"Sympathy, please!"

[Metlakatla]

I guess some of us can understand that "our way" of doing something isn't necessarily going to be how someone else copes and would prefer to withhold judgement on something we don't really have the whole story on. What's "weird" to me is taking aim at the newly bereaved this way. If anyone should get a pass for behavior that may seem odd to an onlooker, it should be them.

Again, I highly doubt that anyone's first impulse when they lose a loved one is to head to some forum, invade a TV thread, and start racking up the sympathy. If it does happen to the extent that you claim (I've never even seen it), it's likely just a by-product of their grief rather than a plot to get attention. As far as social media (you specified TV and other unrelated forums upthread, not social media), there are many people who use social media to keep up with friends and family rather than to engage with strangers. That's probably become more common during the past two-and-a-half years. I'm not sure why anyone's surprised when people use it to communicate news of someone's passing to those outside the immediate circle of the deceased.

[Heidi60]

For what is worth, I don't think it is all one way or another. I have seen people on various platforms appear to post for sympathy, or profit, but I trust the IQ of our posters who will simply not respond if they see that is someone is playing games.

I lost my Dad when I was four years old and clearly remember the neighborhood kids laughing and mocking us for the loss, so I just totally shut down when I reach that level of pain today. I have no memory of anyone giving my brother and me any kind of support, now people are fortunate to be able to share what they went through and survived. I think some are just looking to others for words of advice to help them see through the maze of grief they are experiencing. At the same time, I do know there are some who enjoy the attention and work the system. Help when you can but keep your eyes open.

[Mikala43]

I know when I lost my 1st husband unexpectedly, I posted in the chat forum of the board I was on. Heck, I didn't even know grief and mourning threads/forums existed. It wasn't really for sympathy... a lot of the forum posters were online "friends", it would be in middle of the night, and I just wanted to talk. I had plenty of friends and family, but I didn't want to burden them too much, or in the middle of the night.

I did eventually discover there are places dedicated to grief, and moved over to one of them, because I certainly didn't want to drag down an otherwise fun little chat area. But yeah, in the beginning, definitely was thinking right. I think people post to an area they are comfortable, and familiar with other posters, even if is not on topic.

Sometimes when someone dies, it kinda becomes who you are for a short time.

[Hermit12]

Originally Posted by puginabug

But reports of celebrities and statespersons. Do you really think the family is gonna see your comment? Doubtful.
I guess it makes people feel better to express sympathy or empathy.

Celebrities bring a lot of joy to people. I'll express my sympathies in order to show my appreciation.

[LookinForMayberry]

Originally Posted by otterhere

I find it so weird every time I see what I would consider a misplaced plea for condolences.
...
Why do people do this? Do condolences from perfect strangers really make them feel better?

Is it just an attention grab? Or have they no friends?

And, of course, it's a modern internet phenomenon; in the past, no one would walk up to a group of strangers engaged in conversation to announce they've lost a loved one... I would hope. Thoughts?

Some people seem to need to be victims. Maybe their mom's picked them up every time they whined, and they started thinking it's up to others to solve their troubles. I've noticed for the last several decades parents don't seem to teach their kids independence and self-reliance.

I am not a sympathetic person. We were raised to accept our circumstances and find a way to overcome unpleasantness without bothering others about it. As infants and toddler's there wasn't much mollycoddling. Mom could tell by the pitch of our pleas whether we were actually in need.

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by LookinForMayberry

Some people seem to need to be victims. Maybe their mom's picked them up every time they whined, and they started thinking it's up to others to solve their troubles. I've noticed for the last several decades parents don't seem to teach their kids independence and self-reliance.

I am not a sympathetic person. We were raised to accept our circumstances and find a way to overcome unpleasantness without bothering others about it. As infants and toddler's there wasn't much mollycoddling. Mom could tell by the pitch of our pleas whether we were actually in need.

I was one of seven kids. I fractured my left arm when I was five. I came in the house, crying, and my mother said, "Run some cold water over it". I remember that I used to sit on the toilet and would normally use my left hand to get the toilet paper, which was on the roller thing on the wall to the left of the toilet, but I had to reach over with my right hand instead.

Three days after I hurt my arm, my mother saw me struggling to dress myself with one hand and asked me why I doing that, and I told her that my arm still hurt. She took me to the emergency room where they did an X-ray, saw that my arm was fractured, and then put a cast and sling on it.

I remember a nice lady with a clipboard asking me to tell her again how I hurt my arm even though the doctor and the nurse had already asked me, and I loved that I was getting all this attention. I learned later in life that my mother was being questioned because there had been cases of child abuse in the news even way back then, and they wanted to know why she waited three days to take me to the doctor. LOL.

But I found that I am also an unsympathetic person by nature, probably because we weren't coddled and babied. My father was disabled--lost both his lower legs in WWII, and he didn't sit around feeling sorry for himself. It's something I've had to work on all my life.

Sometimes it comes back to bite me. I was attending this little church for a while, and I got to know this woman that I frankly took to be a fraud in many ways. For example, she altered her Hispanic last name to make it look as though she was Irish, and she would also claim that she was part Jewish, Greek, Native American, everything but Puerto Rican, which is what she was. Why lie about who you are?

She worked at a department store, but she said she was really an RN but felt that she was only meant to be an RN to take care of her mother, who had died, and she didn't want to be a nurse anymore. That sounded like bs to me. Why would you work there if you were an RN. Then she got fired from the department store for too many sick days, and she decided to go to this tech/computer school. But then she kept getting sick and had to drop out of that school. She also wanted to be a deacon in our church, and the church paid for her to take the classes, and she had to drop out because she kept getting sick. So by now I figured I'm on to her schtick. She just "got sick" every time she started something that she couldn't finish. Whenever she "got sick", I just inwardly rolled my eyes.

Fast forward to mid-2020. I get a call from a friend of hers that she's gone to the hospital having trouble breathing. We're in the throes of COVID, so I am thinking, "here we go again. She's jumping on the COVID bandwagon for attention."

Get the call the next day--she's dead at the age of 46. Negative for COVID, but it turned out she had a heart condition that she kept quiet, and THAT'S why she was always getting sick. I'm going to hell.