Shadenfreude is a German word used to describe the act of taking pleasure in the pain or misfortune of another. It is derived from two words, schaden which means to damage or do harm, and freude which means joy. Schadenfreude (SHOD-n-froy-duh).
It’s a funny word to read, it’s even funnier to say, but how much fun can you really have, how much joy can you truly experience, how much satisfaction can you actually get, when it comes as a direct result of someone else’s bad deal?
Every time that you eagerly wait, that you silently pray, pretending while hoping that “the day will soon come” and that “the fall will be hard”—something sacred gets compromised. The kind of pleasure that we pinch or fun that we forge; that kind of undercover good time that we reserve for private consumption is counterfeit because it comes as a direct result of knowing that someone else has been brought back down to earth. Taking that kind of pleasure is easy and it’s fleeting and it’s cheap. And, in the end, it is an act that diminishes—everyone.
I used my wedding as an opportunity to try and really hurt my dad. My parents divorced when I was in Junior High and, it would be fair to say that, my father wasn’t really around much after that. The hardest part of it all was being unable to reconcile what it was about me that didn’t captivate him for more than twenty minutes over the phone, once or twice a year. No matter what kind of grades that I got or how many contests I won or how loud they clapped at my recitals, about twenty minutes, once or twice a year, was all that I was gonna get. But then, he said “yes” to my wedding, and so …
I would secretly make up scenarios in my mind about assigning my father a seat on the sidelines with the rest of the observers. I would imagine how blindsided he would feel when forced to watch my mother walk me down the aisle and give me away. Wouldn’t that be the justifiable way to respond to the person who always used to make me cry? All I wanted to do was show him how much he had hurt my feelings and return the favor by—hurting his.
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