Confession: I've faked it. Many times, too.

Well, I took the DNA test Badger wrote about recently. And I discovered that not only am I not particularly feminine, I am absolutely lacking in empathy. Probably to a pathological degree.

Dynamic Visionary

See that little teensy maroon box at the bottom of the square? The one you can barely see? That represents how much empathy I have. I'm surprised it even showed up, because I scored zero.

So color me unsociable, but I just can't stand it when people piss and moan. All someone has to do is start complaining or crying, and I hate her. Unless she makes it funny.

Not that I don't piss and moan myself, but that's hey, that's an utter lack of empathy for you--we unempathetic types care deeply about our own problems and not at all about yours. Sorry; that's just the way we are. (Well, I'm not really sorry. Actually, I couldn't care less that I don't care about your problems.)

So ... if and when you've whined about your life in my presence, and I've acted sympathetic? I deserve an Oscar, man, because I was acting. Unlike former President Clinton, I do not feel your pain; I'm probably way too busy ignoring my own pain, trying to make it funny, and GETTING ON WITH THINGS.

Honestly, I've had friends who get into the endless soul-searching, the asking me for my advice, the bitching, kvetching, the pissing-and-moaning, the calling me up in tears ... and after a while I feel like I could be replaced with a robot that was programmed to make soothing remarks every two minutes.

I mean, OK, OK, I realize that Person A.'s ex-husband is a needle-dicked psycho alcoholic non-child-support-paying bastard.

Or yeah, maybe leaving the husband and two children under the age of five wasn't the recipe for long-term happiness Person B. had envisioned. But how sorry am I supposed to feel that these people have not only the amazing ability to make one bad decision after another, but an equally well-developed ability to spend decades in tedious post-mortems on how and why they fucked up their lives?

Honestly. Boo-fucking-hoo. Take up jogging, will you? Or yoga. Or something. Just. stop. whining.

Better yet--be like Jen--make it funny and write a book about it.

I mean, is it too much to fucking ask that people at least try to be a little bit entertaining?