I can’t say I can relate to “feeling empathy but no sympathy and show you no compassion.” But this could simply be just the difference in our personality and how we approach situations.

It’s not really a matter of how I think/feel/act myself but one I have observed in others … or, at least, have reasoned for myself after observation of/discussion with them.

I’ve encountered people who, as a result of their own experiences having led them to similar circumstances as others and managed to turn their lives around, at least claimed to be able to empathise with others who had not managed to do so … former alcoholics or drug users who, having been in rehab or found some other support or ‘way out’, understood how one could end up ruining one’s life … or abused women who had managed to escape their predicaments … but who, having ‘saved themselves’ with or without help … blamed themselves for allowing their circumstances to spiral out of control to begin with (whether rightly or wrongly) and had little to no sympathy for those who did not — people who felt either that being weak to begin with was understandable but that there was no excuse for not at least attempting to extricate oneself from one’s predicament … or else judged others as harshly as they judged themselves for having been weak themselves in the first place.

It kinda parallels the former smokers who lecture others on the ills of smoking — there’s none so devout as converts to a cause.

But they could still be compassionate insofar as some of them were inclined to recommend rehab or programmes to those they saw making the same mistakes rather than simply dismiss them as weak (although there are those people too ¹).

However, I’d like to point out that, to have “no sympathy, but nevertheless be compassionate and treat you less harshly than I would myself because I am not you” — is simply what I’d define as “respect”, because that’s treating someone as a human being.

Again, I’m not so sure it’s quite that … ‘simple’ isn’t what mean, but ‘uncomplex’ is horrible (if it’s even a word to begin with), but you get my drift.

I might be respectful of you by not ‘interfering’/’sticking my nose’ in ‘your business’ but, thereby show no compassion because I am allowing you to ruin your life rather than try to help because I feel no sympathy and observe, rather harshly, that, if you want to kill yourself then it’s your life, none of my business, not my concern and you’re on your own.

But am I thereby really treating you as a human being? My judgement, and consequent inaction, there strike me as rather callous … not terribly humane. Surely, I can be both respectful (by deeming you worthy of it in the first place) and compassionate … offer to help you out of your predicament without being judgemental.

So, again, I’d differentiate between respect and compassion in that instance, as I do between empathy, sympathy and compassion.

But my own take on it all at the end of the day is that don’t need to feel empathy or sympathy with you … or even to have any respect for you … to treat you with compassion — it’s something I can be without the need for any of the others because ‘there but for the grace of God’, as the saying goes, go I.

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¹ Converts to their own “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps”/”self-made (wo)man” cause, as it were.