Kindly, Gently...

[MasterBeth]

Am I Being Unreasonable to think that writing Kindly or Gently at the beginning of a post is a pointless, performative piece of nonsense.

We'll decide if what you say is kind or gentle, thank-you very much.

Reminds me of people I've come across, mostly in the workplace, who use, 'Bless him/her' to soften their bitchy comments.

'Deirdre likes her low cut tops bless her'
'Tim's ruined my spreadsheet again bless him'
'Tough for Carol always having to leave early to see to the kids bless her'

etc

Yes, she was basically a kind woman who really wanted to help people in a practical way. I think Jay Rayner is her son?

I’m irritated by ‘Thank you for not…..(smoking etc)’ signs. Or ‘Thank you for turning off your mobile phone’ announcements. It was clearly some bright idea a few decades ago to be ‘positive’, but I’d much rather people were frank and just issued the unvarnished request!

Thanks for your reply. I was trying to reply to a post but clearly not succeeding!

It’s usually on a thread where the person has something genuinely upsetting going on though. Time and a place and all that.

OP: my daughter has been throwing up daily and losing weight and I can’t get a GP appointment.

Poster: gently, do you have health anxiety, OP?

I find that 'I don't want to be rude' is just as bad. Why mention rudeness if you don't at least suspect that you are being rude?
It is possible to avoid rudeness by being direct and respectful. Eg rather than 'I'm not being rude, but you can't keep asking for lifts all the time', something like 'Giving you a lift would add an hour to my journey and I haven't got time for that. See you there!'

"In the nicest possible way..." is the gold standard of passive aggression.

Someone I used to work with used to sign off her emails ‘kindly’ but she was a complete back-stabbing cow - complained to our CEO about me when I called her out on a lie she told…

Oh yes, I also can’t bare the phrase
“ no offence but……”

it’s always said just before someone says something extremely offensive. It’s their get out of jail free card.

Yes, but sometimes you KNOW you ARE being rude.

Your example wasn't rude; it was just direct.

I'm not advocating it, I'm just saying if they must try to excuse their rudeness, at least acknowledge it, not disavow it.

Probably because everything offends someone nowadays.

It's ridiculous.

You come to a public forum - you have no control and no right to tell people how to respond.

Sometimes, people need to hear the things that their so called friends find difficult to say - strangers, well - those with any sense, compassion and life experience etc., often find it easier to say, possibly, what needs saying.

If you fear what people might say: don't post. You're guaranteed to get helpful or best intentioned responses anyway.

I agree, it’s the internet, just say it. Nobody cares.

At least “S/He doesn’t like you” seems to have run its course.

I think all these examples are used by people who are very poor communicators, cannot do nuance/be assertive in a positive way and probably (whatever they think) are incable of being open minded. As a family we also have had the racism 'but we do not mean you' which disappeared for a while but recently is back on steroids.

But it doesn't. It comes across as patronising and supercilious.

Fair enough, I’ve explained my reasoning in good faith and I’ve actually said on this thread I won’t use it again, based on what I’ve read.

We all make our own assumptions of other people’s intent based on their chosen words though. I’m making my own based on yours now.

I prefer passive aggressive to aggressive aggressive.

Good for you.

I am going to continue using it. People often feel harried if you ask for something more than once or they feel threatened (with the sack et) so I want them to know that we are on friendly terms and that there is nothing to fear.

The 'gentle reminders' make me want to hit the writer with a blunt object and be anything but gentle tbh.

Deleted duplicate!

Er, thanks? God, I thought the fact that someone read your OP, took it in good humour and actually said they’d change their behaviour based on it, was a good thing. But I guess I’m supercilious, patronising, pointless and performative 😂

You certainly have some of those chips in your name on your shoulder.

Yeah, we probably can’t win, to be fair!

Ok, thanks.