Don’t Suffer For Me

In the busy cafeteria on the ground floor of his office, Tomás was having coffee with Rebeca. As he fiddled with the unopened sugar envelope, he told her about his situation:

—Today I have been informed: they are not renewing my contract. I’ll quit work at the end of the month.

“What a stick, Tomás!” You will be ruined.

“Well … On the one hand I was expecting it, and I also think it’s the push I need to find something in my specialty.” Deep down I didn’t like what he was doing …

“Yeah, I get it, but poor thing!” You must be having a terrible time. How bad it tastes to me …

Right at the next table, an endearing old man couldn’t help but listen to the conversation, while secretly scrutinizing Tomás’s expression.

-What are you going to do now? Asked Rebecca.

—Well, start looking, but calmly. I have time and I want to find something of my own.

“Ugh, you don’t know how sorry all this is …”

The conversation ended and Tomás left. Rebecca, who was waiting for a friend, stayed at the table, thoughtful and deeply affected. After a few moments, the old man addressed her:

“Worried about your partner?”

Rebecca was surprised by the question, but she could see a warm and welcoming look on the face of her interlocutor. He decided to answer:

“Well yes, the truth.” Poor Tomás is a wreck and he tastes awful to me …

He, with his retired professor appearance, dared to say to her:

“No, it isn’t, I assure you.” He’s not happy, but he’s not wrecked either. He takes it well, as he himself has recognized.

-Excuse me? Why do you say that? I have been talking to him for a long time and I assure him that he is having a terrible time. I am an empathic person, I know when others suffer or something happens to them.

“I don’t doubt it, but what is it that has given you that impression?”

“Well, in this case it’s obvious: How would you be in your circumstances?”

The old man smiled and calmly said:

“That’s the key: that I’m not him and how I would be doesn’t matter at all.”

Rebecca was puzzled. After being speechless for a few moments he said:

“Do you tell me?”

“Sure, and let me introduce myself: my name is Max and I’m an old customer of the place …

“I am Rebeca, Tomás’s companion.”

—You see, Rebecca, I have no doubt that you are an empathic person, but I am afraid that your empathy is not exactly what can help you to capture the feelings of others.

Rebeca, between nervous and annoyed, asked him:

“Can you be more clear?”

-I’ll try. You see, there is an empathy that allows us to capture what others feel. It is real empathy. And there is another empathy that what it does is project onto others what we would feel in their circumstances, assuming that they must be feeling the same. It is the projected empathy.

Rebecca was listening, but her face showed that she did not quite understand. Max asked him:

“Rebeca, are you afraid of losing your job?”

“It terrifies me.”

“Would you have a bad time if you lost it?”

“I would be devastated.”

“Well, I’m afraid this is what you’re attributing to Tomas, but it’s not what he feels.”

“And what leads you to believe it?”

“I had Tomas in front of me.” His gaze was serene, his face relaxed. He was telling you with his words, but most of all with his expression: he was not particularly concerned.

“You are very sure of that.”

-Completely. And I do not deny that from a distance, physically and personally, it is easier to grasp it.

Rebecca was beginning to get into Max’s reasoning, and she needed to understand him:

“But Max, when Tomas explained his situation to me, I put myself in his shoes, isn’t that pure empathy?”

“The problem is that you’ve put yourself in his shoes with your feelings, not his.” Empathy is capturing precisely what the other feels, not thinking that they feel what we would feel in a similar situation. That is pure projection. Putting oneself in the shoes of the other means capturing him by being him, not by being us.

Rebeca deeply connected with the idea. He realized immediately that he had done the same on a few occasions. He understood then that some attempts to help others had been unsuccessful because they did not affect what others really felt. As if he could read his mind, Max said:

“And of course, if we don’t accurately grasp what the other is feeling, we can’t really help him.” That’s the problem.

Now it was Rebecca who smiled. Convinced by the argument, she told Max:

“Max, our conversation has led me to a valuable discovery about my empathy.” Can I buy you breakfast?

“I’d love to, but I haven’t had anything.”

“Will you leave me next time?”

-Definitely.

Rebecca got up to go pay. He took the opportunity to ask José, the waiter:

“Do you know the old man at the table next to mine?”

José limited himself to answering him with another question:

“What old man?”

When Rebeca looked at the tables, there was no sign of anyone, not even that someone had occupied that chair perfectly attached to the table. He was walking with the feeling of having dreamed of that conversation when his cell phone rang; It was a message from Tomás: “Rebeca, I really do well. I have seen you very worried … “ .