What's something you've been called in life that isn't generally something bad, but made you feel awful
What's something you've been called in life that isn't generally something bad, but made you feel awful
For me, growing up, I was around people who saw games as useless and a waste of time, but I loved them
I've always been into computers and tech and was called techy and a gamer and each time, it was said with a sort of disgust from the person saying it.
It made me feel like I shouldn't be friends with the few people like me, and I spent a lot of my childhood staying away from people, and making sure that people didn't learn that I played games
Even now, I get slightly uncomfortable being called a gamer or techy or any synonym even though people don't really think that anymore around here.
Anyone else have something similar?
Pretty bad, a little kid called me Asshole Eyes when I was 17. I am 60 and still remember.
I'm sorry but I'm gonna use that next time I need to burn someone 🤌
I agree. It was an Epic insult for a little kid to sling.
Gramps idk what asshole eyes even means but whoever that was has lived rent free in your head for 43 years. Let it go, I'm sure you're a lovely person with great eyes.
Gramps 🤣
Let it go,
I didn't even remember until I saw this thread.
Everyone told me I was like my dad.
Feeling your pain.
And you didn’t like the analogy?
Growing up my parents always called me "the good kid", especially my dad. It just made me feel super awkward and bad though, I didn't take it as a compliment. These days neither of my other siblings talk to my parents anymore either, I'm the only one still in contact.
This really reminds me of my family dynamic. Anything I do, my dad can excuse, but the smallest mistake my younger brother makes is a travesty.
I end up in the drunk tank, and my dad's only answer is "it stinks in there, eh? 😂"
My brother doesn't reply to a text for a couple of hours, and it's the end of the world.
I hate it, because my bro is a good kid, ultimately. But I can see how much the way my father treats him affects him negatively. It ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Tell him. If it comes from the good kid he must think there is some truth to it.
That sucks. Your dad needs to watch Lord of the Rings and especially the Boromir, Faramir, Denathor dynamic.
Someone said I would be a good wife...I felt powerless and degraded. How did I manage to come off as so brainless and lacking in self respect that I'd have nothing better to do than be someone's wife?
A good wife for someone, or for the person speaking? If the former, I probably agree with you. If the latter, I would mention that not all people have that image of a wife as someone defined by being housewife and executive assistant. Husband considers me a good wife because we love each other and I can handle the budget and hold down a job and cook so much better than he can (not a high bar to reach) but we are both adults, he cleans way more than I do, does the shopping at least half the time, we work together. He'd not consider a stereotype of traditional wife a good wife. I don't know many people who do, come to think of it.
How did I manage to come off as so brainless and lacking in self respect that I’d have nothing better to do than be someone’s wife?
genuinely curious, how did "you'd be a good wife" turn into "you'd be brainless and lacking in self respect, and would be nothing more than a spouse"?
Because what they clearly meant is that I came across as being nothing but help staff.
My family has said the same thing when doing something. Seems to be an old person thing to say.
I think it just bothers me that people shove the idea of being this cuddly nurturer at me and don't give a shit if it's what I want.
A chess improvement company once wrote an article about me and although I was deeply grateful for the opportunity I am also very glad I saw the first draft because the reporter invented a whole imaginary child. While cutting a lot of my thoughts about annihilation and how it's a fairly staple tactical skill.
To his credit he removed it when I asked but...ugh. Can people not stay on topic ever? I swear to God I could be in the middle of defusing a bomb and someone would mention husbands or children.
My second year calculus teacher called me baroque which rended asunder my math career.
Doesn't that just mean without a well defined form? Used to grade pearls. Says more about the person saying it (I don't understand you).
He was referring to the era from which my methods appeared in integration, which is to say there are more modern tricks that I don't fully understand.
Years later, xkcd would be reassuring that it wasn't just me. But it killed my ability to get a comsci degree.
As I like to say about music: “If it’s not baroque, fix it!”
Since I don't act very "manly" despite looking like a man, I get called a girl quite a lot. Sometimes my voice makes people think that.
Sometimes my irl name alone makes people jump to that conclusion. Just because removing one letter makes a male name "Imrane" turn into a female name "Imane". This is why I don't use my real name online anymore.
I'm gonna remind you, I am not a girl, and have never been one. I'm not even a transgender girl, and have never identified with femininity.
The reminder isn't necessary for people who listen.
Good point.
When I was much younger, someone older said I'd grow up to be a heartbreaker. I was like... What? No. I'm nice, I'm not going to break hearts, what?.... Long after I realised it was a compliment on how I might look when I grew up. I still don't think it's a good compliment though.
