“I’m offended”

“I’m offended,” she said to me.

“I couldn’t give a fuck” I replied.

How many times have you heard a woman use some variation of the “I’m offended” comment?  How many times have you heard a man use this tactic?

I can’t recall ever hearing a man say these words to me.  Not once.  Guys don’t typically talk that way.  I’m not saying there isn’t some half-man, or gay man out there who wouldn’t, just that there isn’t a man I’ve met who has used those words.  Guys get into discussions and arguments  from time to time, but mostly we agree to disagree or in extreme and rare cases decide to vent pent up disagreements with fisticuffs.

All the women I know on the other hand, wield this phrase with masterful precision against men.  For most men who encounter this reaction, their instant response is to change the subject and/or apologize.  And then there are the guys who ignore the so called offense and continue with what they are saying.  Do you choose door A or door B?

I was raised to be a gentleman in a society that no longer honors gentlemanly behavior.  I was taught to be deferential to women for no other reason than that they happen to have female plumbing.  Just two short years ago, before my eyes were opened, I would converse with women with an underlying intent of not providing any offense. Now, for the most part, I have stopped caring.

I recognize when a women tells me she’s offended, it is most often  a shit test.  Maybe she is truly offended, but the effect is control.  The sole intent is to control.  Not just of what we say, but of what we think.  Giving in to someone who is supposedly offended is allowing them to control the frame.  It is allowing their emotional response to shut down debate.   It is a closing of the mind to ideas that may be uncomfortable to think about.  In some cases it could just be a closing of the mind to uncomfortable associations that the words provoke.

Men are simultaneously respected by some and despised by others for uncompromisingly stating what they believe regardless of who may or may not be offended.  Being an insipid inoffensive mouse will only generate derision.  Be the former, not the latter.