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I refuse to believe this is normal and I have happily cut people out of my life for this. The most painful moment was when I had a close friend almost enjoy th

I refuse to believe this is normal and I have happily cut people out of my life for this. The most painful moment was when I had a close friend almost enjoy the fact my wife had a miscarriage. It was completely insensitive and made me realise that I have no interest in being friends with someone who is willing to compete on something so ridiculous.

neom 1y ago
I feel like I took a wrong turn somewhere such that I'm learning all this in my midlife. I genuinely believed the only place for "ruthless competition" was in sports and business, and in theory you know what you're signing up for. The past couple of years have been very eye opening to me, to learn people take such pleasure in such miserable things. (I also didn't know about this till recently: https://www.quora.com/What-are-fair-weather-friends https://www.quora.com/What-are-fair-weather-friends)
- borski 1y ago
  Yes. I, too, learned this the painful way. I had many friends, or so I thought. Then I got cut out of a volleyball friend group because I was too “intense” (aka talked about things that weren’t the weather) for them. Okay. That hurt a lot. Lots of thinking later, and I can now tell the difference between acquaintances and friends. There’s a simple test: acquaintances will be there when you want them to; friends will be there when you don’t want them to, but need them to anyway. An acquaintance would never do that.
- dwaltrip 1y ago
  There are a lot of hurting people out there, and often times people will take their pain out on others, even if they don't mean to. Learning to disengage or set firm boundaries in situations where that is happening is one of the most powerful and healthy things one can do.
borski 1y ago
It can both be normal (in that it’s common) and painful at the same time. And you can and should still absolutely cut them out of your life. Let them have each other. There’s a reason misery loves company.
jorvi 1y ago
It is normal in the sense of for example seeing your friend accidentally slap themselves in the face with a plank, or have forgot to flush right when they're lucky enough to take a girl home. It's called schadenfreude. Additionally, it is normal to accept derisive talk (= banter) from good friends. If a friend doesn't get a promotion, you can be very humoristically negative about it in way that would in no way be okay with a stranger. So yes, in those ways it is normal to enjoy watching your friends mess up, and it is normal to feel more at ease with it with friends rather than strangers. However, it is not normal to enjoy seeing your friends fail in life, at all. That goes way beyond schadenfreude and even narcissism, straight into sociopathy.

neom 1y ago

I feel like I took a wrong turn somewhere such that I'm learning all this in my midlife. I genuinely believed the only place for "ruthless competition" was in sports and business, and in theory you know what you're signing up for. The past couple of years have been very eye opening to me, to learn people take such pleasure in such miserable things. (I also didn't know about this till recently: https://www.quora.com/What-are-fair-weather-friends https://www.quora.com/What-are-fair-weather-friends)

borski 1y ago
Yes. I, too, learned this the painful way. I had many friends, or so I thought. Then I got cut out of a volleyball friend group because I was too “intense” (aka talked about things that weren’t the weather) for them. Okay. That hurt a lot. Lots of thinking later, and I can now tell the difference between acquaintances and friends. There’s a simple test: acquaintances will be there when you want them to; friends will be there when you don’t want them to, but need them to anyway. An acquaintance would never do that.
dwaltrip 1y ago
There are a lot of hurting people out there, and often times people will take their pain out on others, even if they don't mean to. Learning to disengage or set firm boundaries in situations where that is happening is one of the most powerful and healthy things one can do.

borski 1y ago

It can both be normal (in that it’s common) and painful at the same time. And you can and should still absolutely cut them out of your life. Let them have each other. There’s a reason misery loves company.

jorvi 1y ago

It is normal in the sense of for example seeing your friend accidentally slap themselves in the face with a plank, or have forgot to flush right when they're lucky enough to take a girl home. It's called schadenfreude. Additionally, it is normal to accept derisive talk (= banter) from good friends. If a friend doesn't get a promotion, you can be very humoristically negative about it in way that would in no way be okay with a stranger. So yes, in those ways it is normal to enjoy watching your friends mess up, and it is normal to feel more at ease with it with friends rather than strangers. However, it is not normal to enjoy seeing your friends fail in life, at all. That goes way beyond schadenfreude and even narcissism, straight into sociopathy.