Why are people so easily offended?

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People are easily offended by me right here on WP. Many times I've had to retract my statements because the Aspie Police showed up and said it was inappropriate. Shoot. I never know when I've crossed the line.

I like this analysis. I remember maybe 25-30 years ago, Sesame Street had a cartoon of a goat that would sing, "It ain't baaaa'aaad to get mad."

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-3jSTs2Zsw[/youtube]

It's hurtful (and even abusive) to reject how a person feels. Feelings don't make you a bad person. Feelings aren't "wrong." How we handle them matters, and everyone has the right to ask for kindness and respect, but it's not okay to invalidate (control) a person's feelings in the process.

Idiot, skewed logic? Wow, really? I can appreciate that you're feeling really frustrated and upset, but I think this is a pretty good example of how your feelings are perfectly valid, but the way you're expressing your feelings is really not okay.

"Idiot, skewed logic" is not intelligent, constructive feedback... it's rude. It doesn't make the world a better place or improve anyone. It reinforces hate.

The protective friend on your facebook had a right to feel upset, but cussing at you was rude.

You have a right to feel upset by the attack, but generalizing all NT people and slinging words like that is hostile.

Also, your facebook situation and the chicken restaurant situation are not the same at all. The chicken restaurant management was ridiculous in their response -- but that could happen between two AS people, or two NT people, or even the reverse of a NT customer with a AS manager. The chicken manager was an insensitive, self-righteous, rude **person** and whether or not he may have been NT or not is irrelevant. It could easily be pointed out that the chicken manager's response might be a "typical" AS "logical" response. Who knows? The point is he didn't handle it well, and probably isn't a good manager.

As an NT person who would *not* have handled myself the way the chicken manager did, I am very offended by this generalization that this is an example of "idiot NT logic."

I think GiantHockeyFan had every right to be furious about the manager's response. Any human being, AS or NT (or anything in between) would have a right to be furious... and ANY human being, AS or NT (or anything in between) who handled something the way the chicken manager did, is a jerkface.

I think you, OP, have every right to be furious that you were attacked by the over-protective facebook friend.... but they had a right to feel protective of their friend, too. The over-protective friend should NOT have cussed you out and been so rude, and you really should not be posting on the world-wide-web about NT "idiot skewed logic." I will refrain from being a hypocrite and slinging hurtful words back at you, but I, too, have a right to feel angry by you saying that.

It's hypocritical to believe you ought to have a right to say whatever you want, regardless of how it may upset someone --- but that you think everyone else is wrong if they upset you. That's a double-standard.

This.

Unfortunately the other thing that has struck me - and I will say it - that there are certain jokes you can make with a picture of someone caucasian but as soon as you touch another ethnicity it's automatically a racist hate crime. Like, people are people. Skin colour is irrelevant. Your joke was about the med student dissecting stuff, people just choose to be offended by anything they can relate to colour of skin.

I dislike people who go looking for things to be offended at.

I still find it amusing how a prominent clothes store in London has a sign saying "more women upstairs", but I can imagine that I might be the only one who found it funny if I'd taken a photo. That and the Gents toilet sign which says "Gentlemen, 30p".

At least my flatmate last year saw the humour in "this door is alarmed". Sadly we didn't get a chance to put the face on the door that we were planning to before we moved out of that flat...

Not being creepy here, but man (or woman), I LOVE YOU!! ! I was so pissed this morning.... this entire thread has uplifted my spirits.

I have no solutions either... I just try to do my best and be nice without getting used... doesn't really work lol

edited to add: After watching that clip from Sesame Street I can see why/how my interactions don't work out a lot of the time.... I'm AFRAID to feel... because, they're so strong and I have alexithymia where I don't know what feeling it is.... just it's bad, and must run or w/e (flight/fight response ---leading to meltdown). So I would rather avoid getting mad than let someone make me mad and let them know about it. So if someone does something hurtful, I try to shrug it off.... so they get the message it's okay....

*heads spinning*

Also, the phrase "idiot, skewed logic" refers to the logic, not the person, because the noun logic is being modified by the adjectives 'idiot and skewed'. Translation: "idiot, skewed logic" means, "nothing in my brain power can make me understand it, therefor it is idiotic, skewed, etc." (at risk of offending, this is my understanding of aspieMD's statement.) ALso with Aspie flair for the dramatic, ability and skill to use words people just don't really think of ordinarily and in ways that people don't usually use them.... BAM! many, many misunderstandings.

Aspies, don't always have the best way of putting things because we typically describe objects rather than people and people (nt's) are person-oriented.

** So people take offense easily because they falsely attribute words to themselves when the words are just words.... to us anyway. In my world, my feelings and my intellect are very separated.... like different worlds... that's why Aspie's get that 'cold, calculating' description (among many). Our amazing ability to separate our intellect from our feelings does indeed help in some situations... of course it defines us as 'alien, alone, etc' too.....

Last edited by kirayng on 30 Sep 2013, 2:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm seeing irony in some of these responses. I'm would like to playfully point out a little irony...

Your statement is that people are upset because they're looking for something. This is what you think is going on in their minds.

Last edited by CuriousMom123 on 30 Sep 2013, 2:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I really liked your edit. I think you've hit the nail on the head. Honestly I believe that this is a very **human** experience that can be felt by both NT and AS people. I've been on the giving and receiving end of this phenomenon.

