On understanding

[haddayr]

Every wheelie has an experience similar to the one I had today: I pushed open the door to the bathroom and began to wheel through it. A coworker was standing at the sinks, washing her hands. She looked up, a totally panicked expression on her face, and abandoned her hygiene to leap in front of me, completely blocking my entrance, and to grab the

Comments

[tithenai]

But -- you clearly DO understand. Everything about this post shows you understanding what they meant, and further understanding the context that produces the well-meaning beyond even what the well-meaners mean.

So to ask you to understand is sort of superfluous. To ask the asker if THEY understand would probably be more to the point.

[jonhansen]

I don't think they're really asking for understanding, I think they're asking for forgiveness.

[tithenai]

That's an excellent point. Yes.

[callunav]

Yeeesss...but there's two problems with that very graceful and compassionate translation.

The first is that they're mostly asking for forgiveness for other people, not themselves, which makes everything rather difficult to handle meaningfully.

And the second is that--well, /my/ sense is that most of the time, when people are asking for forgiveness for something, there's generally expected to be an element of actual contrition and an intent to do better thereafter. This totally lacks any of that.

I think orbitalmechanic nails it, below, really.

[orbitalmechanic]

Yes! What they mean is: "Please agree that I can just keep doing this without worrying that you're mad."

[mrissa]

Yes. That.

Bleh.

[corinneduyvis]

That sounds perfectly right.

I'm so tired of, "But they mean well!" Yeah, I... wasn't exactly arguing they're seal-clubbing Nazis, was I? I wish people were more open to criticizing behavior as a totally separate thing from intentions.

[mmerriam]

This.