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Screenshot of a Tumblr post by indigosfindings:
imagine if someone just like started addressing you as Dipshit, like youre just talking about your day & they say “no way Dipshit, that’s crazy.” and then maybe you say to them that you would prefer not to be addressed as Dipshit & their response is “well in my major metropolitan area ‘Dipshit’ is not considered an insult. im not saying i think youre stupid when i call you Dipshit, i call my mom dipshit all the time” so you say Thats cool but please dont call Me that. and then they just repeat that it’s something they say daily, they call all of their best friends & lovers dipshits & are called dipshit in return. “my grandma calls me dipshit at the dinner table, it doesnt mean anything.” so you say Yes i understand that your friends & grandma arent bothered by being called Dipshit but i am, & i would prefer if you didnt address me as that. and they say “it’s literally not possible for me to stop calling you dipshit, and it’s not reasonable for you to ask me to, dipshit.” anyway this post is about nothing in particular
It doesn’t cost nothing though.
If a person habitually calls everyone “dipshit”, they need to pay close attention every time they speak with that person, making sure to think about every word coming out of their mouth and making sure none of these is “dipshit”.
Just try speaking to someone and never using “the” ever, it’s incredibly hard. If you’re used to speaking in a certain way, it’s very hard to change and takes a lot of mental work. And it’s ok if it’s one word with one person… but what if everyone decides a word or multiple words isn’t fine to them? It gets harder and harder.
This is not a complete non-issue like it’s being treated.
Actually I think the more people “banning” the word (so to speak), the easier it is to change your patterns.
Take the N word, many many white people around the 25-40yo range used to let it fly, mostly in an eminem type sense rather than a racist (ykwim) sense, and those people have almost all changed by now to not say it anymore because nobody is cool with it.
Meanwhile, my dad, my grandma, and one trans person I know, are the only three people who have ever said “stop calling me dude.” I say it every 3rd sentence to literally everyone, including my mom who I am not calling a “male human” when I say “dude,” I legitimately cannot stop saying it, especially since I only have to do it when talking to those three specific people, and I disagree with my dad that “it’s disrespectful,” and I disagree that it is a gendered term (in this context, it can be, like “how you guys doing” is different from “this is the guy’s bathroom” and anyone denying this is purposefully obtuse.)
I have no scientific basis for this of course but that’s my theory anyway.
Definitely.
I just thought it important with my comment to counteract the sentiment of “fuck what the person that is wrong feels”. That is exactly what is causing the resistance most of the time. Yes, sure, they shouldn’t be saying “dipshit” to that other person. But telling them it’s no problem when they themselves know that it’s a huge problem for them is just antagonizing them, effectively.
Sure, but then there’s a difference between dipshit and dude, if we drop this false equivalency. At that point, where the word is innocuous and not intended to offend, it is sort of unreasonable to ask the person to change their entire speech pattern simply because you’re unreasonably offended by the word. It’d be like being offended by someone calling you “yo” when asking something like “Hey yo you have the time,” it’s unlikely that person will be willing or able to acquiesce your request to stop calling them “yo” and only call them by their proper name or gender, I’m simply going to say “yo” again in 5min regardless of if either of us want me to or not. Actually I’m entirely likely to say “yo dude” at the beginning of every sentence lmao.
That’s why I wrote my initial comment.
They both need to acknowledge that they’re unreasonable. Dropping the metaphor.
It’s completely understandable that one person has trauma regarding gender and thus unreasonably feels offended by an innocuous word like “dude”. And thus, if you respect that person, it’s totally reasonable to try to accommodate them and not use “dude” when possible.
At the same time, the person requesting it needs to be aware that their request is unreasonable in the way that you just described, and thus it’d be reasonable for them to say “please don’t say dude to me, but if you can’t, it’s not that bad because I know this is my issue to be so offended by an innocuous word”.
Honestly though that just shakes out to “I still say it every 5 seconds, and for the first few times I follow it up with ‘shit, sorry’ but then I forget that too next time we chill.”
It’s literally so bad that the best answer is actually “we just don’t talk then.” And that’s fine, tbh. I’m too ADHD for relationships that require that.
“It’ll be hard but I’ll try.”
A lot of people have a hard time admitting they’re wrong or don’t know.