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

[Bleachedjeans]

There was a similar thread a couple of years ago but it quickly sank into posters arguing and correcting grammar so it quickly became very boring…
So, here’s mine, triggered by 9/11 memories:
9/11. TV on most of the day updating etc. Naturally, because it was a news programme on all day, it was repetitive. He moaned about the repetition.
When the early evening news came on and obviously it was the first big story my partner at the time said “They’re spoiling it now, keep showing it over and over”
I said (something like) “Spoiling what? The thrill and excitement of seeing thousands people die in horrific circumstances?”
I despised him from that moment.

1. For not recognising that a TV news channel is repetitive and not everyone is watching it all day.
2. For using the word ‘spoil’ under such circumstances, as if watching it was some sort of entertainment.

I absolutely despised him from that moment. AIBU to absolutely despise someone based on one comment? I don’t think so!

YANBU! Was that the moment you decided to ditch him?

your feelings of despising towards him weren't just caused by that one comment.

I think good people can phrase things clumsily and/or say horrid things, and anyone who only heard them say that one thing would form a negative opinion. but it would be foolish to write someone off on the basis of one comment alone.

you clearly know a lot more about this man than one comment, though it may have been the final straw.

so i voted yabu

I should have added: has anyone had similar experiences?

How are you still thinking about this 25 years later?

Yes! It took a few months but I ditched him eventually.

As I said in my post, the memory was triggered by the 9/11 memories. Radio 4 every morning this week.

It was 25 years ago. How old was he when it happened?

YANBU

My baby nephew passed away unexpectedly and I returned from staying at my Dsis’s having looked after her 3yo while she had been at hospital with baby DN. Altogether a very harrowing time and having held it all together for several days I got home to DP and DFIL and excused myself to my room where i lay down and sobbed my heart out. When I came downstairs later DFIL said “I’m sorry about what happened but you know you are just going to have to get over it’.

Have despised the man ever since.

I wouldn’t say despised but I’ve certainly gone right off people. Only the other day I was in a taxi with a chatty driver, we got talking about various things, he was actually pretty funny. Then he made a remark about young women wearing next to nothing along the “they’re asking for it” line of reasoning and I concluded he was just a dickhead with occasional good banter.

If this was genuinely the only reason and he was a great partner in all other ways then I think YABU. Presumably it came out wrong.

I was half expecting at least one response like this. Yes, it probably was the last straw but the stupidity and lack of empathy was shocking.

Did he understand it was actually happening and was not a film? I think that sounds like someone who spends so much time looking at screens, gaming etc. that their understanding of real and fantasy is completely undefined.

YANBU and I would have felt the same way.

I was chatting to a Taxi driver. He then made a racist comment about a black person on the road in front. I ended the Taxi journey early and took the tube for the last couple of stops.

About 60.

Your FIL sounds utterly dreadful. Do you still have to see him? I'd have wanted to ban him from entering my home ever again.

That is absolutely horrendous. I am so so sorry for your terrible loss - for you and your sister. 🌺

Yes. I despised a woman who I was doing my army basic training with instantly. I can’t remember the comment. I remember immediately hating her. We were in England doing our training having travelled from Scotland together. It was the Dunblane shooting and she made an utterly despicable comment about the children.

I’ve blocked the comment from my brain but I’ve never forgotten how instantly I hated her.

I've certainly despised people based on one comment, but it's never been people I've already known well and liked. It's always been people who I didn't know very well and who said something early on that made me instantly realise we had entirely opposite values. When I was very young I worked in a newsagent and there was a horrific earthquake that killed thousands in another country, and a regular customer said 'Good news, as far as I'm concerned. I can't stand the little bastards'. Every time he came in after that, I thought 'You hateful piece of shit' and could barely bring myself to be polite to him.

If someone I know extremely well - a close friend, a partner, a family member - says something that seems out of character, though, I might be confused and I might interrogate that a bit, but I'd obviously be well aware that this wasn't line with their usual values or behaviour and I'd be more likely to take it as anomaly or (as I think I would have done in the case of what your partner said) put it down to clumsy wording rather than a core sentiment.

A neighbour who I've chatted for years whenever bumped into them and thought they were really nice said something racist. Really badly, nasty racism. And looked at me as if I agreed with them. Ugh. Instantly dislike them now and will avoid in future. His wife though is lovely and I do now wonder if they share the same views, be a real shame.

So he's 85 now?

I dunno...I mean if its someone you can't avoid interracting with then you might go on despising them because you keep having to meet them....but you (or at least me) aren't despising them because of one comment, you are despising them because of what they are like. If its someone you no longer meet or only met once then I wouldn't contibue to despise them because I wouldn't have any feelings about them. If its sombody you already know well and that one comment is out of character, then why would you instantly despise them?

Fucking hell im not surprised. Sorry for your loss, how awful x

If you despise your partner now, I assume you're leaving him? Any chance you just feel anger very strongly and it isn't that you despise him, you just didn't like what he said. Probably just clumsy wording. Sadly, the news often is entertainment - most of the stuff we see is about other countries we have no connection to (not really) so it can feel like watching a soap opera.

This sounds like a non-issue unless there are other examples you haven't shared. But no, one comment isn't enough to justify hating someone.

No. Long dead. The relationship didn’t last.

I said (something like) “Spoiling what? The thrill and excitement of seeing thousands people die in horrific circumstances?”

I agree that's what he meant. What a prat