Actually saying the words to someone I’m cutting loose? Nah. I might think it; I might tell my wife “Hey, fuck him”, but I’d rather just shut them down and ban them to the cornfield of my life. I had to do it with my brother, but he had it coming for decades. He died about a year later, but I have no regrets.
Okay, a pit fail. Gotcha.
Then stop answering her or replying when she’s “Ready”. Let her stew. When you’re ready (2 days to 2 weeks later), if she asks why you didn’t reply, simply respond that she does this all the time to you so you’re not sure what the problem is. Be calm, be matter of fact about it. DO NOT APOLOGIZE or explain yourself. You don’t have to. If she gets angry, just hang up the phone and don’t respond for a couple of days.
I know, you don’t want to do this sort of thing. But do you really want to keep being on the end of this kind of disrespectful non-friendly behavior?
Then respond “No you won’t”. Every. Single. Time. He might start getting the message.
I don’t have a lot of friends, and it tends to be because I don’t tolerate this kind of stuff. I used to have a friend who would never answer the phone and never return my calls. Eventually I downgraded him from ‘friend’ to ‘acquaintance’ and stopped trying to call him or invite him over. After a while, he started complaining about not hearing from me. I responded by saying that I felt seriously disrespected by his refusal to answer the phone or call me back. He whined about how he hates the phone. “I don’t care. You’re making a choice to ignore my calls, and I don’t hear from you for a month or more at a time. If you really were my friend, you wouldn’t do that.”
I don’t like that rude behavior has become less horrible online.
What I like about this board is that people retain a modicum of respect for others. Except those that can’t seem to do that, but then they get made fun of. I think we do a good job of policing ourselves – we even have Pit threads for the jerks. And for the real assholes, there’s a Mod with a banhammer standing by.
Seriously, this place is the closest I’ve seen online to poker night at the local tavern.
So fuck you to people who say fuck you on messageboards.
The bolded part is the thing that makes it categorically NOT the same thing.
This is true, and if I really did hate someone, I would probably say FU to their face. The people I’ve cited aren’t people I hate at all. I’m annoyed at the way they’ve treated me and I want to express that and get it off my chest. But I don’t want to burn those bridges.
IF I were really close to any of them (son, daughter, SO, parent) I would sit them down and tell them how their behavior felt to me and that I didn’t like it. But I’m not–to these people. I’m just really pissed and want to say it, but don’t care enough to have a sincere heart-to-heart about it. Does that make sense?
Hmmm… that part in parenthesis is intriguing…
I agree that it’s interesting to observe people’s verbal boundaries. I know in some relationships, partners don’t hesitate to curse and call each other names and it’s okay and doesn’t do lasting damage. That’s not me. And any guy I was involved with (and this includes guys I have been with) would need to have the same verbal boundary as mine.
I was shocked when one guy I dated said early on that he would never call me the “c-word,” because I had never been in a relationship where there was ANY name-calling, let alone an explicit statement about a specific word. (That was one of the many red flags I ignored in that R. Lesson learned.)
I like that it’s a boundary here, as things do get heated and I’m glad there’s a limit.
I hear you and I’ve thought about doing those very things. Except for the cousin, the other two are people I really want in my life. The lunch partner is one of those people who is just always, chronically late. Our only way of socializing is to meet for lunch, and yeah, I could cut her loose, but I would miss those lunches and those conversations.
The guy who calls except when he says he’s going to is a long and challenging story. I have cut way back on my contact with him, but still want him in my life.
But I appreciate your concerned and heated advice. It feels good to read suggestions that amount to sticking up for me. When someone goes too far with me, I definitely do cut them off, and I’ve done that with a fair number of people whom I knew I wouldn’t miss. (Including Mr. I’ll-Never-Call-You-a-Cunt. :rolleyes: Unspoken: even if you behave like one.)
Yes, I’ve got a few of those in my life.
I didn’t intend ‘heated’. I intended honest. Just stop being so quick to call her back or pick up the phone after she disappears for a few days. If there’s a question, make an excuse. You were busy. You were doing laundry, missed the call and then forgot to call her back. Whatever. You’re obviously giving her calls a much higher priority than she gives yours, so just lower her priority a little without getting angry about it.
Tone of voice. If you just say “no you won’t” with a smile and without rancor, he’ll eventually get the message. If he asks about it, simply say “Well, it just seems like the only times you don’t call me are the times when you say you will”, again without any rancor or anger.
Yes, I do this. I respond at my convenience. (I perceived or imagined some heat in your advice, and I liked it.)
I have been planning to say this when the opportunity presents itself. Lately, the only place I’ve seen him is in the ER, where he has had to go several times over the holidays to get treatment for a chronic condition. I’m his emergency medical contact in town.
