09-20-2009, 09:13 PM
I think I just lost a friend.
I have a group of friends who I met through an 'expecting club' when we were all pregnant. Essentially, we were all due to give birth in the same month. Unfortunately, as I've mentioned before, most of the people in the online group were total flakes, and/or conservative right-wing fundamentalists. Briefly, people I had nothing in common with except for a due date. However, there were a select few who were generally brighter and more 'progressive' than the rest. We few started emailing back and forth, and have been ever since. A few of those dropped as time went on, but there were still the four of us after all this time.
Until yesterday.
One of my 'friends' has a little girl who has a few problems that she is in therapy for. Although the child is VERY bright, and I mean like knowing her entire alphabet and doing basic addition and subtraction at 2 1⁄2 years old bright, she has had some physical problems, like 'core muscle weakness' and a few things like that. She walked quite late, she wears braces on her ankles and she has a pretty serious speech delay. At 2 1⁄2 years old, she can only make a few basic sounds and speech 'approximations', like saying 'bah bah bah' for 'bottle'.
Anyway, this gal (the mother) has always stressed that she WANTS to hear updates on how the rest of our little ones are doing, the stuff they are saying, etc. A few days ago, one of the gals started an email asking for 'updates' and proceeded to give updates on her sons. I responded with some updates on my son, some of the interesting stuff he says (he's very verbal), etc. Another gal updated on her daughter and included some of the very precocious things that her daughter has been saying.
Jokingly, I responded to the precocious girl's mother, saying that 'her verbal skills make Skye look downright retarded' (with laughing). To which the mother of the girl with physical problems responded shortly "Well, what does that say about XXX?" (her daughter). I responded to that email, pleasantly, saying "Well, if XXX didn't have issues which are holding her back from speaking, I think she would make them ALL look like retards!". Which I thought was a compliment and would be the end of it.
But no, she then responded, getting rather snippy, that she didn't find my 'jokes' funny and that 'jokes like mine' were what perpetuated the myths that verbally challenged people were mentally challenged as well.
Of course, at that point I was starting to get irritated and told her that she was being ridiculous, that it was an off-hand joking comment about my own son, among friends, and that it had absolutely nothing to do with her daughters issues. She became even more irate, calling me 'insensitive' and demanding an apology. I said that I was 'sorry she was hurt', but that I wasn't sorry for saying what I said, since, given the context of the situation, there was nothing wrong with saying it.
Emails flew back and forth, her becoming more and more emotional, and of course there is a lot more involved (such as the fact that she has been doing this a lot recently, basically 'calling out' those of us in the little group for saying things that upset her) and basically, I'd had enough of that behavior and refused to say I was wrong.
So, now it seems I have lost a friend over this... but in every email, I told her that I was still here as a friend if she should decide she wants to write to me.
But, all of this boils down to the simple statement in the subject of this thread. I am fucking sick to death of oversensitive, self-victimizing drama queens. Why the fuck can't people grow up and just realize that they are not the centers of the universe? The world would be a much better place.
I have a group of friends who I met through an 'expecting club' when we were all pregnant. Essentially, we were all due to give birth in the same month. Unfortunately, as I've mentioned before, most of the people in the online group were total flakes, and/or conservative right-wing fundamentalists. Briefly, people I had nothing in common with except for a due date. However, there were a select few who were generally brighter and more 'progressive' than the rest. We few started emailing back and forth, and have been ever since. A few of those dropped as time went on, but there were still the four of us after all this time.
Until yesterday.
One of my 'friends' has a little girl who has a few problems that she is in therapy for. Although the child is VERY bright, and I mean like knowing her entire alphabet and doing basic addition and subtraction at 2 1⁄2 years old bright, she has had some physical problems, like 'core muscle weakness' and a few things like that. She walked quite late, she wears braces on her ankles and she has a pretty serious speech delay. At 2 1⁄2 years old, she can only make a few basic sounds and speech 'approximations', like saying 'bah bah bah' for 'bottle'.
Anyway, this gal (the mother) has always stressed that she WANTS to hear updates on how the rest of our little ones are doing, the stuff they are saying, etc. A few days ago, one of the gals started an email asking for 'updates' and proceeded to give updates on her sons. I responded with some updates on my son, some of the interesting stuff he says (he's very verbal), etc. Another gal updated on her daughter and included some of the very precocious things that her daughter has been saying.
Jokingly, I responded to the precocious girl's mother, saying that 'her verbal skills make Skye look downright retarded' (with laughing). To which the mother of the girl with physical problems responded shortly "Well, what does that say about XXX?" (her daughter). I responded to that email, pleasantly, saying "Well, if XXX didn't have issues which are holding her back from speaking, I think she would make them ALL look like retards!". Which I thought was a compliment and would be the end of it.
But no, she then responded, getting rather snippy, that she didn't find my 'jokes' funny and that 'jokes like mine' were what perpetuated the myths that verbally challenged people were mentally challenged as well.
Of course, at that point I was starting to get irritated and told her that she was being ridiculous, that it was an off-hand joking comment about my own son, among friends, and that it had absolutely nothing to do with her daughters issues. She became even more irate, calling me 'insensitive' and demanding an apology. I said that I was 'sorry she was hurt', but that I wasn't sorry for saying what I said, since, given the context of the situation, there was nothing wrong with saying it.
Emails flew back and forth, her becoming more and more emotional, and of course there is a lot more involved (such as the fact that she has been doing this a lot recently, basically 'calling out' those of us in the little group for saying things that upset her) and basically, I'd had enough of that behavior and refused to say I was wrong.
So, now it seems I have lost a friend over this... but in every email, I told her that I was still here as a friend if she should decide she wants to write to me.
But, all of this boils down to the simple statement in the subject of this thread. I am fucking sick to death of oversensitive, self-victimizing drama queens. Why the fuck can't people grow up and just realize that they are not the centers of the universe? The world would be a much better place.
![[Image: Zy3rKpW.png]](https://i.imgur.com/Zy3rKpW.png)