# Am I an asshole? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 24, 2014, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411 "2014-09-24T05:33:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DingoelGringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2014, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/81 "2014-09-24T23:34:08Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > Your SO reacts with fear to medical situations (covered by toughness.). One might think that everybody does but my husband’s MO is denial, followed by Leave me alone—Don’t bother me While I heal. I, OTOH, want somebody there to take over the worry for me later followed by frequent check-ins (with treats!) and Soft Kitty. > Your SO gets scared. > > Your SO feels a history of being abandoned so she “runs everybody off” before they can leave her in the lurch. > > Sounds like she has trust issues. If you have the energy and patience to keep showing her that you’re there for her, she may eventually be able to react to a crisis without the knee-jerk anger. But I would try the Soft Kitty approach for as long as it takes. > > That’s my armchair analysis. > > And yeah, when somebody says they have an emergency you say “I’ll be right there.” But he definitely as well as defiantly let her know he wasn’t "there for her.’ In the ER SHould I go home. Sicko him not her. ---
**Author:** ![madrabbitwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@madrabbitwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madrabbitwoman)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2014, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/82 "2014-09-24T23:34:11Z")
> [@Astraea](#): > > Ok am I the ONLY one who thinks the OP meant “Do you want me to come (to you at the ER)” and that writing HOME was just an accident? All the references to that line have been hilarious but for OPs sake I hope he’s not THAT clueless. > > As a whole, I say get out of the relationship, there is clearly too much hatred built up between you now and because of your actions during this most recent crisis your SO just earned a bunch of new material to bring up during your next and subsequent fights. > > Protip: be more observant in the future. My read we that the op was in another town and was asking is he needed to come home (as in to their home town) ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/83 "2014-09-25T00:06:09Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Learn from this, in case (God forbid!) something like this ever happens again. For now, let it go. Put it behind you. Bury it. “It didn’t happen.” Have you ever met an actual woman… this WILL be used against him for the rest of his relationship with this woman. She could leave him and 20 years later meet her new husband of 18 years and he will say “Oh, you were the guy who needed to ask if you should meet her at ER because she was having a heart attack” \ ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/84 "2014-09-25T00:07:48Z")
There is way way more subtext here than there is actual text. To me it sounds like the subtext goes something like Her: I am scared, I’m in the ER, I need to feel that you care for and love me and will rush to my side if I need you to. Him: could you tell me in directly what you are asking me to do? I need clarity here. I can’t stand trying to guess what you need, I always seem to guess wrong. Her: I’m reading your desire for a scared sick woman to cough up exact directions for your next activity while suffering a medical emergency as an impatient lack of caring about me. I’m hearing the emotions of previous arguments in which neither of us ever understood the other, wafting through those inert text words. If you cared about me you wouldn’t need to wonder what I want you to do, idiot, you’d know! If I didn’t want you here, would I bother to try to contact you at all? Him: GAAAH, THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS Her:GAAAH, THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS She needs to learn how to communicate in guy speak – not something a lot of women were ever taught how to do, in fact quite the reverse. Women talk around things and make hints, that other women easily pick up. Men tend to react with, “why don’t you just TELL me?” Well, if you were a woman, I already _have_ told you. Being brutally direct is the way men talk, not women. If she were a guy in the ER she would have said, “I think this might be serious, come quick.” End of texting. You know when people talk like the OP’s partner, they already are hurting and angry and are feeling totally misunderstood before they even start talking. Women often have a hard time saying anything guy-straight, partly because it gets mixed up with all the back story which may not even include the present guy and includes such large tangled up emotions like feeling undeserving, feeling scared of the same thing happening as happened last time but I never quite knew how it all went wrong, feeling angry and scared and pathetic and self-loathing and and and. Women put all that and ever so much more into what appears to men to be perfectly straightforward conversations. They aren’t. But they could be, with some communication makeovers. Oh, and yeah, you are an asshole. I pity both of you, but her more. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/85 "2014-09-25T00:22:17Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > I can see that as a possibility, but text is not a good forum for sarcasm. I read it pretty clearly as sarcasm, as well. I assume the OP did, too. Judging by the replies in this thread, I think most readers did, as well. I mean, my sarcasm-o-meter breaks down every once in awhile, but that text was just dripping in it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/86 "2014-09-25T00:24:41Z")
