Misery loves company

I have no idea who said that. I have no idea where I heard it. And I most certainly have no idea why people keep saying it.

It's one of the biggest lies that I've ever heard -- not far behind "I promise this will only hurt for a second" and "I want to be friends."

Let's just think about this for a second. Misery doesn't love company. Miserable people don't love company. Misery loves distraction!

Logically: Do depressed people like being around other depressed people? (I mean, maybe, but that's not because of company, that's because depressed people don't make you work through depression, they enable you to stay depressed.) With the possible exception of funerals, do you want to cry with someone, or do you want someone whose shoulder you can cry on?

I know I can only speak with absolute certainty on behalf of a small population whose numbers are equal to the person typing this right now, but I know that when I'm down, the last thing I want is to hear about my friends' problems, too. In fact, if you tell me about your problems, I'll probably just feel guilty that I'm in a place that I am too self-absorbed to help you through your troubles. If you try and have your misery give my misery a companion, my misery gets joined by my guilt. And I don't have enough chairs for misery and guilt to sit at the table together. (Especially when my bad metaphors are taking up 3 or 4 chairs of their own.)

What does my misery want? It wants distraction! It wants happiness to come -- even from without, rather than within -- to help push him away. Misery doesn't love company, misery doesn't love itself, misery just doesn't love.

When I'm down and someone I'm close with has something positive to say, I say I'm jealous, and they feel the need to say "if it makes you feel any better..." and then they tell me a situation that they are in or went through similar to mine, I cannot help but think (and usually say): "How does this make me feel any better? How is you feeling crappy supposed to make me feel any better? I'd rather have one crappy-feeling person than two!"

So stop feeling guilty for being happy when someone else is miserable! Sympathy is good. Empathy is good. But so, too, is distraction. Sometimes you can be the proverbial hot air balloon taking off while someone else grabs on to the rope and starts to lift off.

Now I know some of you are going to tell me that "misery loves company" is really saying that when miserable, it is best to be in the company of others. And you may be right, this may be the actual intended meaning of the cliche, but I don't read it that way.

But even if you do read it that way, I think it's safe to say that distraction is the best kind of company for misery to keep.

So I say unto everyone out there: Strike down "Misery loves company." Join me in rewriting the cliche to actually have truth in it: Misery loves distraction!