Are we, really...? 'Accounted', perhaps...

I suppose I put a lot more stock in a voice of our choosing rather than someone we don't know or see eye-to-eye with. There is a difference, after all, between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy is merely kindness born out of imagining the pain you would go through, if you were in pain - empathy requires someone to have felt a similar pain to another, and to act kindly due to a shared experience.

I have to admit that I would prefer someone who is empathetic to my struggles, not someone simply sympathetic.