To put things in perspective, I made this observation after going to When Furballs Strike for the first time in a year and met a guy sitting next to me at the after dinner who had this vibe about him.

I could tell the guy was what I would call a "toxic empath." A passive yet enabling wet noodle who dragged others down in a manner akin to the assholes they blindly follow. Anything positive I tried to talk about was slapped around.

A convo with him was like talking to an 8th grader from the mid 90s. He made fun of black people, but got all defensive when I called Ferrari owners douchebags.

@Roady_Dragonfae shout out, I'm an empath and yeah I been a real shitheel in my time. If anything having a performative personality has made things _harder_. It's been a long hard road to being even kind-of decent and even now "being good" and "making others see me as good" are REAL hard to tell apart xvx

@Roady_Dragonfae I am prone to this.