Being Offended Doesn't Make You Correct

Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” has a great episode about two couples passive-aggressively trying to communicate to one another that it’s their turn to pay for dinner. These sorts of mores in social gatherings are generally untaught— it’s secondhand etiquette gained almost entirely through direct experience with people we’d classify as stingy. Larry’s wife, after expressing increasing frustration with their friends’ stinginess, used what was believed to be a tried-and-true strategy: demonstrating gradually more intense boredom with the conversation while periodically glancing at the check. Through a specialized telekinetic message, the other person would have no other choice but to concede to the head pressure and foot the bill… right?I once had a conversation with a co-worker similar to Larry and his wife’s. In discussing the most expensive restaurants opening up in our area, we arrived at the topic of French food, and it’s microscopic size but gargantuan cost.“And of course my brother ordered the most unnecessarily complex dessert on the menu, like the suffocated peaches atop crisp show horse’s hay sourced from the foothills of the hair-raising Scottish Highlands”, I’d say.“Well you can probably save some money next time you eat French, since like, your brother’s dead,” a co-worker said, in a tone suggesting it was a question versus a statement.Her reaction to her own gag wasn’t that of the mortal fear you’d see in an unlucky deer caught in headlights. While I can’t say for certain, as I didn’t have the luxury of watching my own expression, I’d like to believe it communicated a tepid irritation. If I’m proud of most anything about myself and my personality, it’s my stoicism in situations like these. Because I’d subjected myself to a garden variety of assholes and extremists over the years, a crude punchline just wasn’t enough to siphon the spirit out of me.  Sure, it seemed divorced from any normal person’s understanding of basic, social etiquette with people you don’t know very well. But it also didn’t come across as malicious or calculated. Just… ignorant.The entire shtick reminded me of the time my parents caught me “making sex” between a Barbie and a Ken doll as an eight-year-old.“… What are you doing?” My Mom’s face crumpled when she saw Barbie contorted into a topless but arthritic pretzel, holding up the weight of a pantsless Ken.“Ummm, I, uhhh, nothing…? Nothing! They’re not having sex! … they’re really tired, Mom. I think they… need a nap.” While we’re on the topic of sarcasm, adult Kayla probably would have  suggested they precede the slumber with a cigarette.My attempts toward feigning some sort of disorientation were useless. Mom never knew me to be a confused, dimwitted child, at least not any more dense than the stereotypical 8-year-old. For each instance of my fumbling with a flimsy explanation about how they weren’t having sex, but just playing topless wrestle-tag, my Mom grew more paranoid. Apparently the decapitated Polly Pockets and the heads forcefully ripped off of the two remaining Barbies went unnoticed, along with the ritual sacrifice my brother and I attempted in the backyard, which we’d hoped would spiritually morph Barbie into Chucky. Hasbro witchcraft, under Mom’s doctrine, was copacetic, as was slicing open every squish-toy with the knife Dad used for his leather-textured steak. But Barbie and Ken consummating a marriage? That’s where she drew the line.“Where did you learn that, Kayla? Huh? Who taught you that?”My brain resigned to my flailing gestures, which crafted a confession without my saying a word. I was guilty of something I felt I hadn’t even participated in because of my minimal understanding of its depth or meaning.This is the look I saw in the eyes of the person who joked about my dead brother. Let me be abundantly clear: I didn’t find the joke itself offensive or hurtful. If anything, I was irked by her assumption that we were buddy-buddy enough for her to feel comfortable saying anything comical as it related to Conner. Maybe that was my own fault, as my extraversion tends to convey the illusion of friendship. Had this joke been delivered by someone I like and trust, it would’ve guaranteed a chuckle out of me. Hell, if Conner was alive, he’d have received it with his roaring laughter, the kind that his audience couldn’t help but be a party to because it appeared that fun. Maybe that’s what was most irritating about the entire delivery- this person was one that hardly registered as an acquaintance, and, if I’m being frank, her personality generally annoyed me. I wonder if it was just a misguided attempt toward compensating for awkward nerdiness in her earlier years.With that said, I felt a sort of taunting violation of an unwritten boundary between us. It was a poking and prodding, the kind which desperately seeks connection or affiliation following years of loneliness. One where it seemed she was trying too hard to move our barely-there acquaintanceship to that of chummy, but was too obvious in doing so. This social habit is adjacent to the awkwardness that comes with a timid person trying to be snarky but concludes every sentence