I hate feeling used; I love feeling useful.
Really, what’s the difference? In both cases I help someone. But one feels amazing and the other feels great.
An intuitive response is that you feel used when you are not compensated and you feel useful when it is a fair exchange. There is something to this, but it is not consistent with the high value we place on being generous and giving selflessly. If “it is better to give than to receive,” why would you feel used when you do just that?
Another intuitive response is that you feel used when you give unintentionally and useful when you give voluntarily. There is something to this too, but the line between involuntary and voluntary is often not easy to draw. Yes, if you are forced at gunpoint to give what you are absolutely sure you don’t want to give, you are likely to feel used and not useful. Still, there are many cases in the gray area between voluntary and involuntary. If you invest money in a company based on an accurate but charismatic sales pitch about the company’s prospects, is that voluntary or involuntary? If it fails and you feel used, is it because you gave against your will? Would you still feel used if you are gloriously successful?
“Syntonyms” is a term I had to coin for paired terms like “feeling used” and “feeling useful.” They are synonyms in the sense that they describe more or less the same activity, in this case, giving to someone. They are antonyms in the sense that they suggest opposite values: very bad and very good. Being useful has very positive connotations. Being used has very negative connotations. And yet, aside from the pro/con distinction, I can’t find a clear and objective way to tell them apart.
Synantonyms seem to swarm and gather around the harsh judgments of life, just as antibodies swarm and gather around open wounds. There are other synonyms that swarm to address the harsh judgment of whether it should be given to someone. Positive terms include being of service, to serve, to contribute, to be selfless, to donate, to help, to help, and to be generous. Negative terms include being exploited, manipulated, cheated, swindled, ripped off, taken advantage of, robbed.
Basically, I would say that the difference is in the results. If my investment pays off, I will feel useful. If my investment doesn’t pay off, I will feel used. That doesn’t help me decide today what to invest in. But that is the nature of investing. Buy low, sell high. Invest today in what was worth tomorrow. Since tomorrow hasn’t come yet, you have to make your best guess. Let the buyer beware. This distinction of results makes it unclear who is to blame when you feel used.
Imagine this scenario: you meet someone attractive who is attracted to you. You start to go out. You find yourself falling in love, investing yourself in this person. They’re still not sure they belong together, but to find out if they do, they try out what it’s like to kiss, have sex, spend weekends together, even say “I love you.” Then one day this attractive person says it’s over. He or she has decided that society is not a good fit.
You feel used. How dare you say “I love you” and then walk away just like that? The liar. They have left you in the lurch.
People use people unfairly. If this person says “I love you” just to get things from you, knowing full well it’s a lie, then you would expect the person to feel some shame for using you. Even so, knowing that many people in the world lack scruples, it is our responsibility to enter into a conscious and cautious relationship. It’s a shame we have to, but we do.
Sometimes we go into our hunger too quickly. We’re hungry because we could really use someone. We could use your love.
The hungry are soon devoured. If you enter the scan intent with higher Jonesing, the user can read their needs and pretend to fill them in exchange for getting everything they want. There are scammers and there are easy brands, but brands are often easy because they, too, for better or worse, want or need to use others.
And there are still risks in even the most egalitarian pairing between two strong people who have control over their hungers and aim to stand tall, rather than fall in love. No one wants to buy a relationship without trying it out first, and you really can’t try it without actually buying it first. To know what it feels like to fully invest in a partnership, you have to act like one. Even the strongest relationships sometimes end, if not with indifference, resentment, or incompatibility, then ultimately with death. It is understandable that we feel used when a colleague who has left leaves us in the lurch. But it is also understandable that such things happen even between equally honorable people.
And love itself includes a bit of this tension. Love is often translated as commitment: “I love you so much that I want to be with you forever.” But if you really love someone, isn’t it about helping them get what they need, which would include letting them go if they become bad company for you? It could even include pushing them away if you become bad company and they don’t notice.
Some readers have interpreted these articles as arguments against moral principles. I have been accused from time to time of providing practical justifications for my own immoral behavior. If I was subjecting you to articles that were just my manipulative way of giving myself permission to use people, you should feel well used.
In fact, I argue against moral principles. I’ve found very few that don’t have major exceptions, doing more or less as much harm as good. That doesn’t make me a moral relativist or a moral agnostic (although I’ll admit I’m a baggnostic, I don’t know which is morally superior, paper or plastic).
Although I don’t generally believe in moral principles, I deeply believe in moral dilemmas, in getting to know them, wrestling hard with them, trying to figure out how to distinguish the moral from the immoral as best I can when there are no absolute moral principles at all. the ones you can trust. This is why synonyms are useful. Noticing how we have paired terms to define the same behavior as very good or very bad can help us deal with dilemmas.
My articles aim to unravel moral issues that, if respected, can save us from considerable wrongs and immoralities committed in the name of moral principle. There are many other writers who argue that such questions can be easily answered. If you ignore or dismiss my articles, don’t worry. I won’t feel used.