Am I too thin-skinned?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is an issue that I’ve put off for a long time, and I feel it’s time I addressed it. Make yourselves comfortable…this will take a while.

Okay, here’s the deal. I’ve been seen by oversensitive by many people in my life. Throughout nearly my entire grade school and high school tenure, many of the grownups I was around (including my own parents) ridiculed me for being upset at things I presumably should have just laughed off. Most of it teasing, which was endemic, but I’ve had my personal property stolen or vandalized on several occasions as well.

Well, I never bought for a nanosecond that any of this (pretty much constant) abuse was my fault…but then I noticed a parallel in my dealings with message boards. It’s been a mixed bag, to say the least. The very first one I was on, which was on a site called Samurai Shodown 4Ever (don’t remember the address and don’t care), was okay at first. But it was unmoderated, and eventually some egomaniacal trolling halfwit name Ultra ruined it for everybody, and I left exasperated (my final message to him/her was the first time I used a “bad word” on a message board). I used to post extensively to the Improfanfic board, and the discussions were pretty civil at first, but it was slowly degenerated by party-line propaganda, to the point where ANY individual opinion is now immediately jumped on and squelched. The strange thing is, while the flames are usually less caustic than on unmoderated boards, the sheer arrogance on the part of most of the posters (and the moderators themselves are by far the worst) grates me just as badly as those obscenity-filled tirades. I gave up trying to butt heads with them over a year ago. Of the boards I post to now, KOF4Ever’s (i.am/kof) is great, if a bit slow at times, and the Orochinagi forums (www.forumplanet.com/planetdreamcast/orochinagi/) are also fine. GameFAQs (www.gamefaqs.com) has a flame or troll slip through from time to time, but otherwise is another good site for honest, BS-free discussions. I haven’t given a second thought to CNNSI.com’s boards…some of those people, frankly, scare the hell out of me.

Which leads, more or less, to this site’s boards. For the most part, I haven’t had any problems coping with your responses to my posts. However, every once in a while something comes along that raises my ire. In particular:

  • If you make an unfavorable claim about me that is completely false (e.g. I’m a homosexual), I will rake you over the coals. Gently…I’m no flamer…but you’ll definitely feel it. I don’t like random strangers making wild claims about me with absolutely no evidence to back it up. (That Ultra dolt I mentioned earlier did this all the time.)

  • If you ridicule me for starting a thread that you don’t like (see Things you don’t understand the appeal of in IMHO, and I believe there was at least one other), I’ll not only respond in kind, I’ll have trouble taking any threads you start seriously. I do not feel the need to justify my curiosities to anyone.

  • If you give a response to one of my posts which I feel misses the point or doesn’t take the entire post into account, I will defend my position until your ears bleed (good god, how many times have I written “as I mentioned in my previous post” or some equivalent).

  • I’m really, really tired of being accused of ignorance. Of course I’m ignorant…that’s why I ask the damn questions in the first place, dammit.

On the other hand, pointing out my mistakes is okay; I actually appreciate it (going back to ignorance). Picking my posts apart item-by-item is sometimes a little annoying, but I won’t raise a stink about it. And if I find myself in a huge, protracted argument, I’ll just make a final comment and walk away.

So is it really my fault? Am I doing enough to ensure that I don’t get irritated, as the school officials I had to live under ceaselessly hounded me about? Go ahead, be honest…the last thing I want is a repeat of the Improfanfic debacle.

2

DKW, time to turn off that computer and go for a walk.

3

Well,

I don’t really know your posts here but I’ll address the teasing in school issue.

Many people thought I was a bit on the sensative side but they did realize that it all had a snowball effect and the 37th person to tease me that day (the one I blew up at) didn’t even realize that either 36 people had already pointed how geeky I was or thought that if I didn’t say anything to the first 36 people why should I say or do anything to them.

But that is the past and it won’t change so why worry about it.

The only thing that bothers me about this post of yours is when you say

It is not a negative to be homosexual. It is funny if someone thinks you are and you are not. (although the I’m no flamer is a funny pun)

I mean think about your statement and then imagin you are gay and you read that.
Don’t you think that would piss you off?

Now maybe you can see the point of view of people who hurt your feelings and then are perplexed when you get mad for as you see now it is easy to hurt someone without meaning to do it.

If you don’t like a MB it is no big deal. Leave it and find a dozen more.

4

Um, yeah, I’d say you’re thin skinned.

Granted, I’m going from what you’ve written in the OP. I don’t recall any of your other posts. But what I’m reading is that you have some pretty high standards, and when people don’t live up to them, you at the very least will call their attention to it. At most, you get very upset. [hippy speak]Mellow out, dooood![/hippy speak]

You get all kinds of people on message boards. Generally, the Straight Dope is better than most, but still, you get people reading it while distracted, at work, or maybe they’re having a bad day. If you expect people to always understand what you’ve posted the very first time, and “defend it until your ears bleed”, well, there’s going to be a lot of bleeding ears around. Same thing on if you jump on people for calling you names. I’ve been called plenty of names on message boards, and if you take the time to respond to them, it just gets worse. The best thing to do is just ignore it if you don’t like it.

I honestly don’t remember ever reading a thread where the OP was ridiculed for starting the thread. Maybe I missed yours? I have, however, seen some gentle ribbing going on when someone asks what appears to others to be an obvious question. Sometimes meanings get lost on message boards - could it be that some of the ridicule you’re speaking of could be a misunderstanding? Also, the same thing happens with people missing the point - sometimes coming back and gently reiterating what the point was is a better strategy than going with the ear-bleeding scheme.

