I just felt so bad for both of them! She clearly didn’t mean to imply that he was unattractive, but due to his own insecurities he interpreted her that way. Yet, instead of talking it out, he just bottled it up and left! But instead of trying to understand him she couldn’t because he was gone and so she went online to air their problems for all of us to argue about. Then people pick sides and shit on one of the two partners for being callous or overreacting, but it’s simultaneously true she didn’t mean to hurt his feelings and that his feelings and insecurities are valid. But he felt hurt so he retreated into himself and then left to avoid a conflict, and I get it! And she didn’t understand because he never explained why he was hurt, and I get that too!
They hurt each other for no reason and it’s just sad, and I’m so mad at people for picking sides and attacking either of them for it.
I’m glad to see this kind of empathy and grace being extended to the situation. I tried to do so in one of my comments in the original thread but the other one was probably overly combative because I was annoyed at perceived hypocrisy
I’m just confused as to why it got people so entrenched in either side. Clearly it wasn’t very well worded if it has caused as much of a stir as it has (and her friends also agreed that it was) and she didn’t mean to make the compliment backhanded.
Seems like a pretty open and shut case really, don’t get what it is that causes people to refuse either interpretation as valid.
My off-the-cuff armchair psycho-analyzing (which very well could be wrong, I’m just some random on the internet) is that particular situation tapped into people’s own personal relationship traumas- men feeling like their partner refuses to acknowledge their emotions as valid, women’s intentions being misunderstood due to toxic masculinity… and so on. And then once you’re in that head-space it really is hard to pull yourself out of it, especially when other people visibly roll up with their support for the other side, which makes you go into a defensive crouch to validate your own position on the matter.
Will we (collectively, as a community) learn anything from this? Oh hell nah.
Personally I got entrenched because I experienced a lot of people saying the negative interpretation wasn’t valid because “she said…” And then they’d go on to quote something that wasn’t directly in the text. There were people talking about misogyny and how the guy felt like he owned her or wasn’t comfortable with the fact with her having had other partners, which was also just invented whole cloth. It’s something that can exist in the meta-text and be part of a larger discussion, but it is not present in the text itself and arguing from the position that it is and those who don’t see it are guilty of doing it, was something that ticked me off.
That’s something that generally frustrates me. It is not nice when you are having a disagreement and the person you are disagreeing with is not willing to engage with your arguments. It really sucks when someone is telling you you are objectively wrong, but whatever they’re quoting isn’t actually present anywhere, but is instead, at best, their interpretation, which they pretend is the text itself.
That combined with dismissals like saying the people disagreeing just don’t understand how attraction works for women (which is also some weird gender essentialist “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” bullshit) as if it’s unique to women to have attraction be more than looks, and dismissals like saying you have sex with your spouse as if that’s what people giving the negative interpretation we’re saying, really pissed me off. Just immense condescension assuming people who disagree with you don’t understand really basic shit, instead of engaging in good faith and actually trying to understand why the people disagreeing with you are disagreeing.
It seemed to me like a thread were a bunch of people came in pre-conceived about the whole thing, and then refused to interrogate their own views because they’re leftists and therefore their opinions are correct, and therefore they never need to stop and reconsider, and therefore everyone who disagrees with them is wrong on a personal or ideological level. That’s not extraordinary, it is what usually creates struggle sessions here.
This time was just extra frustrating because the people doing that kept claiming the other side was being unreasonable, but as far as I can tell most people that say they can see how the dude understood it how he did, also say they can see what she tried to say.
That was dismissed by a lot of people and I really hate it when things like that are just dismissed and then followed up with variations of “whats your argument tho?” Or accusations of bigotry. It’s poor form, it’s rude it’s not good for site culture.
Thanks for reading thru my rant and responding. I really need to get better at letting things go.
Yeah and I think that’s where the struggle part of the session came in, but I feel like that’s on them. I’m not denying the presence of any of those things on a broader societal level and I feel like that would be part of a productive discussion, but it’s not productive to present ones interpretation and what one infers from the text as if it were the text itself.
If people would interpret my argument as denying those broader realities despite me making it very clear what I am arguing about and from, then I feel like that’s an issue of those people, not me. At the very least I would hope they would operate with doubt about my position instead of certainty, when I don’t directly dismiss those larger structures as existing. That’s not the impression I got from the thread, I got the impression a sunset of the user base had half-read the post, made up their mind that they were right, and then went in with the notion that since they were leftists and have read some theory or other, then everyone disagreeing with them is, at best, uneducated/unknowing.