with “I’m just kidding! Just kidding just kidding! You know I’m kidding right?”If anything makes me cringe, it’s the “I’m not a regular Mom, I’m a cool Mom” brand of desperation in social situations. Not in the manner of pulling rank, as I’m certainly no conversational conservator— but in that I feel bad that I don’t have the patience or desire to deal with it.In one of my favorite Comedy Central Roasts, comedian and actor Pete Davidson was being blasted for his Dad dying on 9/11. The jokes delivered were those that elicit a giggling remorse, the kind that force a head-shake and a muttered “that’s terrible” but laughing uncontrollably regardless. David Spade as the host was no-holds barred: “Pete, I actually thought you were black, but I guess you just have your Dad’s ashy skin.” British comedian Jimmy Carr subsequently chimed in: “I’m appalled that people would come here and make jokes about the sacrifice Pete’s heroic father made on 9/11. This is not the roast of Pete Davidson’s father. That was in 2001.” Savage. Terrible. And, admittedly, clever. Imagine Spade or Carr securing their punchlines and immediately apologizing to Pete, begging for his approval coupled with his forgiveness: “You know that was just a joke, right Pete?!?!? RIGHT?!?!” This sort of behavior tends to discredit the joke-teller almost instantly--- at least to me.I characterize the dead-brother-joke-teller about the same. It’s as if she were trying a specific personality on for size and then immediately begging me to tell her she doesn’t look fat in it, defeating the purpose of the neurotic tryout in the first place. My brain had archived her very specific social mannerisms from prior interactions, and this forced-wisecrack was entirely misaligned with anything she’d typically say. Now, this isn’t to say we’re prohibited from behaving differently or taking on character traits we admire. But doing so to indulge what we believe another person will like is usually found out quite quickly, and is perhaps a gawky social misstep whose consequences only get worse with age.In retrospect, it’s an interesting portal into my conception of friendship versus friendly, and closeness versus mere tolerance. The absence of any sort of relationship between us, aside from being forced to work alongside one another, assumed this sort risqué joke-telling to be ill-advised — at least to me. While there is something to be said for the balls it takes to even formulate such a quip, her personal pre-requisite, at least according to my algorithm, wasn’t met.The pre-requisite being a friendship, or least fragments of one. And the chance that I’d consider friendship with this sort of person, especially after this occurrence, was practically nil.But I didn’t condemn her existence, much like I didn’t find it useful or even necessary to discuss the issue further. Big deal: a joke was told that the recipient didn’t find funny. Referred to as what I call “yes, and?” situations, it is a scenario that society has largely recast as qualifying for some sort of emotional re-education, but is just as easily diffused with a “yes, and?” response. Had I adopted such self-righteousness as today’s young women in the workplace, I would hope a responsible and even-keeled administrator would meet my baseless complaint with that of “yes, and?” or even “Who gives a fuck?”This is maybe what I’m most offended by— people narcissistic enough to believe their own offense makes them correct. That being slighted automatically assumes the other person is in the wrong, and that feelings override logic and truth because the person “just feels like”. That because you’re hurt, it must be true that everyone else feels the same. The argument of incredulity is a logical fallacy which asserts that anything against someone’s personal morals or beliefs must be incorrect. This sort of fallacious thinking is exemplified in those who believe the Moon landing never happened, as their own distrust in our ability to do so, paired with their general disbelief about space travel, renders any theory about Moon landing incorrect. It’s about as elementary as a child covering their eyes from an adult and believing they’ve effectively vanished from existence, or a kindergartener plugging their ears and screaming when they hear something they dislike. It’s as intellectually dense as much of what we see in today’s young clinicians: “Because I don’t like it, you also can’t like it” or “I identify as a Pomeranian… so hear me endlessly yap.”It's imperative we remind ourselves that the world is not responsible for accommodating our personal preferences. Other people do not exist for us, and they certainly aren’t vessels for the validation we’re incapable of fostering within ourselves. Your every preference wasn’t “represented” in a TV ad, the celebrity on the Cookie Crisp cereal box, or the generic mass-email your boss sent? So fuckin’ what? Are you an adult capable of understanding you’re just one will and one opinion of many? Or are you the entirely dependent baby who believes life is as easy as covering their eyes and reappearing whenever they feel like?Choose wisely. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestlyunorthodox.substack.com