What's going on in the heads of people who get offended by this kind of thing (see details)?

Stop Drinking !

???? I have to stop drinking because my roommates are oversensitive?? OK….

A “mean drunk” is not what you want to seen as. Stop !

Surely you’ve heard the expression “in vino veritas” and you know what it means. Sometimes it’s true, in fact: sometimes when we’re drunk or otherwise not in good control of our brains and our tongues we say things that are “true enough” and slip past our everyday censor / filter.

Your friend may have heard you say some things when you were not “as careful as you are when you’re sober” – and which he took as true. In my younger days I was far more sarcastic than I am now. I fixed that so much that I would tend to err on the side of saying something “too nice” instead of “too mean” (and which also isn’t a great thing, either). So I’ve gotten into the habit of thinking longer than usual before I speak sometimes and then being very precise in what I do say. Now when I get drunk (rarely) or tired or stressed, in fact, I tend to attempt to speak with even more precision than usual, and that can have hilarious results, too.

Since the best alternatives to fix these various conversational missteps were to either give up conversation altogether or give up drinking (so much – not that I have frequently drunk to excess in the past 30-odd years) I just don’t “get drunk” any more.

My roommate gets offended at the drop of a hat. I called him “Ass McAss” as a joke. I’m not going to stop drinking because of this.

See this question for more details: http://www.fluther.com/178646/confronting-a-roommate-about-his-anger-is-my-plan-okay/

I shouldn’t have even mentioned being drunk. I didn’t mean for this question to become about me and my drinking habits. I want to talk about the mindset described in the question details.

Your friend just got his feelings hurt. And that’s his problem not yours. Give him some time/space and he’ll likely soon get over it. If he doesn’t, then find another friend.

Nah we’re over it. We made up and we’re fine. I’m just trying to understand the mindset of someone who concludes “you hate me” from being called “Ass McAss” after two years of being supportive, expressing the things I like about him, hanging out, clearly enjoying his company…..

This is the friend you had the altercation with? It would seem fairly clear he is uber sensitive. So what you may have meant as a joke, and especially with impaired judgement after drinking, may not have been funny to him.

Even if he is being overly sensitive, he’s feeling hurt by something you said. You can decide to ignore his feelings and write them off as ‘over sensitive’ or you can acknowledge that he was hurt and sincerely apologise (if appropriate). It isn’t really what you meant that matters here as much as how it was received. If he doesn’t matter to you, let it go. If he and his friendship does, try to find out why he was offended and make amends.

Like I said…..we already made up. I apologized for his sake even though I don’t feel I did anything wrong. I’m just looking to understand what may be going on in these sorts of minds….not for advice obviously my particular situation. Sorry if my question was confusing.

I don’t think we can know what’s going on in his mind. I’m not being flippant, but you’d have to ask him that if you want to know why he was offended. Perhaps wait for the dust to settle and then ask him why whatever you said offended him? He’s really the only one who can tell you.

I do think there’s a bit of a risk with lumping people who appear to be easily offended into one bag. Something that might appear to be very minor to me, might be very offensive to you. However tomorrow, we might reverse roles on a different topic. Plus, just because those of us with elephant hides (and I’m a bit that way myself) aren’t offended, doesn’t mean what happened wasn’t offensive. To ask ‘what’s going on in the heads of people who get offended by this kind of thing’ suggests such people are over-reacting. That in itself is pretty much guaranteed to offend some.

I do think “you hate me” is an overreaction to being called “Ass McAss” after two years of friendship. Though I get your point. Maybe this was a dumb question to start with.

Didn’t he get upset about that before though? When you were playing games? I think I’d drop that tag for him if I were you.

@Mariah, there may be stuff in his history that makes him particularly sensitive about such names. You’d really have to ask him why it bothers him.

I have to be careful in my work because I might say something in a lecture/workshop or perhaps post something that I think is funny to an organisation site and most people laugh and think it’s funny. Then later, one person comes up and says ‘that really offended me’. Are they wrong? I don’t think so. We all come from different backgrounds and have different life experiences and I don’t think we can dismiss another person’s sensitivities. Even if they seem ridiculous and overly-sensitive to us.

I’m still referring to the one incident. I wouldn’t be dumb enough to call him that a second time.

Apparently Mr. McAss has what I would call emotional myopia.

Instead of innately retaining the positive aspects of your overall contributions to your relationship with him and his past successes over the years, he seems to immediately focus on and disproportionately expand various inconsequentially “negative” incidences, such as his well-deserved nickname and the rare gaming losses to you.

