We had just gotten our first apartment together. It was near a wooded area and creepily enough a cemetery. This area breeds the odds bugs I had ever seen in my life. There are these scary creatures called Assassin bugs. They are of the stink bug family. They are said to have a horrendous bite. That is not what crawled into our house that day, but it deserved mention. What crawled in was big and ugly but I do not have a name for it. Naturally, I squealed for my fiance of a few days to rescue me from the illegal resident of my home. He came running. I pleaded with him for help. BAM! He crusted the bugs lower half with a broom. Then he froze. He looked at me. The look on his face I had never seen before. I stared into his eyes trying to process what I was seeing. My heart told me that I was seeing a man with a childlike expression. Maybe one of pure guilt that he had harmed one of God’s creatures. I pleaded with him once again to kill the bug. My own sole could not bare to watch anything suffer. With another bang the bug was dead. The look on my soon to be spouses face disappeared. My heart was wiped clean of any doubts. I was going to marry the man with the biggest heart that I had ever seen. How could one grown masculine being show so much empathy for such a small creature? That is the man that I want to marry.
Years later, I know that this man is a pure sociopath. He cannot feel such things.
But how could this be?
Do people change that radically over time?
What if my heart saw something different than what my eyes were seeing?
What if it was not empathy?
What if it was pure pleasure in knowing that a helpless creature was at his mercy?
My own empathetic ways allowed me to view this situation so differently. Looking back on it in this new light, I choose to move forward with a wedding because I watched my partner find joy in pain for the first time and I was too naive to see it.
Did I create this monster or just show him what he really is?
survivaloftheempathic 