Insensitive Comments & Taking Offense

The first week I started going to a new ward (church congregation for the LDS-uninitiated) a woman there made a comment to me, that, at the time, I didn't think much of, but looking back what she said could be taken by some as very insensitive and could be considered offensive. Her comment to me was "You need to get married!" (original emphasis), which is something I have heard before, but her tone of voice while she said it seemed to indicate contempt for my single status.

Like I said, I didn't think much of it at the time. And I'm not one to ever take offense at anything. But a while later after thinking about it a little more I began to realize just how insensitive a comment like this is. Not only was she implying that there is something wrong with me because I'm single, she is flat out telling me that it's my fault because I haven't done anything about it. Obviously she knows nothing about me and certainly isn't qualified to offer any advice on my behalf, but what she fails to see is that it isn't (entirely) my fault that I'm not married. There is only so much that I can do about it; it literally takes two to tango. A far less offensive comment (and possibly a snappy, suitable reply) would be: "you need to lose weight!" because, let's face it, that is (usually) something that an individual can do something about themselves without relying on participation from another individual. "You need to get married!" certainly doesn't help the situation, and no matter how hard I try I can't fix it by myself.

I'm not here to rant about this woman's comment so much because we all say things sometimes that can be taken as offensive. But I do believe that we need to "think before we speak" a little bit more.

On the other side of the coin, I also believe that we in general take offense way too often. If you think about it, being offended by someone is a form of justification of hatred toward them (stop and think about that for a minute) and certainly doesn't get anybody anywhere good. What benefit do we have from taking offense? I certainly can't think of any; it has the opposite effect. We have enough problems in the world without adding to it by taking offense at comments made by others. So if someone says something offensive to you, the best thing is to just let it roll off your back and move on. Don't waste any time and energy thinking about it, or even worse, doing anything about it.

Originally this post was going to be a long discourse, but I think it just boils down to being careful what we say, and never taking offense at others' comment. Just don't do it.