***HUGS TO YOU***

I am an NT person who was beaten when I was a child, basically for feeling too strongly. Instead of getting the empathy, validation and support I needed, I was punished and rejected for my responses. Obviously overly-strong responses need to be addressed, but when the feelings behind them are totally denied, it's painful. It is ABUSIVE. And the ironic thing is that makes the feelings even STRONGER, which makes the response even stronger, which makes the rejection even stronger. It's a vicious cycle.

I do not know what it's like to be an aspie, but I do know what it's like to be invalidated, or to have someone tip-toe around me as if I'm a problem. I'm not just some problem to be dealt with --- I'm a human being. I suspect you feel the same.

You know what helps me? I have to find safe places & people who are very good at validating and supporting. That may or may not help you since you have alexithymia, and I know it can be very hard to find. I am so sorry you are afraid to feel. Essentially, you are afraid of being human. I know that feeling.

*****HUGS*****

Last edited by CuriousMom123 on 30 Sep 2013, 4:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I know what you mean; I accidentally offend people a lot and don't understand what's so bad about what I said. I tend not to mind non-politically correct stuff as long as I know the person and that there's no ill-intent. I also notice myself getting offended easily sometimes too, though, but I usually try to hide it and realize that it's unreasonable and hypocritical.

Let me rephrase - It is a false assumption to say that people are "looking for things to be offended at." Therefore this is a good example of an aspie person believing they know what's occuring in an NT mind.

Actually, I beg to differ. What I said was that I disliked people who go looking for things to be offended at.

From the experience of the jobs I've had working with people, I have known people who have been known to go looking for offence in order to create drama, and who are well known for doing that exact thing among NTs as well as by me. I was expressing my dislike of such people. End of comment. New paragraph, new comment. No specific connection between the examples given by the OP and my remark.

Your reading it as irony actually proves my original quote correct, since you assumed you knew what I was thinking and made a connection where I never intended one xD. So even if I can see how you could take my "this" as an "assumption" that almost seems academic since you proved it true..?

I think that's pretty ironic, but you know, each to their own..?

Besides it would be really pedantic if I had said, "I agree with this except of course that there are occasions where a NT might not act this way or there might be cases where an ASD person misunderstands and thinks they know what the NT is thinking,and of course that doesn't include times when both misunderstand each other and neither one is actually at fault."

..."This" seemed more concise at the time.

P.S I should add my job involves supporting students with and without disabilities and if I wasn't extremely familiar with both sides of the mental spectrum, I couldn't do my job.

Last edited by applesauce on 30 Sep 2013, 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That doesn't preclude you believing people go looking for things to be offended at.



I know. I wasn't referring to them, either.



Then those NTs are making a presumption as well. It is a presumption to believe that a drama-prone person has "gone looking for it," or at the very least, that they "go looking for it" in all situations. I think it's a generalization and a fallacy of logic to make a third-party observation that anyone is part of a disagreement simply because they were looking for it.



I could point out that you assumed I was talking about the people in OP's post or anyone in the thread, (that you thought you knew what I was thinking) but I think we are caught in a never-ending vortex here.

Good one, I think everyone does this though. It's called projection or lack of TOM.

My observation is that we live in a time where people want a trophy for doing nothing. People want to see unique and they want to have an opinion. I find that most people will try to grasp onto anything that they think will set them apart from whatever is going on around them which is a reason that people get offended all the time. People get offended over things that don't even have to do with them. Like when someone gets angry over a swastika, it's cause they're programmed to. Not because they were effected by Nazi Germany or have any relatives who were effected.

I've also noticed how lazy people are in this day and age. Like the person who got pissed about you commenting. They obviously feel like you are minimizing the impact the amount of work that your friend does for school. Like, if I complain about how hard things are for me mentally a person who actually has a job (I am currently unemployed) would probably say something like, "What do YOU know? I just worked an 8hr workday and you stayed home. How would you know anything about stress?"

I feel like everyone wants to have it the hardest. That's why people complain so much. Even when what they complain about is getting them to where they think they want to be in their lives.

I don't get why they became offended by your chicken heart post. I would have thought that was funny.

Oh I agree that everyone does this! The more I think about it, the more I feel like it's the cause of 99% of the strife between people in the world. Or is that just me projecting? Tee hee. Okay, I'll stop....

I have feelings but I tend to be apathetic about what people say. Maybe because I was bullied so much. For medical students who typically had it pretty easy (they screen for good social skills and affable demeanour) I bet they haven't been desensitized to teasing yet.

Also the person who said I was describing the logic as idiotic was right on the money. Your comment made my day too

Edit: I discussed this with my therapist and as usual she worked on an empathy exercise. Those tend to help me put myself in other's shoes.

Yes, it would bother me if, after posting a complaint about my med school workload, if a starving orphan in Africa were to reply with "well at least you aren't a starving orphan in Africa!"

It wouldn't offend me but it would make me feel very dumb, ungrateful, and foolish for making that comment.

In a completely different vein, my sister, who is as NT as humanly possible, the typical über popular chick in her high school class who has more going on socially in a weekend than I had in the last year, who also happens to be my biggest critic and has the least tolerance for my aspieness, liked the photo on Facebook and commented enthusiastically. This is the kind of girl that, if whe were in my class, would have made my life hell. I thus conclude that either a) she's not mature enough to understand political correctness but neither are her friends so that's ok, or b) people are too damn butthurt and there should be no justification whatsoever for their reaction. I think the latter option is correct.

Last edited by aspieMD on 30 Sep 2013, 7:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You didn't seem apathetic in your original post.