schadenfreude

scha^den^freu^de

noun

pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune

ORIGIN German, from schaden 'harm'+ Freude 'joy'

It is sick, disturbing, pathetic and you see it all over school.

I love this word.  Firstly because it's 13 letters.  (*cough cough* MIDNIGHTERS *cough.....cough*).  Secondly because I love finding a word that's definition fits an idea so perfectly.  I've been looking for this particular word for a while, and its satisfying getting accainted with it.  Do you not hate having something you want to express and can't find a word for it?  Anyways, back to my word.

There is this girl at my school, and she truly doesn't understand how to be a friend.  She's completely clueless in that area and it tends to offend people.  I honestly feel bad for her, and being the amazingly awesome, smart, compassionate, and modest person that I am, try to help her out.  This was a very agrivation experience.  But that isn't the point.  The point is what I observed while in her presance--and that was not only agrivationg, but it also succeded in making me mad.  What happened was this...

(We will now refer to previously mentioned person as O)

*O walks up to insignifigant person (IP) in locker room*

O:  Hey IP, you'll never guess what SAS (so and so) just said.

IP:  *Awkwardly*  What?

O:  Well, I overheard her talking, and she was saying how she thought you were like totally fake or whatever.  So bogus right?  Ya, she is such a witch!

IP:  She said that?  What's her problem anyway?

O:  Hate her!

*Proceeds to talk about SAS behind her back*

Ok, I know this isn't schadenfreude in the most outlined sense, but at the moment I am on a tangent and you'll have to bare with me.  You see, O was so desperate, she was willing to do anything to form some kind of relationship with anyone.  I mean, what is the point of telling IP?  All you achieve by doing so is making her feel bad/sad/mad/______.  And even after this happened, the 'friendship' O and IP now share is one born from a common hatred toward someone else.  That isn't a real friendship.  Wow.  That really didn't have too much to do with SCHADENFREAUE-ness.  But ah well.  It felt good to vent.  So maybe this wasn't the best example.  Oh!  Random thought!  This made me think of the *cringe* Clique series.  Yes, I read the first one, and am very ashamed, and you couldn't pay me to read any of the others.  But I thought that it would be unjust of me not to read the book before calling it trash, and the characters having no emotional depth what-so-ever.  Well, in the book the one major part that stood out to me and really made me feel uncomfortable was the part when the main character (starts with an M, no?)  Looks at her best friend and finds herself wanting the friend to cry.  This is awful.  AwfulAwfulAwfulAwfulAwfulAwfulAwful.

Alas, this is the end of my run, and for now I will gracefully retire to bed in a small effort at sleep.  ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz............

Buenos Noches.

~ari  :o)