'course, this is only my opinion, but I suspect that if I started expecting people to live up to the standards that you state, I’d be being called thin-skinned, too. I’ll keep an eye out for your posts, and, with the proper ear-protection, will gladly see if you are indeed picked upon, or simply thin-skinned.

5

The solution to your problem lies in this sentence:

“Am I doing enough to ensure that I don’t get irritated…”

You are doing FAR too much to “ensure” you don’t get upset. What you need to do is stop constantly defending yourself, and instead, simply care less what people think.

Actually, its a lot less work.

BTW, I’m not speaking of any specific posts here, just the concept in general.

6

Zebra, I agree with that completely. But don’t you think DKW encountered something more along the lines of:

If I encountered someone like that, I’d probably be a little peeved. For about 2 seconds. But the point is that SomeIdiot used a derogatory term and meant it as an insult. It’s just name-calling.

If SomeIdiot just said “U R gay”, then I’d say it was still meant as an insult. A really weak, infantile insult. Then I’d just be annoyed that someone would waste my time and the board’s bandwidth.

Do you agree?

DKW
Sorry about the hijack. Maybe you’re a little thin-skinned. That’s not such a bad thing. I think Athena was right about this board being better than most. Try to take the intellectual high ground. Look smarter than the person who’s insulting you.

I saw a great quote from Voltaire in someone’s sig:
“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”

7

I too am very thin-skinned. I’ve tried to build up my resistance to some barbs, because it really can sap one’s ability to go through life even-keeled. But it’s a slow process.

Let me say first that I think being thin-skinned can be a good attribute. In my case, it makes me a little more conscientious about how I post. That’s because (a) it would bother me to be loathed and (b) it’s easy for me to put myself in the shoes of the poster(s) I’m contradicting or criticizing. It’s caused me to pay better attention to diplomacy, and I think that’s a great thing. So that’s something to like about yourself, if you can make it work in your favor.

As for dealing with people who post obnoxiously or thoughtlessly and hurt your feelings: Remember, how they post says a lot more about them than it does about you. And this point is not lost on the rest of us who are reading.

When someone’s being a tool to me, I tend to smirk to myself about the issues they must be having and the root causes for them. Use your imagination and creativity (I prefer to think along sexual lines, including shortcomings and inadequacies of genitalia) and you might find yourself laughing instead of feeling upset.

8

heresiarch

I never saw the other thread. This thread could benifit with some links to the threads DKW refers to in the OP.

If someone calls me a FAG because he or she takes issue with my movie tastes I would not get upset or threaten to gently rake them over the coals, which btw is worse because you go slowly over the coals instead quickly but I digress.

But to use an insult like ‘you big fag’ would upset me the way an insult like ‘you nigger’ because it is the same type of insult. It tries to say that a fundemental thing about a persons core existence (like sexual prefrence or skin color)something that the people who have them can do nothing about, is a negative.

That is what DKW did in the OP. That is what I’m trying to point out.

The reason I’m trying to point it out is because I don’t think DKW ment it that way (maybe he did, but I’ll give him the benifit of the doubt)

9

Zebra

Oops. I made up that quote to illustrate a point and I should have made that clear. I didn’t mean to mislead anyone into thinking that was actually posted on SDMB.

Also, I thought I was the one trying to give DKW the benefit of the doubt. And I thought you were just pointing out that he had said something offensive. Now I understand that you were pointing out that it’s possible to offend someone unintentionally. It really was clear in your post. I just missed it.

Sorry about that. I’m gonna slink off now. I Think I’ll go rake myself over some coals.

10
11

People have different sensitivity thresholds, varying by how their day is going, their blood sugar, the last time they ate, and any number of factors.

However, peoples’ feelings and how they act in response to them are two separate things. “You’re too sensitive!” is, when honest criticism, usually an imprecise way of saying, you’re behaving inappropriately because of your sensitivity.

Whether that’s you or not, I don’t know and don’t care. When one person says something uncomfortable about you, and no one else does, that can be brushed aside. When person after person after person says pretty much the same thing over a long period of time, it’s probably time to pay a little more internal attention.

Taking a long walk is usually pretty good advice for that kind of thing.

12

Athena - There may have been others, but the only time it’s happened to me on this board was for “Things you don’t understand the appeal of”, near the bottom of the first page. (It’s happened on the Samurai Shodown 4Ever and Improfanfic boards as well.) I was not kind to this poster.

Maybe you’re right…the problem is, I see the message board as a free exchange of ideas. Disagree with me, fine, but claiming that I have no right to even initiate a certain discussion is just wrong, and I definitely expect better from The Straight Dope.

I’ll stop now before I get depressed or anything…

SteveinSpain - I usually take at least one nice, long walk every week. One time I chanced upon a Hawaiian sovereignty rally (one of those “hot button” issues that very few actual Hawaii residents have given much, if any, thought to, much like flag burning). From the moment I got there, I was bombarded by sovereignty hoopla. Of course, seeing that I’ve long since conceded the fact that Hawaii is a part of the United States and nothing is ever going to change that, this infomation was of little use to me. In other words, go on a long walk, get some information which may or may not be any good. For information I can actually use, I have to brave these boards.

(This may not have been your point…whatever, I was just waiting for an opportunity to spring that little anecdote. :D)

Others - I have no problem whatsoever with homosexuality. In fact, I consider homophobia one of the most ridiculous phobias of all. But when someone accuses me of such completely out of the blue, I fail to see how that’s anything but a cheap insult; it’s certainly used as such on numerous boards.

Bottom line, if you want me to describe myself, I’ll do so gladly. There’s no need to make stuff up.

13

I just want to say that I agree with DWK that it is the intent of the person using “homosexual” as an insult that is objectionable. A skinny person does have to have a complex against brooms, to object to being referred to as a “broom handle”.