Are You Offended??? SO WHAT!!!

Bumping this because, given the events of the past few days, it's applicable now more than when I posted it.

Originally posted by rwfresh
reply to post by PatrickGarrow17

 

I lost 500 points today for being offended. I was initially upset until i realized i didn't know what the points were. Then i became offended that ATS took my points away that i didn't know i had because someone else on ATS had offended me.

This whole place needs to grow up and listen to what i have to say. I just find it so hard to understand why some people can't see how i am helping them by disagreeing with them. I could choose not to reply at all.. But i am reaching out to them by showing them they are wrong and then they offend me by not realizing i am right. It's disgusting.

Well I would agree with you if it wasn't for the fact that i take offense finding out that you had 500 points. Points that clearly should belong to me under the circumstances. I have never gone out of my way to be offended by other posters just to prove I am right even though I clearly always am. Now you have 500 points taken away meaning you had 500 points that could be taken away from you that someone obviously gave you for being offended. Sigh!!





Nope not really - I love you funny person

Originally posted by IAmD1

Originally posted by rwfresh
reply to post by PatrickGarrow17

 

I lost 500 points today for being offended. I was initially upset until i realized i didn't know what the points were. Then i became offended that ATS took my points away that i didn't know i had because someone else on ATS had offended me.

This whole place needs to grow up and listen to what i have to say. I just find it so hard to understand why some people can't see how i am helping them by disagreeing with them. I could choose not to reply at all.. But i am reaching out to them by showing them they are wrong and then they offend me by not realizing i am right. It's disgusting.

Well I would agree with you if it wasn't for the fact that i take offense finding out that you had 500 points. Points that clearly should belong to me under the circumstances. I have never gone out of my way to be offended by other posters just to prove I am right even though I clearly always am. Now you have 500 points taken away meaning you had 500 points that could be taken away from you that someone obviously gave you for being offended. Sigh!!

Nope not really - I love you funny person

edit on 16/9/2012 by IAmD1 because: (no reason given)

I wish i was offended by your message but i'm not.. not directly. I am offended that i'm unable to become directly offended by your message. I just want you to know that.. That although your message wasn't necessarily offensive i AM still offended and in a way it was because of you. So i hope you have a hell of a sleep tonight.

Originally posted by rwfresh

Originally posted by IAmD1

Originally posted by rwfresh
reply to post by PatrickGarrow17

 

I lost 500 points today for being offended. I was initially upset until i realized i didn't know what the points were. Then i became offended that ATS took my points away that i didn't know i had because someone else on ATS had offended me.

This whole place needs to grow up and listen to what i have to say. I just find it so hard to understand why some people can't see how i am helping them by disagreeing with them. I could choose not to reply at all.. But i am reaching out to them by showing them they are wrong and then they offend me by not realizing i am right. It's disgusting.

Well I would agree with you if it wasn't for the fact that i take offense finding out that you had 500 points. Points that clearly should belong to me under the circumstances. I have never gone out of my way to be offended by other posters just to prove I am right even though I clearly always am. Now you have 500 points taken away meaning you had 500 points that could be taken away from you that someone obviously gave you for being offended. Sigh!!

Nope not really - I love you funny person

edit on 16/9/2012 by IAmD1 because: (no reason given)

I wish i was offended by your message but i'm not.. not directly. I am offended that i'm unable to become directly offended by your message. I just want you to know that.. That although your message wasn't necessarily offensive i AM still offended and in a way it was because of you. So i hope you have a hell of a sleep tonight.

Are you serious? Here I am trying my darndest to be offended by the fact that you are so unoffensive and then you end up not being offended by my message. And on top of that I slept really well thank you completely unable to be offended by you. I don't know how to deal with you, I mean I enter the conversation and you completely refuse to be offended by me as if my effort in not trying to be offensive has completely agreed with you. And then you end up being offended by yourself for not being offended as if everything is about you. I really hope all the best things come to you.


What's more now I have received 2 stars within seconds of posting this as a result of you not being offended at the fact that I am trying to be unoffensive - I want you to know that is all your fault. So thank you very much for that.

