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AIBU?

to feel sick with horror at what BIL has just said

71 replies

Anna1976 · 21/07/2012 07:42

Re: the shootings in Colorado, to me, in a family Skype session, with parents, my sister and my 4yo niece all listening:

"Ha ha, we're all waiting for you to do something like that. He sounds just like you, weirdo reclusive medic with a gun habit"

They all laughed. I said "oh ha ha how hilarious, anyway, must get off and go to work" and ended the coversation.

I had no idea how to react. I didn't find it funny at all, I found it horrifyingly awful that anyone could say something like that about someone else. Or even think about someone else like that. And then say it in front of their family and have the whole family laugh!

Particularly as my BIL's mention of a "gun habit" is because he used to do Cadets when he was at school, and I used to do Biathlon (rifle shooting and skiing) during undergraduate uni, and so we used to sometimes discuss rifles, years ago (as in, about 15 years ago). Having done Cadets, he should have some grasp that just because someone has done a sport involving firearms, it doesn't mean that person is psychotic and homicidal.

This is just awful. I'm posting on here because I don't think I can really talk about this in real life.

OP posts:

Report

Isityouorme · 21/07/2012 07:44

He's just a twat so ignore him. Insensitive arsehole.

picnicbasketcase · 21/07/2012 07:46

Some people really need to engage their brain before opening their mouth. Don't give it any more thought, he's clearly just a flapping gob on legs.

Anna1976 · 21/07/2012 07:48

I sort of feel this goes beyond ordinary twattery. It compresses into nothing the gulf between someone being a bit incomprehensible, and someone committing mass murder. Yes psychosis can happen suddenly, but just because you don't like someone, you don't accuse them of potentially being a homicidal maniac.

OP posts:

Pommymumof3 · 21/07/2012 07:49

Just sounds like a badly thought out jokey comment to me...

HecateHarshPants · 21/07/2012 07:50

He doesn't think you are psychotic or homicidal. He was just making a joke.

Well, I say 'joke'. I don't really think it's very funny, considering some 12 people died and many more were injured. But some people do laugh at other people's tragedies. Bit weird, but apparently it's 'humour' so it's ok. [boggle] Don't really understand that, myself, but there you go.

However, the time to challenge it was there and then.

"Ha ha, we're all waiting for you to do something like that. He sounds just like you, weirdo reclusive medic with a gun habit"

"I don't find that very funny, actually"

It's ok to say you don't find something funny. Oh, you'll get the oh, no sense of humour, oh, get you, crap that people come out with because they think that others are somehow obliged to find funny what they find funny and act like it's some sort of slight against them if they don't. But screw that. You didn't like it and it's your right to say so.

Anna1976 · 21/07/2012 07:52

Sorry (dripfeeding) - the context is that he dislikes me and very rarely talks to me - so this doesn't come in the middle of a load of frequent banter, it's about the only thing he's said to me in the last few years. He usually can't be bothered joining in Skype conversations. Thus the shock that he bothered, just to say this.

OP posts:

Anna1976 · 21/07/2012 07:54

Hecate - you're right - I should have said that. i was so shocked my voice went dry and my heart was racing and my stomach churning, so wasn't really in a position to think...strategically..

OP posts:

MorrisZapp · 21/07/2012 07:55

Sorry but I think this is a huge over reaction.

Unless you think your bil actually thinks you're a psychotic, violent criminal?

fireice · 21/07/2012 07:56

Sometimes people speak without thinking.
Has it been said now that the suspect has a psychotic illness?

Anna1976 · 21/07/2012 08:07

Fireice - I don't think so.

I guess i should interpret it as an overreaction to a stupid joke, and that i have "no" sense of humour.

I am somewhat literal-minded, but I genuinely don't understand what would make it ok for someone to say that - imagine the outcry if Obama or Romney said something like that in the next few days on the campaign trail. What would make it different if it had been said in public, from having it said in a private family conversation? I guess families tolerate dislike and insensitivity and pretend to the outside world that they don't have any problems in their family, but that doesn't make insensitivity and dislike actually ok in an individual. Oh well.