That’s the broader impression I got from the session at large, which is me making a lot of assumptions about a large group of people. It’s also something I’ve seen happen a bunch of times on here.
then went in with the notion that since they were leftists and have read some theory or other, then everyone disagreeing with them is, at best, uneducated/unknowing
One of the biggest downsides to the “don’t talk to them, dunk on them” approach to dealing with chuds is that it’s easy to fall into the same pattern when disagreeing with other leftists. It’s also easy to dig in on that approach if someone points out you’re being an ass to people who are on your side, which often leads to the extremely productive “oh well if they disagree on [increasingly irrelevant dispute] they’re no comrade of mine.”
With the other leftist critic here is that I felt people where not willing to engage in the “both sides are right/wrong” thing because they’re used to centrism being a right wing option, this is not really a political problem unless you go deeply into systematic reasons, it’s a relationship issue.
And not even that they both have to be right, but that they both could be. Not even that really, because people seem to agree that he overreacted, but just that they understand how he interpreted it as he did.
I think you’re right that people have a reflexive apprehension towards anything that strikes them as “centrist”. It’s a good way to put it.
Thank you <3
I don’t know what’s going on, but it seems like so many people online struggle with the basic concept of “reading”. I constantly see people misinterpret basic shit, accuse the other of something heinous, then get a response that clearly explains how their accusation is unfounded or a misinterpretation that requires misreading or skipping large parts of text, and then they just dig in further, still apparently failing to read large parts of the responses they get.
More and more often I end up just answering “I didn’t write that. Reread what I wrote.” because people just make shit up.
One place in the thread I express frustration because I feel as though I experience that, because someone is trying to argue a lot of things I haven’t mentioned at all and have no reason to disagree with.
Clearly it wasn’t very well worded if it has caused as much of a stir as it has (and her friends also agreed that it was) and she didn’t mean to make the compliment backhanded.
It was from R*ddit, meaning it was 100% fiction. Why people were wasting their Sunday arguing over fake Internet shit from R*ddit is beyond me.
Yup. Even literal pictures and video evidence aren’t enough anymore. Nothing you see online is real, especially anonymous posts of text. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was bait.
I just felt so bad for both of them! She clearly didn’t mean to imply that he was unattractive, but due to his own insecurities he interpreted her that way. Yet, instead of talking it out, he just bottled it up and left! But instead of trying to understand him she couldn’t because he was gone and so she went online to air their problems for all of us to argue about. Then people pick sides and shit on one of the two partners for being callous or overreacting, but it’s simultaneously true she didn’t mean to hurt his feelings and that his feelings and insecurities are valid. But he felt hurt so he retreated into himself and then left to avoid a conflict, and I get it! And she didn’t understand because he never explained why he was hurt, and I get that too!
They hurt each other for no reason and it’s just sad, and I’m so mad at people for picking sides and attacking either of them for it.
fk i made myself cry lol
AKA Evangelion
incorrecto
The reddit post was better than that show, to be honest.
New struggle session, go.
I’m glad to see this kind of empathy and grace being extended to the situation. I tried to do so in one of my comments in the original thread but the other one was probably overly combative because I was annoyed at perceived hypocrisy
I’m just confused as to why it got people so entrenched in either side. Clearly it wasn’t very well worded if it has caused as much of a stir as it has (and her friends also agreed that it was) and she didn’t mean to make the compliment backhanded.
Seems like a pretty open and shut case really, don’t get what it is that causes people to refuse either interpretation as valid.
My off-the-cuff armchair psycho-analyzing (which very well could be wrong, I’m just some random on the internet) is that particular situation tapped into people’s own personal relationship traumas- men feeling like their partner refuses to acknowledge their emotions as valid, women’s intentions being misunderstood due to toxic masculinity… and so on. And then once you’re in that head-space it really is hard to pull yourself out of it, especially when other people visibly roll up with their support for the other side, which makes you go into a defensive crouch to validate your own position on the matter.
Will we (collectively, as a community) learn anything from this? Oh hell nah.
Personally I got entrenched because I experienced a lot of people saying the negative interpretation wasn’t valid because “she said…” And then they’d go on to quote something that wasn’t directly in the text. There were people talking about misogyny and how the guy felt like he owned her or wasn’t comfortable with the fact with her having had other partners, which was also just invented whole cloth. It’s something that can exist in the meta-text and be part of a larger discussion, but it is not present in the text itself and arguing from the position that it is and those who don’t see it are guilty of doing it, was something that ticked me off.
