+112 You can only sympathize to a point. For example, you might feel bad for an overweight person who had grown up with bad eating habits and is trying to change them, but you wouldn't feel very bad for an overweight person who smothered all their food with grease and cheese and says they can't lose weight. Everyone deserves encouragement and no one deserves to be ridiculed, but after a certain point they need a serious reality check, not sympathy, amirite?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

"tough love" wink

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Exactly. It is my firm belief that in most cases you are a better friend by making them upset with the truth than by sparing their feelings. Saying something to the effect of "Oh I know right? I don't know why you're fat either! You couldn't possibly do anything to improve this, so just love who you are!" or "no dude you're fine! Every man loves a curvy woman, you're healthy!" instead of "well dude, your diet is high in fat and carbs so you should probably stop that if you wanna lose weight and I'll even go on jogs with you if you want" might spare them temporarily, but it hurts them in the long run and it's not encouragement or unconditional love, it's enabling. This post has become about fat people. It wasn't supposed to be, I was using it as an example for how you don't always feel sorry for everyone in a bad situation.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I still feel bad about the whole situation part, but I don't justify the actions that led to the situation getting healthy with a friend is definitely a good idea support makes things a lot more doable I'd like to first say something about myself and then connect that to the person I don't know if that lessens the blow or not though or we could just start off with how concerned we are I just think that tough love can be hard to put into action depending on how close I am to the person but I definitely don't wanna give them wrong reassurances that make the situation even worse it defintely takes courage We kinda have to tailor our words to match the person's situation, personality, etc. which can take some time to figure out well worth the effort though

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Agreed. It's not gonna work if you just straight call them on their shit, I think it does help to relate it to something about yourself first. Everyone is different, sometimes you can't say those things to people because they're emotional, with them it's best to sympathize and be encouraging rather than point out what they're not doing right, some people appreciate blunt straight to the point truth, it just depends, there's a million different ways it could go. I still think it's best to be as honest as possible, even if it's suited to them, I think it's best to actually be helpful even if it will hurt rather than to tell them what they'd like to hear.

by Anonymous 11 years ago