Schadenfreude. It's the German word for feeling pleasure at someone else's misfortune. And approprietely enough, it's the exact word that I would use to describe a recent phone call I had with my friend Maria, when she started talking about the people in our past.
"Dont tell anyone I'm telling you this...but David...Brenda is huge! She's gained a lot of weight. A lot. I used to think she was so pretty, and she was, remember? But now, Isabel says she's like a blob. A blob with beautiful hair."
and...
"Well, since Skye's birthday is coming up, Isabel wants to throw him a very special, very fabulous, and very chic party at Brenda's house. I never thought of Brenda's house as the place to be, but still, I told them you'd be my date."
There she was, talking about the past and the future, when all I wanted to do was talk about the present. I had called to ask how her finals had been and what she had been up to, not "who wore what?" and "who's a slut?". Not that I dont like a good juicy piece of gossip every once in a while, but that day, all I wanted to do was just talk to my friend about themselves. All Maria wanted to do was talk about everyone else but herself.
"Yeah...I dont think I'm gonna go. I dont wanna get...involved...with them, again," refering to the turbulant and destructive friendships that (I thought) we both shared and experienced with Brenda, Skye, and Isabel in the past. "Just seeing them again will reopen all those memories, you know?"
"What about what you said in Italy?" Maria said. "About, when bad things happen to friends, the good ones support each other but the great ones act as if nothing has happened?"
I knew what she was talking about. It was early Sunday morning and Maria and I were scheduled to appear, along with thousands of other travelers, before the Pope for Easter Sunday Mass. Just as we were about to leave, Maria asked me if I had taken 20 euros from her camera bag. I didnt, but Maria refused to believe me. I had no idea what she had done with her money and didnt even know where she kept it, but Maris insisted that I had taken it, since I was the only one in the room with her. I felt betrayed. Especially since my only friend in Italy would rather believe I was a liar and a theif who would take a measley 20 euro, then believe that I wouldnt. I had no proof I didnt take Maria's money, but I had hoped our years of friendship would be enough evidence to prove my innocence. It was upsetting and it made my very first visit with the Pope, a very disappointing one.
After surviving hours of cold wind and hard rain (or was it cold rain and hard wind?) we made our silent way back to the hotel, to discover an envelope from the maid, propped up on the goose feather pillows. Inside was a folded up 20 euro bill, the same bill that Maria had lost. I was relieved and angry at the same time. I couldnt even talk to Maria, or look at her for that matter. My head wanted me to say, "I'm so glad you found your money, because you just lost a friend," but my heart wouldnt let me, because I didnt want to say something I could never take back. We spent the rest of that rainy Sunday afternoon in complete solitude. Me in the plush, art deco lobby with a book and her in our hotel room with guilt. The next day, after the grey skies cleared, both literally and figuratively, Maria tried to bring up the subject once more, but I pretended to not know what she was talking about. That's when I said those famous last words: "The way I see it is good friends support each other after something bad has happened. Great friends act as if nothing happened."
And here she was, a couple months later, trying to use my words against me! But it made me think. If what I said was true, then maybe those people werent really my great friends. So why be around them? I then explained, that another reason I couldnt attend Skye's very special, very fabulous, very chic birthday party was because I would most likely be spending the month of June in New York. True story. Some family friends of ours have invited me to spend a month with them and their family and seriously, could I refuse such a generous offer?
"Seriously? David didnt you just come back from Italy?" Maria asked.
"Yeah..."
"And didnt you go to Kanye West's concert last month?"
"So?"
"Where are you getting all this money that you can just up and leave and go to different cities and concerts every couple of months?"
"Well, I'm learning how to save, for one thing. And I dont just get up and...
"Dont you know the country's going through a recession? Do you even know what that means? I'll tell you what it means. (Don't you just hate it, when people ask you a question they already have the answer to?) It means people arent making as much money as they should be and they should be saving it because they could be going poor in a couple of months. You're extravagant lifestyle is making people upset because you're making them think they need to spend money to have fun. This is why we need a woman president!"
Did I mention that Maria is over-the-moon gay for Hilary? And, of course, obviously, insane. I sat there, stunned, not knowing quite what to say. There are some notoriously bad things happening in the world. War, poverty, and starvation spring to mind, but I didnt think my "extravagant lifestyle" was one of them. Come to think of it, I didnt even think/know I had an extravagant lifestyle. (Of course, as I write this, I'm on my way to San Diego for the weekend, while my younger brother Caleb is on a plane across the Atlantic, headed to Europe with his senior class) But seriously, who are all these people I'm upsetting? If they only knew I have about $75 in my bank account and a $200-something phone bill on my desk. It's not living extravagantly. It's called living in my twenties, beyond my meager means and enjoying the present to the fullest.
