OH GET THE FUCK OVER IT

I have extreme despise for a certain attitude... and if you're my friend and you end up being one of these people, I'll let you know.

People get offended. Of course. Everyone grows up with different values and morals. So if I call someone retarded, that's not offensive to me, but it may be offensive to someone else.

Here's the problem. When you make a HUGE deal out of the fact that you're offended. When you make it a point to make the person who has offended you feel like SHIT for trying to make a joke (for example). When you make it a point to apologize to everyone around in the name of the person who has said the offensive words... Well... that makes you a douche.

Sorry if that word offends you.

example

I had a friend in a class in my undergrad. He is gay. I could not care less. At some point I was talking on the phone to a mutual friend. I said Phil (name changed) was in the room. Person on the phone said "Phil who?" I said, "you know, Phil", person on phone said, "no I don't, which Phil?" and I said, "gay Phil."

I figured this was fine because everyone knows he's gay, and there really weren't any other distinguishing factors about him. If he were black, I would have said "black Phil." Who cares? Well, he threw a tizzie, and continued to lecture me on it for months.

oooohhh that pissed me off. I finally went off in front of several people, the following is a true recounting -

me - "fine Phil, do you want me to apologize?"
Phil - "yes, that would be nice."
me - "fine. I'm sorry that you can't be comfortable enough with who you are to let people say it out loud, and I'm sorry that you probably can't take a fucking joke. Grow up."

Other examples include me using the word dyke as a joke, making a rather mild joke about someone's mom (who had just made a joke about mine), and a girl who slapped me for saying that her friend who was missing his front teeth would thus be better at french kissing. She was just making fun of him for the same thing, but apparently I crossed the line, and that could only be righted with violence.

Have I ever been offended? I can think of a very small number of times where I felt someone crossed my line of acceptibility. One was a holocaust joke, the other was when a friend said a very mean thing about another very nice friend. What did I do? I just didn't laugh, because it wasn't funny to me... but as far as I'm concerned, those people can go on saying those things to anyone else they want. I don't care.

And no one should. If you don't find something funny, that's understandable, but don't ruin everyone else's fun. If you're in a situation where you might be repeatedly subjected to something that makes you uncomfortable, tell the person like an adult. Politely and privately.

Just remember, every time you try to censor someone with a guilt trip, Donald Rumsfeld kills a kitten.