Sentiment

[thedarkages]

Having hung out on LiveJournal for a year, I am perplexed by expressions of online sympathy. In particular, no matter what the ill to which one confesses in one's cri de coeur, the invariable LJ response is "*hugs* feel better." While I suppose it is nice to see that someone cares, the formalized and repetitive expression of sentiment is a province better left to Hallmark.

Comments

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

omg lol! u r so rite!

**hugz**

[anyeone.livejournal.com]

Well, I think LJ is a bit female dominated and we females like to hug when we see someone is down. Someone we feel we know well enough to hug that is. Of course, to some people, that means everyone.

I had a discussion awhile back about the need for a good term of blameless sympathy. If you tell me about something crappy, and I say "I'm sorry" to show my sympathy, your natural response is either "That's ok" (which it obviously isn't) or "It's not your fault." There isn't a good way to say "I am (sad, depressed, bummed, hurt etc.) that this happened to you" in short form that doesn't sound clunky.

The best I could come up with is "Sucks to be you," but that doesn't convey the right amount of sympathy/empathy.