What's the German word for feeling misfortune at someone else's pleasure?
"Dont tell anyone I'm telling you this...but David...Brenda is huge! She's gained a lot of weight. A lot. I used to think she was so pretty, and she was, remember? But now, Isabel says she's like a blob. A blob with beautiful hair."
and...
"Well, since Skye's birthday is coming up, Isabel wants to throw him a very special, very fabulous, and very chic party at Brenda's house. I never thought of Brenda's house as the place to be, but still, I told them you'd be my date."
There she was, talking about the past and the future, when all I wanted to do was talk about the present. I had called to ask how her finals had been and what she had been up to, not "who wore what?" and "who's a slut?". Not that I dont like a good juicy piece of gossip every once in a while, but that day, all I wanted to do was just talk to my friend about themselves. All Maria wanted to do was talk about everyone else but herself.
"Yeah...I dont think I'm gonna go. I dont wanna get...involved...with them, again," refering to the turbulant and destructive friendships that (I thought) we both shared and experienced with Brenda, Skye, and Isabel in the past. "Just seeing them again will reopen all those memories, you know?"
"What about what you said in Italy?" Maria said. "About, when bad things happen to friends, the good ones support each other but the great ones act as if nothing has happened?"
I knew what she was talking about. It was early Sunday morning and Maria and I were scheduled to appear, along with thousands of other travelers, before the Pope for Easter Sunday Mass. Just as we were about to leave, Maria asked me if I had taken 20 euros from her camera bag. I didnt, but Maria refused to believe me. I had no idea what she had done with her money and didnt even know where she kept it, but Maris insisted that I had taken it, since I was the only one in the room with her. I felt betrayed. Especially since my only friend in Italy would rather believe I was a liar and a theif who would take a measley 20 euro, then believe that I wouldnt. I had no proof I didnt take Maria's money, but I had hoped our years of friendship would be enough evidence to prove my innocence. It was upsetting and it made my very first visit with the Pope, a very disappointing one.
After surviving hours of cold wind and hard rain (or was it cold rain and hard wind?) we made our silent way back to the hotel, to discover an envelope from the maid, propped up on the goose feather pillows. Inside was a folded up 20 euro bill, the same bill that Maria had lost. I was relieved and angry at the same time. I couldnt even talk to Maria, or look at her for that matter. My head wanted me to say, "I'm so glad you found your money, because you just lost a friend," but my heart wouldnt let me, because I didnt want to say something I could never take back. We spent the rest of that rainy Sunday afternoon in complete solitude. Me in the plush, art deco lobby with a book and her in our hotel room with guilt. The next day, after the grey skies cleared, both literally and figuratively, Maria tried to bring up the subject once more, but I pretended to not know what she was talking about. That's when I said those famous last words: "The way I see it is good friends support each other after something bad has happened. Great friends act as if nothing happened."
And here she was, a couple months later, trying to use my words against me! But it made me think. If what I said was true, then maybe those people werent really my great friends. So why be around them? I then explained, that another reason I couldnt attend Skye's very special, very fabulous, very chic birthday party was because I would most likely be spending the month of June in New York. True story. Some family friends of ours have invited me to spend a month with them and their family and seriously, could I refuse such a generous offer?
"Seriously? David didnt you just come back from Italy?" Maria asked.
"Yeah..."
"And didnt you go to Kanye West's concert last month?"
"So?"
"Where are you getting all this money that you can just up and leave and go to different cities and concerts every couple of months?"
"Well, I'm learning how to save, for one thing. And I dont just get up and...
"Dont you know the country's going through a recession? Do you even know what that means? I'll tell you what it means. (Don't you just hate it, when people ask you a question they already have the answer to?) It means people arent making as much money as they should be and they should be saving it because they could be going poor in a couple of months. You're extravagant lifestyle is making people upset because you're making them think they need to spend money to have fun. This is why we need a woman president!"
Did I mention that Maria is over-the-moon gay for Hilary? And, of course, obviously, insane. I sat there, stunned, not knowing quite what to say. There are some notoriously bad things happening in the world. War, poverty, and starvation spring to mind, but I didnt think my "extravagant lifestyle" was one of them. Come to think of it, I didnt even think/know I had an extravagant lifestyle. (Of course, as I write this, I'm on my way to San Diego for the weekend, while my younger brother Caleb is on a plane across the Atlantic, headed to Europe with his senior class) But seriously, who are all these people I'm upsetting? If they only knew I have about $75 in my bank account and a $200-something phone bill on my desk. It's not living extravagantly. It's called living in my twenties, beyond my meager means and enjoying the present to the fullest.
What's the German word for feeling misfortune at someone else's pleasure?
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