LEARNING SOME LESSONS

As some of you already know, I spent Monday night in tears. I had received an e-mail from someone who was offended by words I had said when asking for their advice on something. They made it clear that they understood my intentions were good and appreciated the motive behind what I had said, but they were pretty upset nonetheless.

While I never want to offend anyone, I'm not prone to crying about it when it happens. Unfortunately, this was the most recent incident in a string of complaints over several months from people who aren't happy with me because of one thing or another - the questions I ask, blogs I post, way my days are scheduled, keys I use when typing, gatherings I plan, ways I try to make things right after offending someone, etc. No matter what I do or say, whether serious or trivial, someone is upset. It seriously makes me want to just withdraw from everyone. We're all bound to hurt someone every now and then. That's just part of life. It seems, however, that I have a unique ability to do it effortlessly, unintentionally, and constantly.

I'm not going to get into specifics of Monday's situation, but it was about some words I'd used and an assumption I had in giving the physical description of someone. I know that's vague, but I don't want people trying to figure out who was involved or what the details were. It doesn't really matter.

Neither the words nor the assumption have ever been a problem when I've used them before, so the fact that someone was offended caught me completely off guard. I immediately sent a one sentence e-mail back apologizing for the offense, then just cried the rest of the night.

As the offended person had specifically referenced their own childhood and because I'd never had someone complain before, I wasn't sure how much of their offense was a personal issue or if all people in this particular group share the same feelings. However, since they were so upset that they couldn't even think of how to answer my question, I was afraid that anything I said or questions I asked would just dig the whole that I was in even deeper.

I know others in similar situations, so I shot out some e-mails explaining the situation and asking for their feedback. As I told some of them, I firmly believe that if you ask a question, then you need to be prepared for any answer that comes. With that in mind, I asked them to honestly tell me if they thought I was offensive in what I said and to clarify if my assumption was correct or incorrect.
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I'm so thankful for their honest responses. The responses varied from person to person, but they were all helpful. Technically, I didn't do anything wrong. The words I used weren't "bad" words, my tone when using them was good, and my motives in the conversation were right. However, I now know that the words I used will offend some people, that I need to be sensitive to that fact, and have been given some alternative words to use. I also had my assumption, which wasn't mean or judgemental, shot down. It was just a simple case of misinformation. Actually, it was lack of information.

Basically, I learned some new facts, reasons some people get offended, and ways to avoid this situation happening again. Lessons learned the hard way.