OP posts:

Anna1976 · 21/07/2012 08:07

*

OP posts:

JeezyPeeps · 21/07/2012 08:09

I think 'sick with horror' is a bit strong - he's a twat, no doubt about it, but it was a poorly judged attempt at humour.

nightowlmostly · 21/07/2012 08:18

Sorry but YABU. It wasn't very funny, granted, but you are way overreacting. He sounds like a nob, just ignore him.

diddl · 21/07/2012 08:20

Well I don´t find it funny at all.

Why is it defended because it was nastiness "disguised" as humour?

If he´d said it without pretending it was a joke-would tha have been acceptable too?

JeezyPeeps · 21/07/2012 08:22

Gosh, have peo

FallenCaryatid · 21/07/2012 08:22

It's worse when someone says it about your child.
I get very rude when that happened. It's happened more than once, from different idiots.
DS tends to just glare now and say 'So, do you think it's a good idea to annoy me then?'

Nagoo · 21/07/2012 08:24

I think you are overreacting massively, sorry.

You should have written his off as a dickhead before now.

Why has this touched a nerve with you particularly?

It's a twattish thing to say about a tragedy, and I would possibly have told him that (or at least thought it really loudly so as to psychically communicate that) I don't see why you are 'sick with horror' over it.

JeezyPeeps · 21/07/2012 08:29

Grrr sorry, iPod sometimes plays silly buggers.

I don't see people 'defending the comment'. Nobody thinks it's funny. Apart from the ops family of course. I think I'd be more pissed off with my family for laughing, than with bil showing himself up for what he is.

holyfishnets · 21/07/2012 08:29

I'd email him and say that you found his 'joke' in really bad taste particularly in front of a 4 year old and that you rather he didn't speak to you at all if he is only going to be really nasty when he does converse. Then don't respond to any of his emails

I can't believe the family thinking it was funny and saying nothing.

Anna1976 · 21/07/2012 08:32

I don't really know why I find it so horrible - but it seems to cross a line.

Previously all the barbed comments from sister and BIL have been about the fact it's hilarious that I'm an ugly dog etc etc. - ie stuff that is objectively just silly, even if it is hurtful.

BIL has had conversations where my aggressively pacifist father has attacked him over why he did cadets when he didn't have to.

I guess he's just gone over to the way my family thinks (any organised activity like scouts or cadets is paramilitary training that turns out psychos) and their kind of sloppy-mouthed "humour" that is really just poorly disguised nastiness.

It isn't that different from my sister and mother deliberately taking photos that show how thin my hair is and then have an "interesting discussion" with relatives about how fascinating and funny it is that I have such disgustingly lanky thin hair when my sister has such thick lustrous locks that she has a terrible time finding hairclips large enough.

OP posts:

squeakytoy · 21/07/2012 08:35

Massive over-reaction, and it sounds like you have issues with all of your family.

Dprince · 21/07/2012 08:38

Could it be the rest of the family laughed out of nervous politeness?
If I had have been your parents I wouldn't have laughed even to be polite. I would have told to shut the fuck up.
However my mum was quite timid and never challenge family members who said thing to me growing up. Mums family has a fairly serious drinking problem running through most of it.
Its not funny to joke about what had happened or that you may be a mass murderer in the making. But I wouldn't be horrified by it. He is clearly a twat.
I want to ask, as gently as possible, has it upset you because its hit a nerve. Not the mass murderer. But the reclusive bit?

cutegorilla · 21/07/2012 08:38

Your family sound toxic OP :(. What your BIL said was incredibly rude and hurtful and I'm astonished that people can't see that. I'm sure they'd feel it if it were directed at them. Don't take it to heart but I'd consider how much time you really want to spend communicating with people who are so down on you.

Dprince · 21/07/2012 08:41

Sorry, reading your last post I wish to amend. If it is as you say I wish to remove the bit about bil being a twat and replace it with they are all tests and are bullying you. Who makes fun of their daughter?
Maybe you should consider cutting them out. Seems bil fits right in with them.

JeezyPeeps · 21/07/2012 08:42

Okay, drip feeding.

Within the context of the history, I don't get why you are speaking to any of them.

As a one-off comment I wouldn't be so annoyed, but as part of what you now describe, I'd have cut off contact long ago.

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