Oh, this is rich. I mean, you just can’t make this shit up. The absolute worst, most heinous, debilitatingly annoying person you know just came out as an empath. That’s convenient. That’s REAL convenient.
It’s funny how the worst person you know is always claiming to be highly attuned to the emotions of others when you have to beg them for even a shred of human decency in most interactions. I feel like if you’ve ever opted out of doing your own dishes in a shared living space because you “don’t have the emotional energy right now” you’re halfway towards the empath identity. It seems like a prerequisite for calling yourself an empath is making someone cry at their own birthday party. Once, my empath roommate let me go like, four hours without telling me I had spinach in my teeth. I know she saw it. Everyone saw it. Everyone saw it and now everyone thinks I’m an idiot who can’t floss. I DO floss. I do.
Every empath I’ve ever met has cried when I ask them to perform a basic task required by their end of an unspoken, and often SPOKEN social contract. Funny how they’re always your roommates, isn’t it? I got a CT scan after I fell out of that tree that one time and the doctor told me I have some sort of barely visible gravitational pull that invites people who want attention and to be thought of as emotionally intelligent. I was like, “Is it serious?” and she was like, “Yes.”
If you’re an empath, is that why you can’t get your filthy, chilli encrusted bowls out of the sink? Or is that something else? Empaths are defined as “emotional sponges,” which is funny, because I’ve never seen you use an actual sponge to clean your Trader Joe’s palak paneer off of our COMMUNAL microwave in your damn life. I just think it’s funny.
Reflecting on our relationship now, it makes perfect sense. Like how you were always offering to share your clothes with me once I “lost all the weight” or how you just didn’t have the emotional strength to clean the toilet bowl, ever. Do you think I have the emotional strength to do anything? No, I’m a nightmare. Remember the tree thing? A nightmare.
As an act of defiance, I am coming out as the opposite of an empath. I am now an emotional void, and I will consume all your excess emotions so you finally have to wash your own coffee mugs and move your shoes from the middle of the floor without claiming I’m “giving you a panic attack and ruining the flow of your emotional arc.” At risk of sounding like a terrible person, I would simply love to ruin the flow of your emotional arc. I would relish it. And if that makes me an empath, well, I accept my fate as the worst person in any room.
