Right there you said gave permission for people to be sad, or for people to empathize, and, by implication, not to feel what you stated in your OP.
Then there’s just the entire thread. There are three purposes for this type of thread:
Pure curiosity. This is belied by the fact that, when given the answer, you argued with it. You argued with how someone else felt, which obviously makes no sense.
To try and offend people: I’m taking you at your word that this was not your intention
To try and put forth a proposition. And what would that proposition be? That people shouldn’t treat the infertile with the level of sympathy that they do, and that people shouldn’t feel grief over what you do not consider a loss.
The third one is the only one that makes sense. And telling other people what they should feel or how much empathy they should have, or how they are allowed to feel about something is offensive. And that’s why people were annoyed. Throw in your utter cluelessness that this was happening, and lack of any acknowledgment of the other viewpoints, and it was downright offensive.
I’m glad that you at least figured out the latter part, but you still seem to not get the former. You did specifically say what people are allowed to feel. And that is not your prerogative.
Great post, QFT, could have saved me the trouble of reading 6 pages of this nonsense. Dio, any chance you’d admit to the fact you’ve been completely wrong in what the words grief, disability and loss mean?
That is clearly not supported by the evidence. So far as I can see, you never even admitted that you were wrong about the meaning of grieve and grief – i.e., your claim that they refer only to sadness at a death.
Multiple posters, including me, showed you that there were other definitions. And for reasons unrelated to this thread, I had occasion to check the etymology of the words in the Oed, and the sadness-due-to-a-death are not even the oldest defintions. (I’m sorry I can’t link to it; the online OED requies a subscription.)
Are you prepared to admit to being wrong even about that?
I honestly don’t know why anyone is bothering. Seriously. He’s not going to back down and admit he’s wrong.
For the record, if people want to spend their money on IVF and adoption, that’s their business. If people want to overly-sympathize (in your eyes) with people that are infertile, again, that’s their business. You don’t like it, fine, that’s your business.
How about you mind your own, and silently judge everyone else. Just cause you can post to a message board doesn’t mean you should.
Well, crap, fell into my own trap. I guess I’m more arguing for him just to shut it.