Jamison: “I tell her I don’t see a scarred woman when I look at her; I think she’s beautiful. She thanks me for saying so, but I can tell the compliment rang a bit hollow. One comment from a stranger can’t reclaim years spent hating the body you live in.”

Price: If it makes sense that your empathy would ring hollow, then why would you bother giving the complement at all? If anything it seems to have further alienated her. 

Jamison: Well because I do think she was beautiful, one comment may not be able to do much, but if we all had empathy she wouldn’t feel so outcast in the first place. These people feel outcast by unsympathetic people.

Price: She feels outcast because of people like you assuming she needs a compliment to feel pretty. You see her as a “scarred woman” and therefore decided she deserves your compliment. It is your assumption that because she is scarred she feels ugly. Thus, it is an assumed and most likely incorrect assumption of her emotions, which is most likely why it rang hollow.

Emily: Both of you are making assumptions about how comments and emotions affect other people. Maybe some people like empathy and some don’t?