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!

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 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.

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.