If I or any other mentally healthy person beat you as often as he does in whatever game you’ve played, I’d be very happy for you on the extremely rare occasions that you won. ;-D

Well, two things. First, in vino veritas as @CWOTUS said. We tend to assume that if a person’s behaviour changes when they drink, that they were just hiding that persona under a veneer of politeness while they were sober.

Second, there’s a point of view issue here. Your point of view:

“We have 2 years of history of being friends with me treating him just fine. Why does all of this history get nullified in the course of one conversation that he interprets as being mean? ”

His point of view:

“We have 2 years of history of being friends with her treating me just fine. Why does she nullify all that in the course of one conversation by being so mean? ”

You want to know why he doesn’t give you the benefit of the doubt. He wants to know why you would suddenly stop behaving like the friend he thought you were.

All that is my answer to your question, if I didn’t know any of the roommate drama you’d spoken about on the other thread. Since I did read that thread, I’m left wondering whether you’re referring to the night when he got mad (in which case, why do you say that you’d made up already) or you’re referring to a more recent night (in which case, it sounds like even though you made up, he hasn’t really forgiven you).

People say “We’re fine” all the time when they don’t mean it. Sometimes we do that because we know we’ll forgive the other person eventually, and this may be the best opportunity to say that things will be ok.

The smartest and kindest way to act when someone has just forgiven you for something is to make an effort not to say mean things to them, straight or sober. Even if you felt safe to do that in a joking way in the past. Your friendship may be ok, but no friendship stays exactly the same forever. You have to adapt to changes in the way that the two of you relate to each other.

This guy again? The friendship isn’t nullified over this single conversation. And spats in friendships are inevitable. You’ve barked at one another before and come through it. Again, WHY does it bother you so?

Don’t know what’s going on in his head, but I have an idea that a lot of folks tend to dwell on the negative much more than the positive?

Overly sensitive or not, I have no patience for asshole drunks. If you were a bitch to him, the drinks aren’t a good excuse. Alcohol doesn’t give you a free pass to be a jerk, sorry.

On the other hand, you don’t even seem to like this person, so your “mean” words were probably just you being honest. Why do you even care? Just let it go.

If you said hurtful things to me, whether you were sober or drunk, it would still hurt my feelings and bother me a lot.

It took me until my 30’s to learn people could completely change a relationship with one sentence.

I find, but have no research on the matter, that people who grow up in passive aggressive or silent treatment families, are more likely to get easily offended. They aren’t used to people saying whatever is on their mind.

I think you probably need to be more aware that it’s important to be careful about what we say, I’m still learning this, and possibly drink less if you are having multiple problems while drinking ( I don’t know if you are). We don’t know how you came across in the conversation, but alcohol in the mix probably doesn’t help.

It’s unfair, but this sort of thing isn’t just a problem in relationships. At work you can be a great employee for 10 years and a few bad months all the good can be forgotten.

People remember the negative and then they almost seek it out. In my marriage the things that bother my husband, if I do them once every 3 years, when it happens it feels like I do it every day to my husband.

Some people just don’t get the whole banter thing, too fucking prim & proper, too sensitive for their own good. This idea that the truth comes out when we’re drunk is complete bollocks, essentially we talk garbage when drunk, unless you happen to be a genuine arsehole.
Anyone who has a long term friendship with someone & then claims to be upset by a throwaway remark meant as verbal jousting, needs to get over themselves rather quickly.

If it was just “Ass McAss” then I’d say yes, Mr. Roommate was being oversensitive. However, we don’t know what @Mariah said and there are two sides to the story, of which we don’t know the other, so it’s hard to judge in this instance whether he was being overly sensitive or whether @Mariah was being overly hurtful.

My revised response is in the other thread.

Someone I work with is like that. Another co worker switched her locker as a joke. 1st co worker got really upset and thought it was done to make her quit her job. She says this about everything. Too much drama. I figure it’s for attention.

What’s going on in his head is a perception that you’re mean, and perception is reality, even if unfair and inaccurate. Suggestion: stop the drinking and change the perception.

He’s probably assuming that in your uninhibited state, you let slip what you really think about him. The operative model being that you usually conceal your true opinion of him behind a lot of social contrivances, so having tipped your hand this once, that mask has been seen through.

