No offense, but you're ugly

The other day, S. asked me, "Mommy, what does 'no offense' mean?" I told her, "It's what you say when you want to say something mean but you don't want to take responsibility for what you're saying. Like if I tell you, "No offense, but you're ugly, it still hurts your feelings, right?" She got it immediately.

Today, after several email exchanges between a group of friends, I was asked to speak up about my opinion. I replied privately to the person who asked and explained my feelings. I told him, "I invite you to point out the fallacies in my arguments -- but I also hope that you will put your money where your mouth is (dude, that's actually kind of a sick expression now that i think about it) and DO something." My point was that complaining without action doesn't really bring about change.

He replied in an email that made liberal use of the CAPS LOCK key to tell me that I had no idea what I was talking about, because he ONCE FELT THE SAME WAY I DID but the problem is INTERNATIONAL and WE CAN'T FIX IT, so SHUT UP ALREADY, and he even called me by the name of a different friend once. I called him. For the purpose of this conversation, we'll just go ahead and bill my friend as ASSHOLE.

ASSHOLE: Yes, my dear WG?

WG: You know, you were so mad in your email that you called me [OTHERFRIEND].

ASSHOLE: Well, if the shoe fits, WG.

WG: OK. Well, we're still speaking, right?

ASSHOLE: Yes, we're still speaking. I just don't know how you can open your mouth wide enough to swallow it all. I mean, you're not even chewing it.

WG: ...

WG: I don't even know what to say to that.

ASSHOLE: So, what's up?

WG: Wow. You just really hurt my feelings. I'll talk to you about it later.

And then I hung up and burst into tears. FOR TWO HOURS.

He emailed a few minutes later saying "I obviously did not mean to hurt your feelings."

Hey guess what? It's not obvious at all. Asshole.