This is, for me, the most important point. If someone says, “Haha, last night I barbecued my neighbor’s kitten and served it to him with a fine Chianti, and IT WAS DELICIOUS!” I’d still ask them for clarification before pitting them. It’s far too easy to misconstrue attempts at humor as something serious, especially on the Internet, where a lack of body language is combined with a surfeit of sarcasm and snark.
I wish everyone would take this lesson to heart.
Daniel
Liberal, I never thought of you as my enemy for this. And I certainly couldn’t know your experiences, for which I offer you heartfelt sympathy.
What continues to bother me, not only about the initial pitting, but the others chiming in, is that everyone seemed to be responding as if Twickster had entirely abandoned her friend in favor of a silly TV show, whereas in reality, she was talking about a single evening, and a situation in which, however disappointedly, she had in fact sacrificed her own desires to those of her friend. I’d love to know how many of those who jumped on the bandwagon would really live up to their own apparent standards of friendship, visiting evey night without exception, regardless of the conflicts or inconvenience it would cause.
Liberal, I recognize the experiences you bring to this situation as exceptional. But that’s exactly what they are - exceptional. It’s really not fair of you to project your experience on to another’s situation, and one bearing so little relation to your own tragedies. Twickster didn’t owe you or anyone else any clarification; she was expressing disappointment and dismay in missing something important to her in order to visit a friend in the hospital - there is nothing for her to apologize for or even clarify. If she wanted to express dismay, in what possible way did that have an impact on anyone, including her sick friend? And if you really did read that post over repeatedly, how did you get to blood gushing from the mouth of her friend/victim from there? I really am sorry that you’ve been through what you’ve been through, but it’s really not typical of people’s experiences and shouldn’t be used as a standard of judgment, you know? It’s not fair of you to project your well-earned hyper-sensitivity onto others.
I’ve met Twickster exactly once in person, know nothing of her “clique”, and have just run across her in a few threads. She is a pleasant acquaintance rather than a close friend whom I am defending. I would have reacted this way had the original subject been any poster on this board. My indignation here has been in the wild leap that so many of you seemed to take from thinking of possibly missing a single evening of visiting (and actually deciding against it) to apparent total and permanent disregard of her friend in favor of the crass and shallow pursuit of reality TV. Do you chimers-in actually think a situation through and consider what you’re saying before you decide to join in (effectively) calling someone as a shit-head?
I honestly get your point, Oy. It’s pretty much the same thing you keep saying. In your opinion, I’ve dragged Twickster, a dear sweet person, through Hell’s own mud over what was nothing more than a joke. Unfortunately, you’re not getting my point — but we can just leave it at that. We all have our reference frames which bind our vision to our experience. All we can really see in life is ourselves.
Yeah, but when your own experience distorts what you’re seeing, there’s a problem. I repeat – my friend isn’t dying; he had surgery, which went very well. I never said he was dying. Y’all decided he was dying and piled on me accordingly. I don’t mind accepting responsibility for misinterpreting what I actually wrote – but you were completely making up what you thought I was saying.
He had surgery. We discussed when I would go see him after the surgery. This was to be a “hanging out and keeping him company” visit, not a pilgrimage to his deathbed.
I’m now getting more pissed off about this, not less.
As I said, all we really see in life is ourselves. I’ve already apologized for the misunderstanding. Don’t be angry; it hurts only you.
Yes, but in your solipsistic snit, you dragged me into the Pit and called me an asshole.
Oh, I get it – that means that you’re an asshole. Gotcha.
Bollocks. I accept that you might, as I would, miss your favourite TV show, but would your miss your childs wedding? Graduation? Would you lose you job? More importantly, would your friend want you to?
Here’s my question for you, Lib–does the person who is unfailingly loyal, who never even considers the possibility of acting selfishly really a better person than the person who considers the possibility of acting selfishly, recognizes that it is within their power to make that choice, and then choses the selfless path? Can we condemn people for being tempted, for looking that temptation square in the fac ead rejecting it? Because even if you take twickster’s OP as written (as oppossed to as intended), that’s all I see.