That’s something that generally frustrates me. It is not nice when you are having a disagreement and the person you are disagreeing with is not willing to engage with your arguments. It really sucks when someone is telling you you are objectively wrong, but whatever they’re quoting isn’t actually present anywhere, but is instead, at best, their interpretation, which they pretend is the text itself.
That combined with dismissals like saying the people disagreeing just don’t understand how attraction works for women (which is also some weird gender essentialist “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” bullshit) as if it’s unique to women to have attraction be more than looks, and dismissals like saying you have sex with your spouse as if that’s what people giving the negative interpretation we’re saying, really pissed me off. Just immense condescension assuming people who disagree with you don’t understand really basic shit, instead of engaging in good faith and actually trying to understand why the people disagreeing with you are disagreeing.
It seemed to me like a thread were a bunch of people came in pre-conceived about the whole thing, and then refused to interrogate their own views because they’re leftists and therefore their opinions are correct, and therefore they never need to stop and reconsider, and therefore everyone who disagrees with them is wrong on a personal or ideological level. That’s not extraordinary, it is what usually creates struggle sessions here.
This time was just extra frustrating because the people doing that kept claiming the other side was being unreasonable, but as far as I can tell most people that say they can see how the dude understood it how he did, also say they can see what she tried to say.
That was dismissed by a lot of people and I really hate it when things like that are just dismissed and then followed up with variations of “whats your argument tho?” Or accusations of bigotry. It’s poor form, it’s rude it’s not good for site culture.
deleted by creator
Thanks for reading thru my rant and responding. I really need to get better at letting things go.
Yeah and I think that’s where the struggle part of the session came in, but I feel like that’s on them. I’m not denying the presence of any of those things on a broader societal level and I feel like that would be part of a productive discussion, but it’s not productive to present ones interpretation and what one infers from the text as if it were the text itself.
If people would interpret my argument as denying those broader realities despite me making it very clear what I am arguing about and from, then I feel like that’s an issue of those people, not me. At the very least I would hope they would operate with doubt about my position instead of certainty, when I don’t directly dismiss those larger structures as existing. That’s not the impression I got from the thread, I got the impression a sunset of the user base had half-read the post, made up their mind that they were right, and then went in with the notion that since they were leftists and have read some theory or other, then everyone disagreeing with them is, at best, uneducated/unknowing.
That’s the broader impression I got from the session at large, which is me making a lot of assumptions about a large group of people. It’s also something I’ve seen happen a bunch of times on here.
One of the biggest downsides to the “don’t talk to them, dunk on them” approach to dealing with chuds is that it’s easy to fall into the same pattern when disagreeing with other leftists. It’s also easy to dig in on that approach if someone points out you’re being an ass to people who are on your side, which often leads to the extremely productive “oh well if they disagree on [increasingly irrelevant dispute] they’re no comrade of mine.”
With the other leftist critic here is that I felt people where not willing to engage in the “both sides are right/wrong” thing because they’re used to centrism being a right wing option, this is not really a political problem unless you go deeply into systematic reasons, it’s a relationship issue.
And not even that they both have to be right, but that they both could be. Not even that really, because people seem to agree that he overreacted, but just that they understand how he interpreted it as he did.
I think you’re right that people have a reflexive apprehension towards anything that strikes them as “centrist”. It’s a good way to put it.
I missed it at the time, too, but I read through it and I totally agree with you.
Thank you for your service on that thread.
Thank you <3
I don’t know what’s going on, but it seems like so many people online struggle with the basic concept of “reading”. I constantly see people misinterpret basic shit, accuse the other of something heinous, then get a response that clearly explains how their accusation is unfounded or a misinterpretation that requires misreading or skipping large parts of text, and then they just dig in further, still apparently failing to read large parts of the responses they get.
More and more often I end up just answering “I didn’t write that. Reread what I wrote.” because people just make shit up.
One place in the thread I express frustration because I feel as though I experience that, because someone is trying to argue a lot of things I haven’t mentioned at all and have no reason to disagree with.
It was from R*ddit, meaning it was 100% fiction. Why people were wasting their Sunday arguing over fake Internet shit from R*ddit is beyond me.
Yup. Even literal pictures and video evidence aren’t enough anymore. Nothing you see online is real, especially anonymous posts of text. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was bait.
deleted by creator
This is a beautiful sentiment I’m glad you expressed it, I totally agree with you. It is ultimately tragic.