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Comment by e40 | Hacker News Reader

I’m curious about how this came out and what the fallout was. If you feel like sharing.

I'm going through a really really difficult time right now, 3 major areas of my life have broken down simultaneously over the past five months. I was ranting to this guy I've known for years about it (who is very successful but was once jr to me at work) - I would have called him a "good friend" - he was drunk and giggled out something along the lines of "makes me feel strong" - I reacted as you would expect "uh.. really?". We got into a bit, and talked it out (he basically explained it was normal, hence I then went to research if that is true or not), I can see where it sits in his personality now, and I don't think he and I will be friends anymore.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

> he basically explained it was normal

I think this is just him trying to justify it.

I don't agree with the other commenters here. I used to be the same way, I'd be happy for my friends when they got a win, but I wouldn't be happy about it, because I saw it as a zero-sum game, where someone else winning meant I was somehow losing, or wasn't good enough.

One day, a friend told me about how a founder he knew had raised a round, and I said something like "damn, it's always everyone else" and my friend went "why not just be happy for them? It's not like they're hurting you".

That's when I realized that yes, I could just be happy for them, and that they indeed didn't hurt me, and that I could just be making this an overall happier event by being happy.

Since then, I'm genuinely happy when anyone wins, to the point where I'll complain to people about something that happens to me, they'll say "well if it makes you feel better, that happened to me too", and my response is "why would it make me feel better that my friend also had this bad thing happen to them?", which gets some puzzled "you're right" responses.

I think it is widespread that people feel like this, hence the "if it makes you feel better" response. I think if your friend understands that this isn't a great way to feel, it'll all be OK.

> "why would it make me feel better that my friend also had this bad thing happen to them?"

Sometimes people feel alone in their failures. Knowing that something similar has happened to others can help the person feel less alone.

I like to bring up a similar anecdote to the faux pas that just happened. For example, a friend taking a wrong turn, adding time to the ride and making the party somewhat late. It halted the conversation in the car, and to ease the tension I pointed out how I "do that at least once per every drive to X" to try to make the driver less self-conscious and so the other passengers aren't sitting in awkward silence.

I appreciate the response. Some good conversation resulted. I hope times are better for you now.

It is normal if you are a petty person. There is a saying in Spanish that goes along "a thief always thinks everyone is a thief" that clearly depicts this kind of people.

Cognition is a mirror

In US policts we say "every accusation is a confession".

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