebook messages is not "games", especially since lots of people ignore my facebook messages. I guess what makes it different is that she sent me multiple facebook messages in a row. But that would be on her not on me. And again I am not saying she is desperate. I am saying she is pitying me. So she sent me multiple messages in a row out of pity. Thats why I don't think I hurt her by ignoring them. But it feels good nonetheless.

Okay, answer yes or no: do you think its rude to ignore facebook messages?

If the answer is "yes", why do everyone ignore my messages?

If the answer is "no", then what exactly am I doing wrong by ignoring hers?

Don't ever have a 'pity' friendship. Everyone is worthwhile in their own way. Just be up front to a person about their perceived flaws from your perspective & if they don't want to analyse their own flaws, or be accomodating of you by being more like how you want, then don't bother with them.

Friendships that are equal, are about two people changing themselves as much as they can to accomodate one another. That includes changing yourself for another person, when being their friend.

If you just have someone changing themselves endlelssly to accomodate you, the other person will become exhausted & that's not good.

Again you are misunderstanding what I meant by "pity friendship". I didn't mean "I pity her". I meant "she pities me". So then telling *me* that "everyone is worthwhile in their own way" won't logically change the situation.



Its not about "her" flaws. Its about "her opinion of me". If she hasn't spoken to me up until I threw those tantrums and then she started contacting me after that, then she does it out of pity. Thats what I meant by saying she is a "pity friend" of mine. I am sure she might be a great person, but unfortunately her opinion of me is probably not that great.

I don't know what goes on with FB because I don't use it. If I was being ignored then I would move on. I certainly wouldn't pass my frustration on to someone who showed me a bit of pity.

You're asking me a silly question. I don't know why people are ignoring you but I would expect it's got something to do with the fact that they don't want to talk to you and they want you to stop messaging them. You are ignoring this pity friend because you believe it gives you some kind of power over her and it makes you feel good. That is what you have said.

So just tell her you don't want to be friends/talk to her anymore.

Are we here supposed to feel sorry for you when you react to someone trying to be your friend by being a jerk to that person?

You did specifically say you hope she sticks around so you can keep shooting her down, and you don't see anything wrong with that?

I don't want to tell her that because it gives me a sense of validation when she keeps trying to contact me.

Now I realize that, as Fireblossom has pointed out, she might be contacting me simply because she thinks I would hurt someone if she doesn't. But since that is only a guess and not a fact, I can still hope for the alternative where its not the case and feel validated.

At the same time actually replying to her messages won't feel validating. Why? Because it is a pity friendship. There is nothing validating about being offered some crumbs. But the act of ignoring her is what will make it more validating.

Now don't get me wrong: this validation is quite small and I still feel lonely and miserable. What I wish could happen is for me to have a real friend and not a pity friend. THEN I would fully engage in that friendship. But that real friend won't be her. And since I don't get any attention from people other than her, thats why I am sitting here dwelling on that "pity friendship validation", since I have nothing else to validate myself with.



I just don't think she would be hurt by my behavior. Because she doens't like me anyway, she just pities me. It makes me feel validated on my end (due to some wishful thinking) but I don't think it would hurt her one bit on her end.

Besides, what is it you want me to do? Most people who responded to this thread said they wouldn't take pity friend. So in terms of my actions I did exact same thing they recommend. The only difference is that I wrote walls of text about it. Well, since she is not using WrongPlanet, I don't see how writing walls of text would make any difference. Fact remains: most people here said they wouldn't accept pity friend, and neither did I.

So you're getting validation from treating someone very bad who doesn't care about you anyway.

Jog on joker.

Well, based on what you just said, other people hurt me more than I hurt her. Because other people genuinely dislike me while I am just making a theater of disliking her to get some validation. Well, being genuinely disliked hurts more.