I think from a distance the mean people always appear only mean.
Their nastiness is baffling and evokes annoyance or anger in you.
But when you’re forced to interact with them more, when you try to adopt their point of view, when you offer them kindness plus empathy, and they reply with more cruelty – I think that’s when pity arrives.
That’s when you begin to sense the lack of love in their life and start to feel sorry for them.
Not at the beginning, from a distance.
Thomas Duggan 