AIBU to utterly despise someone based on one comment they made?

I don’t think you were wrong at all.

I had an ex boyfriend who said he thought the Northern Irish people should all be killed (I can’t remember his exact words, but it was something about blowing them all up or pushing them into the sea.

This was whilst the troubles were still going on.

Couldn’t respect him or his intelligence at all after that! (Had a horrible messy break up for other reasons too)

Utter bastard !

You and the bulls!

I was in my office staff room when a member of staff said he was going to join in the running with the bulls. I decided there and then I didn't like him.

I don't utterly despise her, but it permanently soured our friendship and made me basically avoid her.

I had struggled through an incredibly stressful event in which my child nearly died, which left me with PTSD. I couldn't open up to anyone about it, due to the nature of trauma which makes you feel unworthy of support.

I finally spoke to someone who i thought was a close friend, when she asked how I was doing. We had previously flatshared and supported each other through various life events. I didn't make the conversation all about me - I had listened and chatted to her about events in her own life for half an hour or so first. I was at the time a single parent of a 5 year old and really struggling to keep it together. I was considering seeing my GP. I needed some encouragement that I wasn't overreacting (with hindsight i know i was not and have since been diagnosed with PTSD, after suffering recurrent flashbacks).

The 'friend' replied "oh you think your life is so much harder than everyone else's, don't you"? I was utterly crushed. She was the only person i had opened up to and that seemed such a cruel reply when I had essentially said "Im not coping with the aftermath of this and I don't know what to do".

I have thought about it a lot and really don't understand where she was coming from. Perhaps she didn't have it in her to deal with a difficult conversation at that time, for whatever reason. But she certainly hadn't given that impression. It was absolutely devastating, the sort of reply you might expect if we'd been discussing a bad haircut or something.

I haven't spoken to her for years now. There nothing to say.

I remember lots of people watching it constantly because they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing. Everyone was in a state of shock at the time and it became a kind of addiction for a few days.

You mean what’s the meaning of spoil?

A pp posted a definition upthread. I’m not going to start repeating previous posts or opening up a definition competition. Suffice to say the essence is making a good thing bad. That’s the essence of it, not an attempt at a full definition.

Before you ask, how have I been able to apply it to a funeral? My answer would be a) it doesn’t apply very well to a funeral which is why that example jars a little and b) to the extent that you could apply it to a funeral, you would be applying it to the positive aspects of it eg the solemnity, the respectfulness, the opportunity for family to come together in harmony, the happiness in remembering the good times etc.

You can’t spoil a tragedy or a abomination.

You’re trying to make it mean ‘detract from the gravity of’, and it doesn’t.

Hope that all helps. Not looking for an argument, just the application of common sense and the proper, normal meaning of words. OP was perfectly entitled to use what ordinary language means to form a view about this guy and whether she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.

I can understand it. I was a tour guide on coach excursions when a forest fire had ripped through a big stretch of what was meant to be the, "Beautiful Hilltop Villages" tour. I thought all trips would be cancelled for months but my boss decided that the fire brigade had given the all clear and the show must go on.

That was my first shock but then the second was that not only did absolutely nobody cancel out of either respect for the people who had lost their homes or simply because there was nothing to see. The beautiful countryside had all gone up in smoke.

The worst was yet to come. The number of guests who piled on the bus with great enthusiasm, cameras at the ready, was quite something else.

I had a really bad feeling about how the day would go and I was proven right. I wanted to say that they couldn't take photos but I couldn't really. This was before Social Media had taken off in a big way but even for personal viewing, I wondered why on earth they wanted to take pictures of some of the things they did.

OK. Maybe some shots of the general landscape. Interesting, I suppose, but surely happy snaps of an elderly man sitting on a kitchen chair in a field, crying and holding his cat whilst being comforted by the firefughters was pure voyeurism. A young woman trying to load two terrified donkeys into a pony trailer to take them to a safer place likewise.

