hummingwolf | How odd

I think I offended someone earlier by simply not being offended by them. I'm not entirely sure of this, mind, but on reflection I think there were hints I should have picked up on that they were trying to be condescending.

While some people see condescension everywhere, I really don't tend to think of it applying to me, as a rule. I'm much more likely to link another person's strange behavior to gastrointestinal distress than to an attempt to condescend to me. This may seem strange to some of you. After all, I'm a disabled unemployed college dropout living on food stamps, too little money, and an appalling lack of a fashion sense. But it's true. I'm just enough of a geek to believe that who a person is matters more than how the person appears, so condescending behavior really has to be blatant for me to notice it. Sad to say, it appears that my appalling insensitivity to another good human's attempts to offend me has led me to offend them unawares.

So I must ask this favor of anyone reading this: If you are trying to condescend to me, could you please take time out to say, "I'm being condescending"? I understand that many believe condescension should be a subtle art form, but I really would appreciate it if you'd clue me in. It's a sign of something lacking in my constitution, I know, but I fail to get my dander up properly if I don't realize there's a reason to get my dander up. If you'll just do this one favor for me, I shall try to do my best in return to be sufficiently offended for your needs. You'll have to forgive me if I lapse into a gigglefit, I'm afraid, yet perhaps my silly laughter will provide you with more good material to inspire your act.

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Haha! I can relate to this.

I also have the inconvenient side quirk of assuming that no matter how someone treats me, the treatment reflects upon them rather than upon me. They're not seeing me for who I am and treating me accordingly; they're just finding something inside themselves that represents what they think I'm like and reacting to that.

So even if I do start wondering, "Why did he just say that to me?" the answer I come up with is most likely to be, "Because he's dealing with internal crap that I don't know about."

Which is equally unfulfilling for the other person. Ah well. Can't win.

Haha! I can relate to this.

When I made the post, I thought to myself, "Dandelion will relate to this." :-)

I also have the inconvenient side quirk of assuming that no matter how someone treats me, the treatment reflects upon them rather than upon me.

If someone seems genuinely upset with me, I tend to take that at face value and try to figure out if there was something I did wrong or if I just happened to violate one of their personal assumptions about how people should behave. Then if I still can't make any sense out of their behavior, I'll figure there's something going on in their life and I happen to be a convenient target for some reason.

Condescension is different in that two people can act in basically the same way, but you'll find that one person is trying to be helpful while the other is trying to make you feel inferior. Since I've usually lived with and gravitated to helpful geeks of various types (my friends who majored in philosophy may not have called themselves geeks, but the ones I hung out with (as opposed to some of their professors) shared some of the same traits as other geeks), my default is to act as if someone is telling me something in an effort to be of assistance rather than an effort to be insulting.

And they should! Because they don't gain anything by being insulting. Who wants to spend time with someone that insecure anyway? Everyone's a little insecure, but when it gets to the point where they're being condescending, forget it. Why bother?

It especially amazes me when people of some legitimate importance do it. What, can't they learn to live with themselves first and accomplish something neat second? Is that really so hard? *shrug* Maybe they did, and the small taste of fame they got made them regress.

What, can't they learn to live with themselves first and accomplish something neat second?

Considering how many people are convinced they're nobodies until they've done something they can see is important, I guess not.

Yeah, actually...

With this self-affirmation thing I've been doing (which only turned into a 'thing' when

erigeneia decided to play along), it seems that the participants (all two of us) gravitate toward listing things we've done or things we're good at doing. All active things.

I know I'm capable of more than this, because I've written entire entries about how great I am just by being. But when I make an effort to think of something self-affirming just for the sake of it, I mostly just think of active things.

I can beat this! I can move beyond it. As for other people, they're responsible for themselves. I can't implant a new definition of 'somebody' into their brains by force. And I wouldn't if I could. Who knows what I might accidentally damage while I'm mucking cheerfully about in their grey matter?

My cat just found a new way to unhook her claw when she gets stuck to a blanket - chew a hole in the blanket. Wonderful.

It would never occur to me to condescend to you. I'm sorry it occurs to anyone to do so.

Good for you for being immune!

Well, I can be incredibly insecure, so I'm not immune to it for that reason. But condescension is one of those interactions where people don't come out and say what their intent is, so I'm often free to interpret it differently.

Besides, I've been accused of being condescending at times when I certainly wasn't, so giving people the benefit of the doubt makes sense to me.

unfortunately, i am highly sensitive to all such affronts as condescension and am all too easily dandered-up. errrr. it's forbearing of you not to be as oversensitive as i am. good on ya.

It's not forbearance; it's more of a quirk. I'm certainly highly sensitive to a lot of other things. Condescending behavior doesn't happen to be one of them, I guess. Actually, two kinds of behavior I have difficulty interpreting are condescension and flirtation--I've even been known to mistake one for the other a few times, which is weird since you'd hope the two would be entirely separate for most people.

How odd

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