Approaching this from a slightly different angle, it is interesting to look at through the lens of Transactional analysis, which was brought forward by Eric Berne, and notably his book "Games People Play".

Google the game "Now I've Got You, You Son of a Bitch".

reply to post by Bluesma


I did and found this brief quotable entry:

This can be seen in classic form in poker games. White gets an unbeatable hand, such as four aces. At this point, if he is a NIGYSOB player, he is more interested in the fact that Black is completely at his mercy than he is in good poker or making money.

White needed some plumbing fixtures installed, and he reviewed the costs very carefully with the plumber before giving him a go-ahead. The price was set, and it was agreed that there would be no extras. When the plumber submitted his bill, he included a few dollars extra for an unexpected valve that had to be installed – about four dollars on a four-hundred-dollar job. White became infuriated, called the plumber on the phone and demanded an explanation. The plumber would not back down. White wrote him a long letter criticizing his integrity and ethics and refused to pay the bill until the extra charge was withdrawn. The plumber finally gave in.

It soon became obvious that both White and the plumber were playing games. In the course of their negotiations, they had recognized each other's potentials. The plumber made his provocative move when he submitted his bill. Since White had the plumber's word, the plumber was clearly in the wrong. White now felt justified in venting almost unlimited rage against him. Instead of merely negotiating in a dignified way that befitted the Adult standards he set for himself, perhaps with a little innocent annoyance, White took the opportunity to make extensive criticisms of the plumber's whole way of living... White was exploiting his trivial but socially defensible objection (position) to vent the pent-up furies of many years of his cozening opponent, just as his mother might have done in a similar situation. He quickly recognized his underlying attitude (NIGYSOB) and realized how secretly delighted he had been at the plumber's provocation. He then recalled that ever since early childhood he had looked for similar injustices, received them with delight and exploited them with the same vigor. In many of the cases he recounted, he had forgotten the actual provocation, but remembered in great detail the course of the ensuing battle. The plumber, apparently, was playing some variation of 'Why Does This Always Happen to Me?' (WAHM).

Interesting stuff. Ego as a dynamic that actually overrides immediate concern. It seems that Mrs Darwin and Freud should have collaborated at some point..

Thanks for the info!

~Heff

reply to post by IAmD1


You really have no idea how to make me happy or do what i want you to do.Do you? That in and of itself is so incredibly offensive.. How much clearer can i be. Still i haven't gotten anything from your messages. They have not pleased me or acknowledged everything I've given to this thread. It's really infuriating. Bottom line.. you need to work harder at validating me. Obviously your previous wife has told you the same thing. Not that she couldn't use my guidance as well... just saying. Your wife was almost right except she didn't acknowledge that all her understanding came from me.

reply to post by rwfresh

Oh now that is just great. You're bringing in a wife I never had into the conversation and to top it all up you mention her twice!! So now my wife that never existed needs your help, with what exactly? failing to be offensive while trying to be offended by me not trying to be offensive ending up being offended by not having the ability to take offense to my inoffensiveness? I will take no part in acknowledging that you're completely and utterly inoffensive and that you have inadvertently contributed to my star count and provided me with much joy working out how to tell you that I take no offense what so ever to your complete lack of offensiveness and that that in and by itself is making me extremely unoffended by this whole situation. It should be an federal offense being unable to bring about a feeling of offense in me. And the punishment living happily ever after. I really wish that on you, you incredibly unoffensive person.

What do you get when two individuals are consistently unoffended by each other? Usually a few children.

However, in some cases I find the conversation far too inoffensive and bordering on defensive oily syrupiness.

reply to post by masqua


Now you're just being inoffensive!
2nd line because leaving it out would be an offense

reply to post by Hefficide


Well, the way I have come to see it, we play games, without acknowledging to ourselves that is what we're doing.
All the types of games and roles can be seen played out in most social animals, which is what makes me think that our ego makes up a bunch of words to explain and justify itself, but most of the time? It is all just power plays.
The will to power is beneath it all.

