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handoflixue comments on [LINK] An internet source of offended people misunderstanding each other. - Less Wrong
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But they're writing down their own behavior wrong. They say that they said, "How can I help you make this evening better?" and the person reports that they said something like "Look, can we make this evening better?!" So that's not just about causation, it's attributing actions to themselves.
When two people are saying different things, it seems unreasonable to assume that the person is describing their own behavior wrong, as opposed to the other party reporting it inaccurately.
Especially on a website where you'll get karma/attention/sympathy for making the other party out as a crazy loon or a sadistic villain...
To say nothing of cultural differences that genuinely lead to one person saying X, and the other person understanding Y instead[1].
And then there's the weird tendency to hold first dates in noisy environments, where it's easy to mishear...
[1] I almost broke up with my girlfriend recently over similar. She told me "I would have shown up if it was planned" and I took that to mean "You failed to make a concrete date, so I felt okay blowing you off" when it was actually "I got dragged in to support an unplanned intervention for a family member" >.> That was awkward, especially since she really had been blowing me off due to insufficiently concrete plans a month ago.
Nono, I mean they describe their nice behavior as super-nice, while the other person describes it as ok/slightly defensive? I'm still inclined to think people don't realize that their own defensiveness is showing when they think it isn't. Also, I think I wouldn't expect someone to be especially accommodating for a crazy loon.
I'm just saying, my experience is that it does go both ways: Alice is offended, and so plays Bob off as being middle-of-the road when he was super-nice, and crazy-loon when he was middle-of-the-road. Or Bob is genuinely a loon, but insists that okay, he was maybe middle of the road a few times, but super nice the rest of the time.
I've seen this as an impartial observer, and I've been on both sides of the fence. My friends know not to take me too seriously when I'm upset about someone...
EDIT: You're probably also right about defensiveness not being apparent. I'm not suggesting this is ALWAYS the case, just that it's a bad idea to seriously assume that the first poster is ALWAYS in the right and that the rebuttals MUST be mere defensiveness and not genuine outrage at such a false portrayal.
Oh sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. I meant one poster writes themselves as trying really hard to help and the other writes that poster as medium-to-not helpful. And vice versa! I wasn't distinguishing between original and rebuttal posters.