this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2025
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Why? Because it’s so difficult for you to respect someone’s request that likely means way more to them than to you?
Understanding is a meeting in the middle. It's reasonable to correct the record on how you as an individual would like to be gendered. It's not reasonable to expect all of society to drop the use of a word that is colloquially accepted as gender neutral. At a certain point, your outrage is the antisocial behavior.
Not everyone uses “guys” like that, you’re assigning way too broad of usage to it. It’s also just not important enough to die on a hill for. Just be decent human it’s not hard. Accommodate one person who asked you because it means something to them. Why is this so hard for folks to get? Do you never tailor your language to your audience?
...
I think you've completely misunderstood what everyone is saying because that's exactly what everyone you've responded to, including myself, is saying that they would do.
Tailor their words for that conversation but move on to a different group of people from there. Not permanently tailoring the way they speak because it is highly unlikely that they'll engage again.
I think the amount of people who either (1) do not know the term to be gender neutral or (2) purposefully use it as a gendered term to anger people is less than 1%, honestly.
I live in a pretty conservative area, and I'm not exactly a leftist either, and I've never seen guys used in any way other than just as a generic for "you all"
Cool, so we agree it's silly to get so strung up over it, huh? Of course people tailor their language, it happens constantly. If someone is going to go out of their way to construe a perfectly normal part of speech as me being malignant and demand that I change my behavior for their benefit I'm going to tell them to fuck off, personally. If someone is respectful and asks tactfully...sure, I'll adjust for them. Though internally I'll be judging them for being a snowflake.
It matters more to them than to you that’s the whole point
How does a snowflake screw in a lightbulb? They hold the bulb, and the whole world revolves around them.
Snowflake jokes are stale as fuck lmao
You're honestly right and I regret the joke and lowering the level of discourse with it. Sorry everyone.
But isten, you've been heavily down voted in this thread, and it's not because we are all sycophantic anti-woke nut jobs. This community is for the most part intelligent, leftist or left-leaning, empathetic people who support the rights of all kinds to exist and be recognized and treated fairly. But many would agree there is a reasonable degree to which you can meet people halfway when it comes to communication and understanding.
Whether you like it or not, "guys" in the agendered sense, is a part of the language. It may not always have been, but it is now. When people use it in this way, they aren't thinking about your gender or the concept of gender at all. They are trying to address a collection of people, simple as that. English doesn't have a plural second-person pronoun, we have to use additional words.
When you get offended, you are deliberately misunderstanding them, and thus engaging in a bad-faith argument against their intended meaning. And it's that audacity, the sidelining of pithy conversation for an imagined affront, that rubs some otherwise supportive and open minded people like myself the wrong way.
If your general assumption is “people who get offended are just deliberately misunderstanding me” then I don’t know how this conversation can be productive. That’s not sociopathic but it sure is a selfish outlook as well as one that explains your tasteless snowflake joke.
Yeah, well, this has been fun! Let's do it again some time.
”sorry for the tasteless joke and devolving the conversation, here’s a sarcastic exit instead.”
You’re something else dude. Feel free to have the last word, I’m sure it’s very important to you.
I think it's more that if you get annoyed at something like that, I would think you're way too much of a hassle to be friends with long term. It's just a matter of compatibility and the choice to filter out incompatible people in your social circle. It's nothing personal.
You likely have no idea why that person said to stop and sometimes the right thing to do is just say “ok,” especially when the stakes are so low.
Let’s say you’re shooting off fireworks and it is scaring a neighbor. Do you tell them to get over it until they directly tell you they have PTSD from a conflict zone? Or do you just be a fucking reasonable person and stop?
Of course I would stop at their request, however if I were that person with PTSD, I wouldn't expect the world to cater to my disabilities and strategise on how I could function in society by managing it. That's what I currently do with my own PTSD and it makes me a stronger person for it.
Also, that's hardly comparable to using the phrase "you guys" in a conversation. That phrase has always been gender neutral and far nicer sounding than "you people" or "you all".
Edit: and also, yes I would have no idea on why the other party would take offence to the phrase "you guys" but I would also be under no obligation to establish a friendship with them beyond that conversation. I don't expect someone I've just met to trauma dump on me and I don't want them to.
Of course, I would correct myself in that conversation and not use the phrase "you guys" after they've told me not to use it, because it's polite to do so, but that won't stop me feeling that I can't be myself around them.
People with PTSD should absolutely be catered to the fuck are you on about? Would you say this about victims of sexual assault?
I am a victim of sexual assault and, yes, I would absolutely say that. My problems are my own and I'm not about to force others to cater to my personal demons.
Sounds like you might be from the US or somewhere where medical help isn't freely available. I deal with my trauma with medication and counselors/psychiatrists so that I can function and contribute to society because that's the standard that I hold for others, especially myself.
I just told you I would respect it. But I don't view "you guys" as something divisive. So yeah I don't want to be around those people
Man if all it takes is a pretty basic language disagreement with somebody for you to not want to associate with them, you’re going to struggle to maintain a social life outside of MAGA fuckbois. And even then you’ll have to get used to them shrieking when you use the word “racist.”
Nah I'm doing pretty ok.
Also fuck maga
Then you’re clearly not as hardline as you’re pretending to be
I'm not pretending? And I'm also not hard-line
You literally said you would just end the conversation over this like 3 comments ago.
Ah yes, such a hard-line and extremist point of view, probably.
I didn’t call you an extremist and you’re being an ass with your interpretation.
I’m done man. Feel free to have the last word, I’m sure it’s very important to you.
K
That's a reasonable stance. Most of the comments here are about how they would walk away and talk to someone else.
Well, there's a massive difference between "don't call me a guy" and someone saying "hey guys" to a group to have one member fire back a response about gendered terms
One of these is clear stating of respectful boundaries, the other one is just offloading (and very likely speaking for/over others) to score imaginary purity points