Or he could've been clearer and not blindsided me. I had no idea startling was personally offended because none of his comments were anything out of the ordinary for that vein of mock offensive humor
I suppose one difficulty with that kind of environment is that if someone actually tries to call someone else out for being insulting, it's easy to miss the call-out or mistake it for a joke. In other conversational environments, if someone said "'deceptive' is a pretty terrible word to use for trans people" and "gwern, what a disgusting thing to say," it might have sunk in that they were serious and you wouldn't have later felt blindsided?
In other conversational environments, if someone said "'deceptive' is a pretty terrible word to use for trans people" and "gwern, what a disgusting thing to say," it might have sunk in that they were serious and you wouldn't have later felt blindsided?
Oh sure. For example: if someone says 'what a horrible thing to say' while simultaneously smiling, you would have to have Aspergers or something to not be certain that they were playing along; while if they furrowed their brow and frowned, it might be a good idea to immediately backtrac...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, even in Discussion, it goes here.