Originally posted by IAmD1
reply to post by rwfresh

 

Oh now that is just great. You're bringing in a wife I never had into the conversation and to top it all up you mention her twice!! So now my wife that never existed needs your help, with what exactly? failing to be offensive while trying to be offended by me not trying to be offensive ending up being offended by not having the ability to take offense to my inoffensiveness? I will take no part in acknowledging that you're completely and utterly inoffensive and that you have inadvertently contributed to my star count and provided me with much joy working out how to tell you that I take no offense what so ever to your complete lack of offensiveness and that that in and by itself is making me extremely unoffended by this whole situation. It should be an federal offense being unable to bring about a feeling of offense in me. And the punishment living happily ever after. I really wish that on you, you incredibly unoffensive person.

edit on 18/9/2012 by IAmD1 because: (no reason given)

edit on 18/9/2012 by IAmD1 because: (no reason given)

Finally you've decided to be honest about the whole thing. Thank you and you're welcome. I can no longer contribute to this thread as it's no longer offensive.. which i may consider offensive in and of itself later on. If i want. It's my choice. I will let you know. So stay alert. Not saying i am going to be offended later on... just that i might and that it's my choice and if i do it's because i am right.

reply to post by rwfresh


When ever you feel you want to take offense at the inoffensiveness of it all I'll be here ready to stay unoffended by that. I might be a little offended by your inoffensive avatar but that is another topic.

reply to post by sonnny1

You echo my thoughts on the thread, I too have been guilty of this behavior. One thing I have learned in life, you may not get to choose your family, but you sure do get to choose your friends, some of whom get much closer than family ever did. I have family issue, my Mother, bless her heart and may she rest in peace, was totally scared of me, because of certain events concerning my Father's job in the Navy, and things she became privy to, coupled with strange events surrounding my own birth, she took me and fled when I was not yet 2 years old. I know this because my Aunt drove her, and she told me all about it. Mom often called me a demon, and sometimes she would call me the antichrist. She completely disowned me in 1987, telling me never to visit of call again as long as I lived. My brother was a minister in Michigan for years, until he began a research project like I did and quit Christianity for good. He works at a GM Dealership now as a line mechanic, we haven't spoken in years. My two sisters don't care if I am dead or alive, and that goes for the rest of the family too, only one uncle and aunt care for me, they live near where I live now.

I have made some good friends, some are like family to me. My Grandfather, a very wise man, told me not to ever have more friends that I could count on my fingers, and I followed that advice.

On an end note, the last time I attended such a family gathering, it too turned into a big argument between two factions, and even broke out into a fight at one point. Best to avoid such gatherings, sadly so.

I received this in my inbox earlier from a member who came across it and thought of this thread, so I thought I would share.

Apparently a smart guy pondered the same sort of stuff I do... What are the odds???





~Heff

I felt an urge to bump this thread..
keep on checking your judgment folks...

Good post OP. I was thinking of making a thread on this topic, but then I saw yours. I was thinking of a title like, "Why more people need to be offended" or perhaps "ten reasons why you need to be offended"

reply to post by Hefficide


Your post makes me think of the fundamental attribution error where people tend to hastily judge others based on the way things make them feel personally (in short). Not exactly what your talking about but related. Each person comes to the table with their own experiences and therefore frame of reference. I'm sure people judge and draw conclusions about others on these sites simply because of this error and then become offended when they feel a need to defend their ideas about things or others people. I've had people humble me in my short time actually posting on ATS and I see it as a way to learn and grow. Few have been cruel about it..rather are educating and I find this positive. I've seen people argue and spiral off topic because of personal attacks and I agree with you....if this starts you have a choice to ignore it, move to another forum, get offline for awhile, or push back harder by arguing. I've had these family occurances and have either felt embarrassed or just in awe at the dysfunction at moments but also realized its what family does from time to time. I admire that you were able to sit back and take it all in. Good point to make given the buttons that get pushed on here.

Great observations.

Offended. The psychology of deliberate self-victimization.

Perfect.

Followed of course by the perfunctory "I demand an apology!"

It's really about using that "victimization" to ultimately control other people.