> [@DingoelGringo](#): > > You are a bit confusing. If she said she is in the ER why do you ask if you should go home? What reaction could there possibly except to get directly to the ER? This has been discussed. The OP was an hour away from home in another town. “Go home” in this context means to come back. I find it highly unlikely that the OP literally meant to go to the place of their abode, but rather meant to return back into town (and go to the ER.) But it would be nice if the OP could come back and clarify. ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/87 "2014-09-25T00:24:50Z")
As others have said, the only answer to “I’m in the ER” is _usually_ “Holy shit, what hospital? I’m on my way.” This seems like a no brainer to me. And the answer to “It was just a heart attack” is _definitely_ that. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/88 "2014-09-25T00:40:18Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > I can’t be the only one wondering if **bubba jr.** is now single. Regardless of who said what to whom, or who is or isn’t being an asshole, these two just don’t seem right for each other on a number of levels. Well, maybe the reason he hasn’t come back to this thread is because he’s realized that whether or not his SO is okay is more important right now than whether or not he’s an asshole. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/89 "2014-09-25T00:44:07Z")
I’m so pissed! **bubba jr.** is not answering the thread. After people are texting their messages to him here. I bet he’s off working, isn’t he? He just doesn’t care! 😛 Getting pissed is serving you both to help move your focus away from a very scary problem. Making it about who’s right and who’s wrong helps you to do that in an amplified way. Is it helping the situation? Only you know that. Some people use laughter to cope. Some people use anger. Whether it’s dysfunctional or not is in how you view it. My 2 cents. Which is probably worth less than that. ---
**Author:** ![keeganst94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@keeganst94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeganst94)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/90 "2014-09-25T00:49:59Z")
Really? I’d say nine times out of ten when you go to the ER it’s not that situation. Of the four times I’ve been there (broken wrist, collar-bone, fingers, and a cut that needed stitches), I wouldn’t have said to drop everything. My dad’s been in the ER 3 times that I can remember (crushed his toes, put a piece of rebar through his foot, some kind of bacterial infection), and it was the same thing. Called, let us know what was going on, sometimes said he needed picking up, and left it at that. Same with my brother, whose been there twice. ER to me just I need to get this looked at now, I can’t wait a day or two for a doctor’s appointment/clinic. It doesn’t mean you’re going to die. When the words heart attack come up though, yeah, you go. That was a reply to Idle Thoughts. ---
**Author:** ![Inna\_Minnit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Inna\_Minnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inna_Minnit)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/91 "2014-09-25T02:06:27Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Why the specificity? Anyone who plays the PA guessing game is pissworthy. It’s a generalized sex-neutral trait. Because, in my experience, men just don’t do it. Men play other games. But the “fine, it’s just a little heart attack” bullshit is perpetrated by women. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/92 "2014-09-25T02:37:25Z")
I just think some men are better off as bachelors; that’s not to be offensive, but if you’re approaching the situation like this, I think bachelorhood might be a better lifestyle choice. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/93 "2014-09-25T02:43:50Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > Have you ever met an actual woman… this WILL be used against him for the rest of his relationship with this woman. She could leave him and 20 years later meet her new husband of 18 years and he will say “Oh, you were the guy who needed to ask if you should meet her at ER because she was having a heart attack” > > \ Even if I agree (and, in fact, I don’t disagree) my advice is the same: for him to put it behind him. If she won’t put it behind her, that’s her problem. If he puts it behind him, then nothing she can do with it will be harmful. Every time she brings it up, he needs only say, “That was some time ago, and I am not interested in going over it again.” Some things are worth stonewalling in that way. “I am not saying it’s off-limits, you understand, but I am not going to go into it. For me, it’s in the past and is no longer an issue.” Of course, if she won’t drop it, and he won’t play…then their relationship is in a bit of a shithole. But (notionally) it takes two to fight, and if he won’t go along with it, it isn’t a fight. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/94 "2014-09-25T03:03:45Z")
I think that if a couple is at the point of dropping f-bombs to each other via text, it’s time to switch apps and make a voice call. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/95 "2014-09-25T05:42:37Z")
