Hey, you asked; not my fault you don’t like the answer. It was obscenely offensive, and you knew it when you typed it. Pretending otherwise puts you in the same boat as bodswood.
Daniel
Word.
A lot of people are putting a lot of thought into their posts here, lissener; they’re trying to be helpful because in the OP, you seemed to be sincerely asking for input. But now, instead of listening to them, you’re getting defensive and trying to justify yourself.
There’s nothing wrong with opening a thread called “Please tell me why you think I’m an asshole,” as long as you really mean it. Please take the advice here in the spirit in which it’s being presented; folks really are trying to help.
Personally, I didn’t think you were an asshole before opening this thread; I recognize your username, and I think you recommended that Don McKellar film Last Night (which was a sweet little piece of chamber music) to me, but beyond that I wasn’t sure who this “lissener” person was.
Until someone brought up the Verhoeven thread.
Gee, I wonder why so many people think you’re an asshole? :smack:
Marc
Try asking “why specifically did you think it was crap?” instead of telling someone they should study the film more.
Marc
There’s a pretty obnoxious fella in the role playing club I used to belong to. He would swear, make rude noises, and never had a nice thing to say about anything. His obnoxious behavior alienates other members of the club to the point where many of them don’t wish to participate in any game he’s involved with. When he asks why some people don’t like him we make it clear to him why. He knows exactly why people don’t like him but he makes excuses about not being able to change. In reality he just doesn’t care to change.
Lissener, I suspect you know why people think you’re an asshole. If you really want to change you’ll change. Otherwise I expect it’ll be business as usual.
Marc
lissener, if I can offer a word of advice.
As you go through life, you may find it useful to ask people for honest advice or feedback about you. You have done so with the OP of this thread. If someone offers you such feedback,
SHUT THE HELL UP!
The only appropriate response to someone explaining why they are dissatisfied with your behaviour is “Thank you for your response. I will consider what you have said.” The instant you start to even partially negate someone’s feedback, most people will assume you were never interested in hearing it anbd simply want to argue your side again.
Don’t justify, dodge, rationalize and argue. Smile, thank the person, and walk away. If you follow my advice you will benefit. Trust me.
This would work in other discussions as well. The one in the thread linked in the top of the page, for example.
Hell, this works for everything.
When I was a fledgling artist, I asked an older, more experienced friend to give me critiques on my artwork. When she pointed out some flaw in my work, I always had an excuse. Usually I would start out with, "Well, I meant it to look like this . . . " Or, "Well, I was trying to do this . . . "
That may have all been true, but it didn’t change the fact that I very likely hadn’t succeeded in doing what I “meant” to do or what I was “trying” to do. No one really gives a shit if you “tried” to do something, if you failed at it and the end result sucks or is giving everyone the wrong impression. My friend told me that, straight out, and gave me this simple bit of advice: “Never explain with, ‘Well, I meant to do this.’” Sure, sometimes that rule needs to be broken and it doesn’t apply to every situation, but honestly—it applies to more situations than we care to admit. Including, I believe, this one.
And even if your critic is way off base, the best thing to do (if you solicited their advice) is to thank them and then privately disregard their advice. But frankly, I believe that all of us are more apt to believe that most of our critics are off base, when in fact, few are. The human ego is an amazing thing. We just don’t want to accept it. But as we mature, we usually learn to suck it up and take it. Especially if we solicit the advice. And particularly if the advice given is given with some measure of clarity, which, I believe, is the case here.
Well said, yosemite. One point of yours I’d expand a bit:
I think you’re about half right. Half of the world (myself included) tends to dismiss critics with a “you just don’t understand”; the other half instinctively believes that any criticism they receive is deserved and then some.
Neither of these, obviously, is terribly helpful. I try to take a balanced approach to criticsm, but damn, that’s hard to do.
Just a couple comments:
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You appear from your OP to have a very good grasp on why people might think you’re an asshole. I’m not 100% sure why, being that self-aware, you’d want specific examples of when you’ve been an asshole, but apparently you do.
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Having elicited those examples and opinions, you then appear not to ponder them so much as to attempt to refute them. IOW, you appear to not really be trying to learn why people might think you’re an asshole, so much as trying to prove that you’re not really an asshole. Perfectly natural, of course, but, as others have already said, when you solicit feedback, your response should be something like “thank you,” not something like “you’re wrong!” This is true even if the feedback is IYO 100% pure unadulterated crap, because, crap or not, you literally asked for it. Ideally, the good advice you take and the bad advice you dismiss, but you don’t argue with any of it, because you requested it.
I don’t understand why anybody would ask “why do you think I’m an asshole”? on a messageboard. Masochism, I guess. I’d poke my eye out before doing that. Why? Because some people might actually answer, god forbid. But having embarked on what must have seemed to you to be a worthwhile exercise, I think you need to accept and digest whatever you’re given, without argument. Like I said, if you think it’s crap, ignore it, but don’t argue with it.
In short, I guess I don’t understand why, having perceptively spotted your own posting failings, you don’t just try to NOT do those things. That seems to me to be a lot easier and more productive than this exercise in flagellation. FWIW.
Further miscommunication:
Of course I’m pondering all the responses, and taking all the constructive advice into careful and deep consideration.
At the same time, almost all of the examples given have been due to initial communication on my part. I was merely taking this opportunity, when people bring up things that have offended them in the past, to try clarify where I was coming from, since I failed to make that clear in the first place. I don’t mean it to be defensive; I mean it to be an apology with footnotes.
Further miscommunication:
Of course I’m pondering all the responses, and taking all the constructive advice into careful and deep consideration.
At the same time, almost all of the examples given have been due to initial communication on my part. I was merely taking this opportunity, when people bring up things that have offended them in the past, to try clarify where I was coming from, since I failed to make that clear in the first place. I don’t mean it to be defensive; I mean it to be an apology with footnotes.
There have been a couple of examples where I’ve felt strongly enough about the vast gap between what I meant and what was communicated (comparing dog breeding to human eugenics, a parallel I feel very strongly about) that I may have come off as very defensive indeed. Nonetheless I’ve striven to be entirely honest in this thread, and all my reactions are as close as I’m able to come to explaining exactly “where I’m at.”
Thanks again for the constructive input.
[Rex Harrison]By George, I think he’s got it![/RH]
Now let’s see if he can keep it. 
A further clarification I feel is missing:
Though, in my defensiveness, I was focusing on where people were “incorrect” about my intended communication, I do understand that it’s my responsibility to own the end result of that communication, and not just to cling to my intentions and ignore those results. So while I’m clarifying/defending, I’m also absorbing all of these opinions as to how my communications have been received, mistakenly or not, and processing what I’ve learned about how people understand what I try to say, so I can try to own that part of this give and take process as well.
Do you believe that your and my relationship is repairable?
As things stand? No. I can only say that in situations where I feel that MY changing can make a difference; not if the party needs to change too, since I have no control over that. I can accept my responsibility in the state of our relationship, but not yours. And frankly you seem just to unstable and *mean * to give a shit.
I can see why you would think that. I’m not sure what I can do about the appearance of instability, but I’ll at least try to do something about the appearance of meanness. Thanks for giving me a thoughtful reply.