I did both yesterday to a driver who ran a stop sign across my path. She simultaneously paused and waved me across, so then I tried to make some sort of “bygones” gesture, but who knows if she took it that way.
I only flip the bird whenever kindness fails.
Now I want to say FUCK YOU to all the people in my neighborhood who are using up their excess fireworks! Why did you have to buy so many?? Just get it over with!
I have a friend that is legitimately way busier than I am. We’ll often make plans, and then one of us will say “Insha’Allah” (“God willing” in Arabic: إن شاء الله), with a laugh.
He’s a freelance videographer, so an assignment will often go long, and half the time he’ll text “This is going over…” then “Still workin’. Can you hang for an hour?” then “Problems. How’s tomorrow?”
But that’s just fine. I always take a sketchbook, and have had many delightful solo breakfasts. As I’m leaving the house, I tell my wife “I’m off to a Shrödinger’s Lunch.” “Well, say hi… or not.” “60/40 odds today!”
Now, if he was just being inconsiderate, I’d be furious. And I’d be dropping the F-Bomb here. But it’s a mutual agreement with a busy entrepreneur (and a single parent).
I don’t say it, but I do it.
Story told before: at one point my mother was going “blahblah I don’t want this to cause a breakup between your cousin and you-huh.” My look was apparently dry enough that it had gotten through. “You actually… did you already break up with your cousin?”
“Ages ago, when I was in college. I just never sent public notice. But it’s been over twenty years since I’ve spoken to her at anything but family events. I say hi and pass the salt but I’d also do that for a complete stranger. I’d trust the stranger more than Cousin, though: my default assumption is that people can be trusted, Cousin has shown she’s a traitorous cowardly imbecile.”
“OH!”
People assume Cousin and I have to be friends because we both have vaginas, we share a bunch of other genes and we were born in the same year. Uh, no.
That said, fuck you to my Idiot Aunt, who is among those that want independence for Catalonia because “we’re so much better at business than [the rest of] Spain, they’re just dragging us down!” but whose refusal to let me purchase Grandma’s house because not being Catalan I don’t have the right to live in Catalonia cost the family a difference of 50K just in taxes; it also meant that she’s needed to get a high-interest loan to be able to purchase a house with her half. Yeah, good business sense there. And a hearthy “thank you” to the people who handled the actual sale and who very, very carefully told her the purchaser “has been working in construction and recently obtained his Architecture Degree” (Bachelor’s in US terms) but nothing more: according to the aforementioned cousin, Idiot Aunt almost had a heart attack when she arrived to the notary’s and saw the purchaser’s Andean face.
And fuck people who still vote for Puigdemont. A few of the politicians involved in that debacle actually do want independence, and actually acted out of conviction, and good for them except for the whole “break the laws” bit, but Puigdemont makes “spineless worm” sound like redundant high praise. That populist piece of shit wouldn’t be able to find his balls with both hands, a GPS and a stable of whores.
And since I’m at it, fuck Pablo Iglesias sideways with a rusty barbed wire-wrapped razor. Populist and autocratic, what a nice combo, and always willing to murk any waters and pee in anybody’s cornflakes, at least his involvement in the Procès has made his party lose votes, hallellujah. We’re talking about a party which included among the proposals in their first program “the courts are too slow: we will fire all the judges”. Don’t try to follow the logic, there isn’t any.
Isn’t that pretty much code for “People have too many rights. We’ll get rid of these judges and appoint ones who will treat these criminals like they deserve!”? You know, ‘you’re arrested, you’re guilty’ kind of totalitarian thing?
Nah, given the background it’s “a lot of our voters have troubles with the law. Let’s disrupt the system so their troubles with the law go away.” After all, if you’ve got ten trials pending for traffic offenses or other minor things not warranting preventive jail and the judge gets thrown out, eventually the offenses will all go overtime and you’re home clean (actual example of an old manager of mine who liked the proposal; I was in the car with him once and he drove so hellishly we took the keys from him for the way back and refused to ever let him drive us again).
Note that most judges in Spain can’t be appointed: they need to pass a specific Civil Service exam including a verbal interview from a panel of three sitting judges, then spend three years in Judges’ School, then they go into the roster and its system of checks, balances and turns. So if you just send the whole lot home, who the heck chooses the new ones? The whole system would have to be redefined and that doesn’t get done with just one Royal Decree. Plus good luck getting Felipe to agree: the whole thing would be putting the Judiciary under the Executive in a way I don’t think the Head of State would be happy about given his clear Constitutionalist stance.
Wow. I have a lot of anger, pain and frustration in my life. If it came to it, I’d rather take a drive/hitch to California, hang out at Monterey awhile, read a little Steinbeck, then take a long walk into the surf than not hand a out well-deserved 'Fuck you" to someone who needs it. . .and almost everyone does at some point. Life already sucks. I’m not gonna eat anyone’s shit on top of that just to avoid a confrontation while it eats away my stomach even more than is already happening.
