I work hard not to hurt people. I tend to internalize their problems. If I added to their burden, it would sadden me greatly. If I could not undo it somehow, I’d make a note that I had to pay the price going forward, either for that person or another. That’s often all you can do anyway and there are many opportunities in life to extend yourself.
I am still kicking myself over one of these that happened in the recent past. It involved a sensitive issue, and there were heartfelt apologies, acceptances, tears, and hugs afterward, but I would still give anything not to have opened my mouth at that particular moment. I still have a hard time even thinking of the person, much less looking them in the face when I meet them, and I wonder whether even the sight or thought of me recalls the incident for them. Perhaps one of my most extreme regrets.
Yes. It bothers me. I find myself wishing I’d exercised better judgment, if in no other way than just by keeping my mouth shut.
Note that I don’t feel bad if I do something that causes someone else to manufacture some injury or pick at some old wound. I mean if I realize it really is my fault.
I’ve done it several times, I still wince when I think about it.
It would break my heart. People are fragile, and I don’t want to crush them.
You probably don’t want to talk about this, but can you give us a hint? (You can’t mention an interesting story like this and not tell it. You just can’t.)
I always feel bad when I unintentionally hurt another person’s feelings .. until I have the WTF moment later, and wonder whether I really did anything wrong. It doesn’t help that nearly anything could hurt my mother’s feelings - there really was no rhyme or reason.
People are mostly ego-centered selfish bastards. What you should care about is whether or not you took a moral stance. The reaction of other people is irrelevant.
Because if you are wrong, then they should not be upset. If you are right, they should not be upset either.
Of course, always.
I get more distressed when I hurt someone’s feelings without meaning to than when I did whatever realizing it might hurt someone, and this more than if I did it knowing it would hurt someone.
I choose to tell my brother “bro, you’re being an asshole”? Not distressed at all when he huffs and puffs.
I tell my sister in law “your hair looks great like that” and she gets angry because she hates it when people tell her her hair looks great because it’s always on days when she hasn’t had time to straighten it and she doesn’t know why she bothers straighten it and it’s like everybody has just decided to go and tell her her hair looks great when she knows it doesn’t because she hasn’t had time to straighten it and telling her that it does when she knows it doesn’t is just mean and cruel and nasty?
I learned very fast not to tell her her hair looks great when it’s wavy. Sensitive spot, you see…
Yes - and the longer the duration between the incident and my realisation, the worse (in general).
It does bother me too, but once I apologize it isn’t an issue for me, but I just hate making the error to begin with
It’s an awful feeling. I hate pissing people off generally, but upsetting them inadvertently is almost worse, because then the person has an incorrect impression of you.
(I once had a really nasty incident where something I said as a joke got taken as an insult, and the offended party was so violently angry that I never got to put the record straight. It still gives me a horrible feeling more than two decades later.)
Yes, it bothers me. I try to address it on the spot, so it won’t fester as resentment and bite me in the rear some years down the road. The world for me isn’t as big a place as it seems & that person I’ve pissed off is probably a person down the road who’ll be interviewing me for a job I’d like.
And saying ‘No’.
“Oh yeah… weren’t you that guy who cut in front of me at the EZ-Pass back on Labor Day of '96?” or "Weren’t you the guy who took that parking spot at the Quakerbridge Mall before Xmas in '99? I was two rows away, but it was Mine!!! Yeah, I remember you… " :rolleyes:
I’d rather not. It’s not as juicy as you seem to think. It was just a remark made without thinking that was inadvertently very hurtful because I had momentarily forgotten a particular fact about that person. As I said, it still kills me to think about it, and I’m not going to pour it out here, mostly out of consideration for the person whose feelings I hurt.
This isn’t a Voight-Kampf test is it? Does the next question have anything to do with flipping over a turtle? (I ALWAYS do crummy on these tests)
Yes, it bothers me when I hurt someone’s feelings unintentionally.
For me, it depends on whether I feel like whatever hurt their feelings was legitimately hurtful. If I feel like I actually did or said something insensitive or hurtful, I definitely feel bad. If it seems like the person got offended over something mundane and harmless, I tend to shrug it off pretty easily.
For example, I used to know a person who would interpret any mildly ambiguous statement in the worst possible way and get deeply offended by the result. If I had felt bad about every time this happened, I think it would have driven me crazy.
Yes it does bother me, unless its one of those people looking to be offended on every possible occassion.
What the fuck are you talking about? Why are you bringing “moral stances” into the discussion?
There’s other ways to hurt someone’s feelings than arguing aboug, oh, gay marriage or whatnot.
I do not conduct psychological exams unless they involve either hookerbots or cattle prods, thankyouverymuch.
How is this even a question? Of course it bothers me when I hurt someone’s feelings unintentionally.