The thing is, that’s not an unreasonable way of reading the situation; this kind of thing does happen. But there are other possible readings, and your perspective seems to point elsewhere: This kind of joking is risky; to pull it off without hurting depends on skillful delivery, supported by some subtle meta-communication cues. When alcohol is involved, those subtleties get lost. You become too impaired to pull off a tricky communication task like this.

When I’m watching dogs at the dog park, I see them engage in rough play that, to the uninitiated, looks and sounds like mortal combat. But the dogs use subtle cues among themselves that signal, “OK, I’m about to go off on you, but we’re just playing”. If those cues are either poorly delivered or missed, things can get very ugly.

The fact of the matter is that he’d been pissing you off and you’d been suppressing it. You got a little lit and let him have a peek at that, and he got it. He might not have understood the circumstances behind the sentiment, but he got it.

Likely he one-upped you and got you to apologize for what you felt was an appropriate emotion, inappropriately (lit) expressed.

It’s akin to someone suppressing or derailing and entire argument because you use a curse word and they are ‘offended’. If the other party can claim offense, however thinly, they get the upper hand.

I have a SIL who is overly sensitive. Her favorite phrase is, still, “What do you mean by that“and I have known and interacted with the woman for about 25 years now.

In time you get used to it, figure out they are not going to change, learn to censor yourself just so you don’t have to waste time explaining everything you say and get on with life.

I think there is something mildly immoral in your relationship with your SIL, @rojo.

Yep, @ibstubro when I lie it is mainly by leaving out things or not saying what I could.

Those of you who felt the need to jump down my throat: I’m not claiming that my being drunk is an excuse for being mean. However, I don’t feel that what I said – drunk or sober – was mean. I called him Ass McAss. This is the kind of joke I would make sober, too.

The phenomenon that I don’t understand is that this event, this one event, which was proceeded by 2 years of me being a kind friend – was apparently enough to nullify his entire perception of what I think of him and jump to the conclusion “you hate me.”

There was only the one incident – same one as my other thread – I just decided to post this last night because I’m still dwelling a little bit even though we’ve made up.

No, I don’t think I have to stop drinking because of this. That’s ridiculous.

lol @ the people who’ve never heard of banter. My friend and I banter each other all the time (worse than “ass mcass” and we’re both sober) and we both know that we got each other’s backs. He just seems uptight and probably never experienced a male bonding experience. Maybe it is him who needs to drink, not you. :^)

I think there was already some leftover tension from the McAss situation. Seems like the mean comment while you were drunk was the last straw to tip him over the “does she dislike me?” line. Not a one slip in a tensionless two years kind of thing.

Just my take on the situation.
(Which is admittedly limited.)

I’m that guy, sometimes. Yes, I would say I’m insecure in these situations. I have several wonderful friends, and in my head, I know they like me and enjoy spending time with me. Emotionally, though, I perceive many situations differently. I feel like my friends are only spending time with me because they don’t want me feeling left out. It’s insane, and it makes being friends with me difficult at times, but that doesn’t mean I can turn these feelings off.

In my case, this type of thing has a history. I remember feeling like my parents were only spending time with me because they couldn’t help it. When stopping at a restaurant while on a drive somewhere, I often half-expected the car to be gone suddenly, and my family with them. I wrote phone numbers of friends down on pieces of paper, and hid them in my room – so I’d have somebody to call once my family had gone. I remember doing this until I was about ten.

My parents did not plan to abandon me, they haven’t yet, and I think I even had a happy childhood. I have no idea where these ideas came from, but it’s been hard work to even become aware of them.

I have one friend who, early on in our friendship, told me how much he liked me using words. This helped tremendously. We’d meet, and afterwards he’d send a text saying, “I had fun, and I really like you a lot.” It turns out that this is what I need to feel safe in a relationship. It’s not feasible to demand of all my friends, of course, so I’ve been trying to cheat myself by regularly reminding myself of certain situations which have “proven” a friendship. When I start to feel insecure, because, for example, a friend does not call me back for a couple of days, I try to reason with myself. “Yes, ..... hasn’t called back – but he asked to meet up last week, so he probably does still like me.”

I don’t think I’d ever manage to get upset over being called “Ass McAss” – but little things can mean a lot, if you never entirely trust a relationship.

I wasn’t saying you were using the drinking as an excuse. I was saying the drinking might be affecting how you interact with people. Maybe not, but maybe.

Some people just happen to be pussies.

Cheers!

… Yes, and some other people can be offended by what they perceive to be unkind words.