And yes, unfortunately, most of these grief tourists were British. I was ashamed. The theatrics were quite horrible. One sniff of second hand tragedy and Derek Smithers of 17 Acacia Avenue suddenly thought he was Steve McCurry working for National Geographic.

It's the tone of these people. If your friends had said, "We decided to see the personal effects part of the museum because you should confront these things. It was pretty awful but I'm glad I made myself face it. Didn't seem right to chicken out of the worst part."

I see what you mean but it was the excitement in her voice at the delight of seeing them. They had the option to decline. Think you had to be there to understand really.

A boy aged 9 died after being struck by lightning in an utterly freak accident. Someone I worked with said he was probably a little bastard in real life and deserved it.

Was flabbergasted to hear such a wicked and evil thing. Such a nasty man too.

I'm confused? What's so wrong with saying of course they went to see that particular display? The whole point of having those items on show is because the museum literally wants people to see them, otherwise they wouldn't bother and would keep them hidden in storage/would have destroyed them. What would you have preferred she said instead? Not seen them? Lied and said she hadn't when she had? Or would just saying 'yes I saw that' rather than 'of course I saw that?' have somehow been acceptable to you?

I don’t know how far they would have gone with eviction but it seemed genuine and i can’t say that I blame them for putting it on the line. She eventually passed away beginning 2025.

Mum certainly had capacity to understand what she was saying and doing and had treated Dad in the same manner leading up to his death 12 years earlier.

she was so nasty that eventually none of the existing residents would share a table with her in the small dining room.

What would that be then? You think spoil only relates to fruits and fun entertainment? Never heard of a peace deal being spoiled by a surprise attack? Never heard of a business meeting spoiled by a faux pas? Or a funeral spoiled by a distant relative making a scene?

Those examples you’ve given of what he might have ‘meant’ are just going against your argument, not for it. ‘Spoiling the gravity of the attack’ doesn’t make sense because you’re trying to make spoil mean something it doesn’t. It has a meaning that can’t be un-meant. Your examples just prove that for me.

Did it now? Or perhaps he meant it was spoiling the gravity of the attack? Spoiling any sense of decorum or respect for those who had just been killed?

Wanting to and then actually watching thousands of people in die over and over and over in real life is treating it like entertainment.

Id be very surprised if your opinion of people is not guided by how they react to distress- both yours and other people's.
Otherwise you'd end up hanging around some very strange people.

What a very, very strange take. Would you say that to those posters who have given examples of people saying insensitive things about Dunblane for example?

it’s not superior to judge someone for what is at the very least poorly chosen words. Very poorly chosen words.

Thank you. Yes he is to be honest... I was all ready to see a solicitor but I'll have to put that on for now 😔

Notably Rupert Lowe who referred to 'one murder'. One of those things that could be a slip of the tounge if you didn't know his politics

About 20 years ago, BIL was talking about Polish workers coming over here and taking our jobs, that is bad enough. He followed it up saying Hitler obviously didn't kill enough of them! I never really liked him, but couldn't stand him after that. Now unsurprisingly we have no contact with him.

Makes me think about the number of men (nearly all men anyway) who seized on Dunblane in the years afterwards to moan and rant on about how it allowed the govt to tighten up laws on gun ownership. And trailing out the old line, 'guns don't 'kill people, people kill people.' Well, personally I'm glad I don't live in a country where it's legal to have a handgun and kids have to do shooter drill at school.

I remember Dunblane as it was a month after I gave birth to my first child and I remember crying over it. Vile ex came in from work saw me crying and sneered at me 'its only kids'.
There was also a case a few years ago where a 14 year boy was raped by a stranger and he made a joke to my son, who was same age at the time, about it happening to him.
I'm really ashamed to write that last bit, he was truly vile.
Was his 60th birthday last week and he spent it completely alone.
Hopefully he'll be dead soon as his health is f*cked

Absolutely. I often use a high profile atrocity as an opportunity to examine how my reaction to it is more sincere and profound than the reactions of others around me.