When you’re dealing with heavy problems, you stress out, you get on ppl’s nerves, ppl get angry, and sometimes their bad side comes out. Sometimes it’s mine and and I get told to fuck off. Sometimes someone else is being awful, and they get told. Usually, we’re hugging it out a few minutes later, but it keeps us in line.
I wish things could be more civil and polite. Before things went to hell, we were, but maybe we weren’t as honest either. We manage keep each other in line, and I don’t compromise and eat myself up inside more than I feel I should. I assume they’re getting a pressure-release from their outbursts as well.
So to the couple of family members, and the handful of friends that have all stuck by me, and each other, though this shitstorm called life: Fuck you all, and I love you.
I draw a sharp, clear line between “friends” and “acquaintances”. I would never say “Fuck you” to a friend (other than joking around). Friends get a pass, just as I’m sure they give me a pass when I’m a prick.
Now, acquaintances are a totally different situation. If they transgress in a way to warrant a “Fuck you”, then that’s what they get.
I can think of one situation where an acquaintance was told “Fuck you”, responded with an honest apology, and then over time became a friend.
Also, while we’re on the subject, Shut the Fuck Up.
(links to YouTube)
It will probably surprise nobody that I have an entire Playlist dedicated to telling my mother to fuck off.
Other songs include Chevelle’s ‘‘Family System’’ (opens with ‘‘I’m tired of your open mouth crawling inside my skin’’ and crescendos into a lovely, shrieking, ''JUST GROW UP!"- really cathartic…)
Madonna’s ‘‘Human Nature’’ (‘‘I’m not your bitch, don’t hang your shit on me…’’ Sr. Weasel suggested I use this as a sig line when I became a mod)…
George Straight’s ‘‘I’ve Come to Expect It From You’’ (kind of understated, but you can hear the bitterness underlying that smooth vocal)
Sometimes I just really need to be angry.
Fuck you, everyone who expects me to stop reading because you have something to say. I mean, you can say it, but don’t expect me to listen, process, and answer. I['m busy; I’m reading.
I very rarely engage in personal confrontations with people. I’ve lost my shit in this way approximately two or three times in my life, and every time it was my Mom! The last words I ever said (texted) to her were ‘‘rot in hell, you narcissistic, soul-sucking bitch!’’ She may very well die with that being our last interaction. It’s been almost two years since we’ve spoken.
Of course, I regret it. That is, I regret losing control of my anger and violating my own standard of behavior. That kind of behavior is supposed to be what separates me from her, and I went and fucked it up. I was right to end the relationship, just not in how I went about it.
The funny thing is, I’ve engaged in these fantasies of apology, and every time, I end up pissed off all over again. If she had any clue how out of line her behavior was it might be possible, but as long as she seriously thinks she’s the victim in this circumstance there is no hope for us. This is a woman who refused to help me deal with the aftermath of abuse that she allowed to happen because ‘‘it gives her nightmares…’’ And the reason I fucking lost it is she unfriended me on Facebook for offering my polite, informed opinion about some political issue, and threatened to block me on the grounds that I ‘‘don’t respect her need to feel safe.’’ And - the kicker - I had just had multiple grand mal seizures and was in the midst of a medical and psychological crisis when she started this bullshit. She texted me over and over about how much I was mistreating her and not validating her ‘‘right to her own safety…’’ and how all her friends are so much more understanding than I am. This woman, who once threatened to shoot me with my Dad’s shotgun and break a glass bottle over my head, is telling me that some banal words I wrote on Facebook threatened her need to feel safe?
FUCK. NO.
See? I’m still pissed off. And that was never the case before. I could get angry in the moment, sure, but my guilt always trumped my anger in the end. Those times have ended. I am permanently mad. And I don’t feel guilty.
And I hear shit, through the family grapevine… it’s clear she’s exactly the same as always, obsessively fixated on herself and her own needs. The latest story is her freaking out on my Aunt for taking depression medication, because, in my mother’s words, ''medication is not necessary and it was really uncomfortable for me when my brothers were medicated." (her brothers were bipolar and schizophrenic, respectively… how awful for her to have to endure them being medicated.) So, no. I’m not going to apologize for my reaction to her treating me like shit for 34 years. I’ve swallowed my anger and sublimated my feelings for so long that I’m incapable of doing it any longer. I honestly don’t even know if I could talk to her without losing it again. I’m really tired of a lifetime of taking the high ground.
So yes, mother, once again, most emphatically, fuck you. I shouldn’t have said what I did, but deep down, I meant every word.