# Silenus, you failed the emotional intelligence test **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 25, 2006, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944 "2006-07-25T12:47:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![furlibusea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@furlibusea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furlibusea)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/21 "2006-07-25T16:13:07Z")
About 24 hours after father went missing in a boating accident, before he was declared dead, my sisters and I were sent to spend a day with my grandparents. This was their only child. It was two days after his 38th birthday, and they had been fighting with him. They took us to the house of a friend of theirs who happened to have grandchildren about our ages visiting. My grandmother turned to me and said." be very nice to these girls, their father died about four years ago." To this day, coming up on 30 years ago, it amazes me how completely oblivious the coment was, but I know too that she was just maintaining best she could by putting it out of her mind. People cope best they can and grieve how they need to. Often it may look to judgmental outsiders as inappropriate. In the end, it ain’t their shoes. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/22 "2006-07-25T16:13:25Z")
I don’t even find the comment (Why did this have to happen to me?) one that I think I should pass over out of sympathy. The comment seems perfectly appropriate to me. Even touching! (Well, I should say, it seems plausible the comment could have been made in such a context as to be appropriate and even touching.) The way I’m imagining it went down, the vibe I get is the dude is so in love with his wife, has tied himself in so tightly with her fate, that it can’t help but be that when she is harmed, he is harmed, and to the degree that she is harmed, so also (does he feel) he is harmed to that degree. Not harmed in the same way–clearly, she died, and he didn’t–but the loss of his wife’s life feels to him, perhaps, just as awful as the prospect of the loss of his own life. So if it actually happens to her, then something terrible has _ipso facto_ happened to him. When she died, he declared his undying love for her by exclaiming in a way that made it clear just how closely he considered his fate to be bound to hers. And now I’m thinking about my own wife and starting to get sad, imagining bad possibilities way to much. ☹ -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/23 "2006-07-25T16:14:45Z")
> [@e-logic](#): > > If it was sarcasm, it was pretty badly done… some might say to the point where the sarcasm was totally lost. What, JJim’s post? I never even suspected it _wasn’t_ sarcasm. I can’t see why he would post what he did unless it _was_ a joke. -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/24 "2006-07-25T16:14:56Z")
> [@e-logic](#): > > If it was sarcasm, it was pretty badly done… some might say to the point where the sarcasm was totally lost. I would have thought that the combination of the pathos of the image of my friend’s mother, contrasted with the _direct paraphrase_ adaptation of the fairly heartless wording used by **silenius** , should have made my intentions perfectly clear. However, you’re right - indeed nobody ever went bust underestimating the intelligence of the public. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/25 "2006-07-25T16:16:26Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > What, JJim’s post? I never even suspected it _wasn’t_ sarcasm. I can’t see why he would post what he did unless it _was_ a joke. > > -FrL- (Here’s what would be funny, though: What if the reason I got the joke immediately was that I have an problem spotting _straightforwardness_–I always assume everything is sarcastic. Now that would make for a funny skit or something.) -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Walter\_Windchill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Walter\_Windchill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walter_Windchill)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/26 "2006-07-25T16:23:35Z")
Incidentally, I found jjim’s post to be touching and his meaning clear. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/27 "2006-07-25T16:27:54Z")
> [@Walter Windchill](#): > > Well, that’s kind of my point. What kind of person bothers to “find” the visceral reactions of people who’ve had their lives destroyed in the last five minutes “curious”? I can’t speak for **silenus** , but my guess is that he didn’t “bother” to do anything. He had a gut reaction (for lack of a better term)to the words of another’s “gut reaction”. He read a quote and expressed the way those words effected him. I saw his point and said so. > [@](#): > > Who sets aside empathy so they can question or critique someone’s babblings as the reel in horror? Exactly what kind of culture has been spawned by this Internet message board where people have gotten so used to second-guessing and lording-over that nothing can slip by them? I’m not sure why this is so offensive to you. Maybe his phrasing was a little harsh, but pit worthy? I consider myself to be empathetic above all else and I got what he( **silenus** ) was saying. In the larger scope of the tragedy it’s hardly important, nor is it anyone’s business what his words were in the aftermath, but we don’t know him and didn’t witness it. Because this _is_ an anonymous Internet message board, often times emotional context is lost. > [@](#): > > Are your words so carefully measured to convey nothing but the blinding whiteness of your own virtue, even at the most stressful and panicked moments? The “blinding whiteness of my own virtue” (pithy phrase, that)aside, yeah, I actually \*do \* measure my words more than most. **That’s not to say that I hold others to that standard,** just that, like I said, the man’s words struck me as unexpected. ---
**Author:** ![Walter\_Windchill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Walter\_Windchill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walter_Windchill)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/28 "2006-07-25T16:35:45Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Maybe his phrasing was a little harsh, but pit worthy? I hope you appreciate the humor of this comment. After all, if the behavior of a man looking at his wife’s dead body is fair game for criticism on a bulletin board, then certainly that criticism is subject to criticism. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/29 "2006-07-25T16:47:36Z")
> [@Walter Windchill](#): > > Incidentally, I found jjim’s post to be touching and his meaning clear. Thank you. On a further note of surprisingly much-needed clarification: it may have used sarcasm, but that doesn’t make it a joke. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/30 "2006-07-25T16:53:05Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Thank you. > > On a further note of surprisingly much-needed clarification: it may have used sarcasm, but that doesn’t make it a joke. Hmmm but I interpret your first post as a joke. It is (IMO) a joke at Silenus’ expense. But I have no clear definition of joke that I’m working from, so maybe you mean something other than what(ever) I do by “joke.” -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/31 "2006-07-25T16:53:10Z")
