In class today, the teacher’s smartphone started glitching, not registering any of her swipes. A classmate said, “I see it’s acting autistic.” The teacher said, “It’s like it has some kind of ADD.”

I cleared my throat and said as politely as I could, “I’d like to please ask that you guys don’t use words like ‘autistic’ and ‘ADD’ to refer to glitching computers.”

The teacher, bless her heart, apologised. “I’m very sorry, you’re right. I won’t do it again.” Kudos to her.

The classmate laughed lightly like he couldn’t believe what I was saying, and said “I’ll talk to you later.” Soon enough, as soon as class was over and he found me outside the elevator, he let me know exactly why the thing he said was Not Offensive and Totally Okay and Doesn’t Mean That (I can’t remember the whole thing he said, it was quite a short paragraph).

I said, “You don’t have to defend yourself, just don’t do it again.”

He said, “I don’t think it’s fair that I have to do that, though.”

That made me so angry that I just said “okay” and I was going to just not talk to him ever again, but then I thought maybe that wasn’t really fair for him or for anyone else, so then I told him he was being sort of selfish to prioritize his ‘freedom of speech’ over other people’s feelings. (I should have found a way to emphasize that it didn’t JUST hurt feelings, that things like that would impact people’s lives, but I’m not very eloquent at speaking in person).

He said that it was selfish of ME to prioritize MY feelings over his right to say anything he wants. (???!?!???!!!!?!?!?) He added that he doesn’t MEAN anything bad by it and therefore I shouldn’t be so sensitive. I tried to put him off the defensive by telling him I used to use language like that too, and that I had to learn to stop and I understood it was hard but it’s necessary, and he asked WHY.

HE USED HIS PHILOSOPHICAL DREAMY VOICE LIKE HE WAS ASKING ME THIS MINDBLOWING QUESTION THAT WOULD CHANGE THE WAY I SEE THE WORLD AND HE ASKED ME WHY I FELT LIKE I HAD TO BE CONSTRAINED BY SOCIETAL CONVENTIONS LIKE THAT.

Like. I was just too angry and weak from being sick this morning that I couldn’t even put everything I was thinking at him to words. I peaced out. I told him I wasn’t going to do this today and I left. I didn’t want to scream at him or punch him or break down into tears at him.

I suppose I shouldn’t have expected better from a white South African who has a TCM background in “following the teachings of his sensei,” but HA HA HA somehow, stupid me, I still believe the best in people by default! And I seriously don’t want that to change because I despise cynicism and people already perceive me as a bitter oversensitive angry person who loves goading people into arguments. I LIKE being someone who believes in people and I wish I could just HANDLE IT BETTER when someone does something horrible like this.