> [@Idle\_Thoughts](#): > > As others have said, the only answer to “I’m in the ER” is _usually_ “Holy shit, what hospital? I’m on my way.” This seems like a no brainer to me. Maybe it’s a function of growing up with a dad who worked with power tools and drank at the same time, but when I hear someone is going to the ER, my reaction usually isn’t, “Holy shit, drop everything!” To me, “ER” generally means, “Someone’s getting stitches and maybe a tetanus shot,” and there’s no point in anyone else wasting their afternoon in the waiting room for that. FTR, I was in the ER myself this Saturday, because I’d been vomiting for three days, and my mom had almost exactly the same reaction to the news as the OP did here. Of course, when I told my mom, “Don’t worry, it’s not serious, but I’m in the ER,” she took me at my word that it was not serious, and that she did not have to worry. Mind, earlier this month when I was in the ER with my dad, after he’d fallen and hit his head, her first response was, “Remind them he has a DNR!” Which, I admit, is a little cold. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/96 "2014-09-25T10:38:43Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > I think that if a couple is at the point of dropping f-bombs to each other via text, it’s time to switch apps and make a voice call. Not necessarily. Years ago I was bored, so I texted about twenty or so of my friends and relatives, “WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?” out of the blue. Total non sequitur city. Everyone freaked, thinking they had promised to be somewhere and forgot. I got all kinds of excuse/apology texts. I explained I was just curious where they were, what they were up to, etc. texting an all caps “where the fuck are you” is now something we all occasionally do/ a thing. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/97 "2014-09-25T10:41:38Z")
> [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > I’m so pissed! **bubba jr.** is not answering the thread. Busy updating his dating profile. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/98 "2014-09-25T10:51:02Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > There is way way more subtext here than there is actual text. To me it sounds like the subtext goes something like > > Her: I am scared, I’m in the ER, I need to feel that you care for and love me and will rush to my side if I need you to. > > Him: could you tell me in directly what you are asking me to do? I need clarity here. I can’t stand trying to guess what you need, I always seem to guess wrong. > > Her: I’m reading your desire for a scared sick woman to cough up exact directions for your next activity while suffering a medical emergency as an impatient lack of caring about me. I’m hearing the emotions of previous arguments in which neither of us ever understood the other, wafting through those inert text words. If you cared about me you wouldn’t need to wonder what I want you to do, idiot, you’d know! If I didn’t want you here, would I bother to try to contact you at all? > > Him: GAAAH, THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS > Her:GAAAH, THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS > > She needs to learn how to communicate in guy speak – not something a lot of women were ever taught how to do, in fact quite the reverse. Women talk around things and make hints, that other women easily pick up. Men tend to react with, “why don’t you just TELL me?” Well, if you were a woman, I already _have_ told you. Being brutally direct is the way men talk, not women. If she were a guy in the ER she would have said, “I think this might be serious, come quick.” End of texting. > > You know when people talk like the OP’s partner, they already are hurting and angry and are feeling totally misunderstood before they even start talking. > > Women often have a hard time saying anything guy-straight, partly because it gets mixed up with all the back story which may not even include the present guy and includes such large tangled up emotions like feeling undeserving, feeling scared of the same thing happening as happened last time but I never quite knew how it all went wrong, feeling angry and scared and pathetic and self-loathing and and and. Women put all that and ever so much more into what appears to men to be perfectly straightforward conversations. They aren’t. But they could be, with some communication makeovers. > > Oh, and yeah, you are an asshole. I pity both of you, but her more. All of that could be communicated with a simple “I need you honey”. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/99 "2014-09-25T10:59:22Z")
> [@keeganst94](#): > > Really? I’d say nine times out of ten when you go to the ER it’s not that situation. Of the four times I’ve been there (broken wrist, collar-bone, fingers, and a cut that needed stitches), I wouldn’t have said to drop everything. My dad’s been in the ER 3 times that I can remember (crushed his toes, put a piece of rebar through his foot, some kind of bacterial infection), and it was the same thing. Called, let us know what was going on, sometimes said he needed picking up, and left it at that. Same with my brother, whose been there twice. ER to me just I need to get this looked at now, I can’t wait a day or two for a doctor’s appointment/clinic. It doesn’t mean you’re going to die. When the words heart attack come up though, yeah, you go. > > That was a reply to Idle Thoughts. This probably varies per person and couple, I know that if I go to the ER it probably means I almost died, while for someone else it might usually be nothing to worry about. Without knowing that kind of history and personality it is hard to say if the reaction is appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411/100 "2014-09-25T11:01:54Z")
> [@grude](#): > > All of that could be communicated with a simple “I need you honey”. All people not always at their best. We try to make allowances for people we care about, especially in a crisis. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-an-asshole/699411.md?page=6)