“Well, Obviously, I Could Never Possibly Relate…”

How to talk to people with a slightly-greater degree of empathy.

The title of this post is something I have heard probably 4,391 times from other guys re: infertility. It is a weird cross between “I am flexing on you to underscore that I don’t have this problem” and “I am trying my best to relate to you in this moment.” On good days, I lean (2). On bad days, I lean (1). In reality, for most guys, what they’re trying to accomplish is somewhere in the middle of (1) and (2).

There are a lot of problems in the world that are only experienced by a small subset of people, including “racism” and “infertility” and “my brother killed my mom.” In some of those situations, it’s harder to understand and empathize with the other side, and you come across kinda shallow most of the time — so, to avoid being shallow, you usually just ignore it altogether.

That also hurts, and makes the person struggling with ________ issue feel more alone.

One of my favorites in this canon is “I didn’t know what to say,” which is the response you get after you call someone out for not showing up for you.