Did you notice the quote from Eleanor Roosevelt that I posted a while ago? "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Anyone here who has chosen to let me offend them has done so with their own consent and by their own choice.
It's quite simple. Everybody is, IMO, responsible for how they respond to other people here on SI. In the "real" world, dealing with people in "real life" contexts, things are different. But this is an artificial world with most people hiding behind aliases, with people free to choose to particpate or not participate. If people take offense at what one alias says to another alias, that is their choice. They have chosen to be offended. They had a choice how to react, and that was what they chose.
Remember Beltane? Some people chose to be offended at our relationship there. IMO, that was too bad, but it was their problem. I felt no need to let them force their problem on me to become my problem.
That's what you're asking me to do--to take other peoples' decisions and blame myself for them. I don't. I won't.
Their problems are their problems. Whether they choose to be offended, or amused, or choose just to put me on ignore, that's their choice to make -- and their choice to live with.
We're all, I believe, adults here. We're all responsible for our own lives. We're all responsible for the choices we make, including the choice we make of how to respond.
You want to get offended by something I say? Be my guest. But I make the choice not to let you force your choice onto me. That's letting you control my life. I choose not to let you do that.
If it moves into real life, then things change. If I had threatened, or harassed, or bullied on the telephone or by mail or email or in person, any participant here in their real life (as some did to me), that would be different. But here on SI, no. |