> [@Walter Windchill](#): > > I hope you appreciate the humor of this comment. After all, if the behavior of a man looking at his wife’s dead body is fair game for criticism on a bulletin board, then certainly that criticism is subject to criticism. I get you. I was thinking the same thing as I was responding. Well, kind of the same thing. Something about the two being different sides of the same coin and so cancelling each other out. By the by, **Frylock’s** post put it in a very different light for me. Not that I needed to be reassured that the man’s words were anything but grief for his lost wife; I simply didn’t think that deeply about it. I think **Silenus** reacted to words he saw on a page, most likely without giving much thought to the whole situation. ---
**Author:** ![Walter\_Windchill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Walter\_Windchill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walter_Windchill)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/32 "2006-07-25T17:02:38Z")
Exactly. And if a calm and detached person posting about something on the Internet can be given the benefit of the doubt over some rubbish he said, certainly some guy who just lost his wife can be given that same benefit. Judge not, etc. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/33 "2006-07-25T17:10:09Z")
> [@Walter Windchill](#): > > Exactly. And if a calm and detached person posting about something on the Internet can be given the benefit of the doubt over some rubbish he said, certainly some guy who just lost his wife can be given that same benefit. Judge not, etc. Right back at ya. ( Also known as the “you started it” defense 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/34 "2006-07-25T17:27:23Z")
In the words of that insightful student of human nature, James Morrison, “People are strange.” Processing traumatic, grief-causing occurrences is often when their behavior is the strangest. Denial, emotional divorcement from the event, and so on are common. So is suppressing grief. Taking refuge in routine or mindless activity is **very** common. My wife lost her parents in a six-months period in her mid-teens, in the early 1960s – first her mother to a cerebral hemorrhage, then her father to suicide (an eerie foreboding of what happened with my own, 20 years later). She bottled up the grief, and to her surviving relatives it seemed as if she didn’t care. In 1989, we took a winter vacation to Florida, and it was driving down I-81 in Pennsylvania that she began talking about a horrific accident she’d seen with her parents while driving down that road with them, many years before, to visit her mother’s family. That segued into her _finally_ being able to grieve for them, talk out her feelings on that trip – 26 years after the events. I’ve got a good dozen stories of odd ways people have dealt with grief in my presence – but that one sums them up. You process grief in the manner and at the time you’re ready to do it. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/35 "2006-07-25T17:31:37Z")
Most of us are fortunate in that we can grieve without a bazooka-sized microphone being jammed in our faces. I always feel sorry for folks on the news whose grief is made public. No one looks good when they’re bawling in the yard, screaming at the top of their lungs. Last weekend, a young man down here died when his car plunged off the highway and into a canal. His grief-shricken mother was shown on the news screaming: “I WANT JUSTICE FOR MY SON! I WANT JUSTICE FOR MY SON!” A non-compassionate heart would call this woman an idiot for thinking her son had been a victim of “injustice” rather than simply poor driving. But you have to ask yourself: What in the hell would _I_ have said if I had been her? I probably would have said something even more ridiculous. I agree with this pitting 100%. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/36 "2006-07-25T18:20:08Z")
My first Pitting. Well, the first one directly about something I said. To tell the truth, I didn’t really put much thought into the post, nor did I have much of an emotional response to the man’s plight. Words on a screen about someone I don’t know. But I found his words odd. Could I have phrased my post better? Definitely. Would it have been better all around if I had just kept my mouth shut? Definitely again. Am I going to lose any sleep over this? No. Why? Because the people who are analyzing me and speculating as to my degree of emotional involvement and empathy, based on the words they read on a message board, without knowing me at all, are just as judgmental as I was. I take my pitting with what I hope is a fitting dignity. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. ---
**Author:** ![Omegaman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e480ec/32.png) [@Omegaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omegaman)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/37 "2006-07-25T18:32:57Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Because the people who are analyzing me and speculating as to my degree of emotional involvement and empathy, based on the words they read on a message board, without knowing me at all, are just as judgmental as I was. > > I take my pitting with what I hope is a fitting dignity. > > Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I agree with most on your lack of sympathy but your reply contains much truth. Fitting dignity in the least. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/38 "2006-07-25T20:20:05Z")
> [@Walter Windchill](#): > > Who sets aside empathy so they can question or critique someone’s babblings as the reel in horror? Why should he have empathy for the man? He doesn’t even know him. The original thread was the standard, “Oh, let me post about some tragedy that I read about in the world and feel morally superior because I’m outraged on behalf of the victims” pit thread. ---
**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:** [July 25, 2006, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/39 "2006-07-25T20:36:30Z")
> [@Walter Windchill](#): > > To even HAVE a public stance on how a man responds upon finding his wife has just been killed already betrays a kind of witless, casual judgmentalism that stuns me. Well, if the guy has started singing “Ding dong the witch is dead!” while doing a happy little dance, I think a certain amount of judgmentalism might be appropriate. That said, I agree that the man’s response to his wife’s death was a normal, understandable reaction, and that **silenus** ’s criticism was misplaced. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “witless, casual judgmentalism,” though. > [@Captain Amazing](#): > > Why should he have empathy for the man? He doesn’t even know him. I was not aware that was a requirement for empathy. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/40 "2006-07-25T20:36:53Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, all I know is what I read in the papers. > > ``` > Will Rogers, New York Times, Sept 30 1923 > > ``` It is just possible that our knowledge of the comment and its context is incomplete. Certainly we do not have enough information to condemn the poor guy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944.md?page=3)