Greetings, Manda JO. It’s good to hear from you. As I see it, there is no point in trying to be anything other than selfish — we are, after all, our life experiences. When we look out onto the world, ourselves is what we see. Selflessness is the feeblest of aspirations, since there can be no such thing. There is hardly a greater windmill at which to tilt than a metaphysical impossibility. But I understand what you’re getting at. It is morally superior to contemplate evil and enact goodness than to contemplate goodness and enact evil.
You and I both have now described what we saw. A man will always follow what he treasures — his heart will drive him there with a relentless sense of purpose. Every act that we do is selfish, born of a decision made inside a subjective reference frame. It is therefore impossible for one man to condemn another since there exists for them no accessibility relation between their frames. A man can condone or condemn only himself. Every pitting is a condemnation, whether vicious or mild, or what we see in our own lives.
You know, Liberal, until you had my sympathy. But that is one of the biggest steaming piles of self-justifying, hi-falutin’ crap I’ve ever seen in my life.
Empathy is possible and a worthy goal to pursue. If you consider solipsism and selfishness the unavoidable norm, I suggest you refrain from pitting people for their selfishness in the future.
er, that would be “until *now * you had my sympathy” ! :o
Well, thank you. That rather illustrates my point. You’re calling it the way you see it, which in fact is the only way you can.
Did you mean to say that empathy by some people for some people is a worthy goal to pursue, or are you admitting that you have abandoned the worthy goal in my case?
Selfishness is quite obviously unavoidable, but you don’t seem to know what solipsism (belief that only oneself exists) is. I said that all reference frames — including my own — are subjective, not that my reference frame is the only one that exists.
Finally, your roly poly tides of sympathy are of no concern to me, but I didn’t pit Twickster for her selfishness. I would explain it again, but expending the energy wouldn’t make any sense. You cannot possibly be less stupid now than you were a few minutes ago.
Well, having already apologized for my behavior 
, I suppose I should step in and explain myself a bit.
What made it pitworthy for me was this:
Posted (jokingly)by Twickster
Seemed the person was a tad upset. Having just been through surgery, I figured that “upset” wasn’t something the person should be. It’s one thing to have plans, made in advance. It’s another to say “but a tv show is on.” Not knowing anything about twickster, her friend, etc. I regretfully joined in the pile on.
I would like to ask for some sympathy. I mean, The Apprentice? It’s offensive that anyone would even watch this show. How could I keep a proper frame of mind when I find out a member of this venerable board was keeping such programs on the air? 
Could be worse though. Coulda been “The Simple Life.”
This is the last time that I buy into anything that I heard from the Liberal media. 
Thank yew! Thank yew! I’ll be here all week.
If it makes you feel better, I’ve never even seen a minute of “The Simple Life.” They may be low, but I do have some standards. 
They can’t be that high. You’re watching “The Lawrence Welk Show”.
Robin
That’s the last secret I tell you!
(Ooh, they’ve segued from Bread to Three Dog Night!)
Lawrence Welk? That’s it. The pittings deserved. My grandparents used to use that show to punish me.
Damn it! Wrong user name. Should be under mine.
Gonna slink off into my idiot hole now :o
twickster and I are TV buddies-- we do the SDMB FantasyTeeVee league together, we talk about shows, and I think she’s a great person with a good sense of humor. I knew she was only joking about not visiting her friend because of a TV show. She probably thought it was all the same to him if she came on a Wednesday or a Thursday, but he wanted her to go on Thursday and got annoyed when she said she couldn’t. Ultimately, she was going to go but was bitching, tongue in cheek, about missing the beginning of the show. There was no way she was going to dis her friend if he really wanted her to be there that night. That was clear to me from the get-go.
Next, let’s address the “fuck yous” twickster got about watching the Apprentice. It’s trash. We know it’s trash. We find it fun to watch, the way some people like watching soap operas, other people enjoy a greasy Big Mac everyone now and again, etc. We know we’re slumming in the dregs of TV viewage, but it’s just goofy fun. I know that, twickster knows that-- she’s not a moron-- but we like it. Let he who is without any guilty pleasures cast the first stone.
Ultimately, this Pitting was ridiculous. twicks, throw in a few smilies next time for the humor-impaired to avoid this nonsense in the future, 'K?
Well, aren’t you special.