The intrigues of my empathy

Simran was on TV, and though I didn’t watch the entire movie, I was intrigued enough to read up about Sandeep Kaur – the Bombshell Bandit, whose life it is vaguely based on. A tragic story of a 24 year old, who will most likely be unable to live what one might call a normal life. Did she make wrong choices? Of course, but in her shoes, things might not be as simple as that.

D said recently that my sense of empathy confuses her. Apparently, from what she has noticed, it is high when the interactions are transactional in nature – Uber drivers, hotel/restaurant/security staff and such. However, it is completely missing in action in places where she expects it, say close relatives.

I have to admit, it used to confuse me too! But when I thought about it, there is a pattern to it, though a rather strange one. It follows a U shape – high for people I don’t know, as well as those whom I am really comfortable with, and low for people in between. The bottom of the U is occupied by those who have broken my trust in some way.

These could either be people I didn’t know, tried to help and who exploited my trust, or people who were formerly in my close circle. Our former ironing guy is a classic example of the first. Loaned him money, he vanished for quite a while, came back with a sob story, repeated the process twice more, and is now off our list. In the second case, it is my judgment that causes the slip – judgment on their decision making, their values, how they behave with me, how they behave with others, sense of fairness and so on. Over a period of time, I stop trying to walk in their shoes. In both cases, trust is my currency. I try communication once or twice if it gets broken, and then I switch off. Completely. Yeah, I know! Maybe it’s my defense mechanism against unnecessary pain.

Farnam Street has an excellent long read, whose url title I like more than the actual article title. It draws out the differences between emotional and cognitive empathy. I think I possess the latter, and also believe what the article ends with – we will be better served by improving our ability to reason rather than leveraging our ability to empathize. The reasoning gives me criteria based on which I decide who deserves empathy. Is that a good thing? It has its ayes and it has its nays, but that’s a story for another day.