What Does Misery Love, According To The Proverb?

The old saying is that "Misery loves company." This usually means that if you are unhappy, you want everyone around you to be unhappy too. The idea was the basis of a Hoyt Axton song (performed in the 1970s by John Denver) called "Sweet Misery" ("She doesn't care, follow you everywhere/ She is most happy when she makes you moan.")

There may be more truth in this than we like to think. Of course, in theory everyone takes pleasure in hearing how happy, successful etc, their friends are, even if they aren't doing so well themselves; but really, there is a tendency to feel just a little bit pleased if they aren't any happier than we are. This is the meaning of the German word "Schadenfreude" literally, "joy in suffering" (someone else's suffering, that is.) Or as French philosopher La Rochefoucauld put it, "There is always something a little pleasing to us in the misfortunes of our dearest friends."