@fluthernutter The situations you reference are one in the same. “Ass McAss” is the mean comment in question.

1. Drunk people are highly annoying at best.
2. If you don’t joke about those things while sober, don’t mention them while drunk either.

With this person, the other question brings some very important context. A couple people in this thread are clutching their pearls over your basically normal behavior, having probably not read it.

Your friend is the missing stair of your group. His temper tantrums have become an ingrained problem in your group that everyone works around. Maybe they have gotten so used to accommodating him, letting him browbeat them, and walking on eggshells around him, that they hardly notice they do it anymore. So when you speak up, people act like you are the unreasonable one.

If you don’t read Captain Awkward already, I highly reccommend. She has sensible advice for all kinds of difficult, toxic people, without any of the blamey, pearl-clutching, agony aunt bullshit you find in a lot of advice columns. This question about mansplainers doesn’t directly cover your situation. But there’s a lot of overlap with what’s going on here, where an unreasonable person throws a hissy fit and everyone acts like it’s your fault.

Friends successfully get drunk around each other all the time. The point is to have fun and let your guard down around each other. You shouldn’t have to be always on edge against offending someone. Even if you quit drinking, adopted a little wheelchair dog, gave all your money to charity, and became a nun, he would still find way to get offended. Your behavior or comments have nothing to do with it. Somewhere inside him there are deep-seated issues, where he needs to control and manipulate people and be the center of attention. He does that through the tantrums you talked about in your other question. I would write him off as a toxic person (or at least very immature), minimize contact with him, and follow the advice in the link.

The biggest disappointment is that all of this is over an insult that wasn’t even clever…or particularly insulting. I mean, Ass McAss? What is this, middle school?

It’s the kind of clunky “insult” that Brick from Anchorman would use.

I’m sorry my drunk joke wasn’t funny enough???? I wasn’t trying to insult him so I wasn’t going for something particularly insuilting….

Wait. Ass McAss is what this Q is about? That’s it? He thought you hated him because you said that? I’m guessing he was drunk.

Yes, that’s it. And he wasn’t drunk, that night, or during the conversation several days later in which he said he felt hated.

This is why I’m perplexed. 2 years of friendship nullified by “Ass McAss.”

Of course, we’ve made up since then, but making up required me to apologize when I still don’t feel what I did was wrong, so I’m a wee bit bitter.

Err, the timidness of the insult is on him, not you. Even more reason for him not to get upset.

^^ Yeah, I’ve handed out my fair share of lame insults when I’m joking. I wasn’t saying your joke wasn’t funny enough – just that, if he’s going to get upset over an insult, it could at least be a good one.

In the Q the OP describes it as “some jokes” which I was assuming were more than one comment.

Maybe you should point the finger at yourself if you’re going to get bent out of shape at a couple of comments here, perceiving them to be critical of you when, if anything, they were supporting your stance. Hence, the guy was offended by a very tame “insult” meant as harmless banter.

In which case, it’s probably just about him being a bit sensitive and maybe thinking there’s some bit of truth in what you said because you were drunk.

Like @CWOTUS already said,
in vino veritas.

Were you slightly annoyed with him before the McAss comment? He might have picked up on some of that tension.

@ucme @livelaughlove21 Not bent out of shape. Just thought the “middle school” comment was directed at me for my immature joke. I get it now though.

@fluthernutter No I was completely fine before he got all upset at McAss. Thought we were having fun.

guess I’m the only one who thinks Ass McAss is fuckin hilarious :D

Some people are just more sensitive and do not like being made fun of. I make fun of myself and I make fun of others and some people find this funny and other people are easily hurt and insulted. To me, I am never making fun of someone’s actual faults, but only when they fail at something they are really good at and in my mind, they should be really confident about.

For example, last week I saw a girl I hadn’t seen for a while and said “Oh, I almost didn’t recognize you!” She said “Yeh, because I’ve been wearing my hair in a pony tail for the last six months.”

In case you didn’t know – women sometimes feel that wearing their hair in a pony tail is a “lazy” option and that they look better when their hair is done and this is what she was implying. The other thing you should know is that this girl is absolutely beautiful – she could shave her head and still be stunning.

My response was to laugh and say “Maybe!” The girl with us became upset and interjected “No, no, no. I’ve definitely seen you with your hair down. No, that’s not it.” She was clearly upset that this girl had “insulted” herself and that I had gone along with it. I’m pretty sure this girl would cry if you called her McAss.