It is a good compliment. At the end of the day, people will find you attractive and fall in love, even if you are already in a commited relationship or not interested. Being a "heartbreaker" is only shitty if you actively do something that makes it hurt the other person more - i.e. stringing them along, using people etc. Breaking hearts is part of life, even if someone is nice. At the end of the day neither you, nor the person that has fallen in love with you can change how they feel very much, it's your actions in response to that that make you a shitty or good person.
Idealistic. It was meant as an insult.
I feel this. It's exactly as condescending as "naive" and means basically the same thing.
Basically any and all compliments make me feel like shit, it's not a good quality of mine but its the truth
Before I transitioned being called handsome hurt, I didn't want that. Since I transitioned I have been called beautiful and sexy. I still feel bad, I don't believe them. It's odd because.. I can kinda see what they mean? Like I personally like how I look sooo much better now it's insane, but from other people it feels like a lie. Or else it makes me feel like I'm just an object to them, like an exotic sex thing, not a person.
I work as a gpu/graphics programmer, and people say I'm smart and talented. I never believe it, ever. When I was young I did not do well in school, like special ed classes. That early life experience is still internalized. It's why I push myself really hard at the detriment of my own health. I truly believe I am not a smart person despite recognizing why people think I am.
Last year I was diagnosed autistic with Persistent Demand Avoidance sub type. I have read online that PDA people often struggle with compliments. Its super fucked tbh, I can never feel good about any accomplishment, nothing is enough, and I feel unlovable.
Do you know any one else that has gone through all you have and ended up where you are?
None of my friends knew that I played World of Warcraft. They wondered why I started sometimes going no contact and not going out with them on a weekend evening. It's because I was doing arena, or raiding. They didn't find out that me and my wife got very into WoW until several years later. I'm a dirt bike rider, a martial artist, and an athlete. The whole gamer nerd persona didn't sit right with me, so I hid it.
A lot of people seem to hold us asexuals as worthless because we don't want families or don't want traditional families, and many of these people speak their minds to me all the time, especially when they perceive an inconsistency in me applying the label to myself that isn't really an inconsistency as much as a technicality.
As an asexual Moroccan, I was indeed a victim of this.
The best people in the world are people who don't want kids and then don't have them. The worst are the people who don't want kids and do have them.
But procreation (or not) aside, people have way more worth to society than that.
I don't mind people calling me nerdy. Once overhead someone telling someone else at work that I was "so funny" when generally I keep it in check at work, and that felt complimentary as well.
But one time a yoga teacher told us in a class "you are bigger than you think" and I don't even know what she meant, my stomach dropped, I felt absolutely awful. And while I am womanly as fuck, absolutely delight in being a woman, I dislike being seen as feminine. I don't like being complimented on looking curvy, softness and squish freaks me out much more than it should. I know people mean those as compliments but they make me want to cry.
Someone said that I "got skinny" (I'd lost a bunch of weight, on purpose). She meant it as a compliment, but in my mind skinny = underweight/malnourished, so I went out for lunch that day and ate a bunch of McDonald's.
My teacher said I had an "apple face", apparently it's supposed to be a compliment but kid me got pissed and felt insulted.
Oof yeah, my teacher used me as an example of someone with a round face in art class when I was about 10 and I still feel self-conscious about my face shape sometimes.
About a million people have called me smart. The times that it followed me displaying above average intelligence were a small fraction of those times. Mostly it was a reflection of the person I was around being an idiot.
I feel patronized whenever someone calls me smart or funny. As if they call me that because they think i'm insecure and i need a compliment. As if they call me smart like one would call a dog smart. I generally have a self-esteem problem that makes it difficult to take any compliments at all, but these in particular are bad because as a kid people used these as a euphemisms to talk about my awful social skills
Not so much a verbal thing, but just the general first glance demeanor on a blind date or an internet date...tough to forget.
Also, growing up I was always told I'd never amount to anything spending so much time on computers and that I needed to do something with my life. Well, I made over $500k last year in software engineering consulting...so...yeah.
certified gamer
My girlfriend in college told me that her friends all agree:
You're the best asshole we know.
A "red wine guy". Ugh.
I get mistaken for Hispanic and told I look Colombian. My American name is pretty common white guy name but people call me by the Spanish variant.
But that's not even the right continent and I have zero Hispanic heritage. All it tells me is that you look at skin color and not features, and you lump me into an "other" category. We don't all look like KPop idols.
This is complicated by the fact that my South American wife is light skinned with green eyes, and when she speaks fluent Spanish people assume she is an American girl who learned the language due to me, her "Hispanic" husband.
Not a bad thing, just annoying, and please stop yelling that I "have to go back" when I'm in the park with my kids.
I honestly can't think of anything. Is there things people have said that I don't like? Sure. But ones that made me feel awful? No, and if there was something like that it probably felt bad because deep down I knew they were right.
Offence is taken, not given. If you call me something I know not to be true I simply don't care.