A New Emotion

Several weeks ago I experienced what I believe to be a new emotion for me.  I was offended.  

I can’t remember ever feeling emotion before.  Someone with whom I welcome sharing my days did something that was self-centered and it annoyed me.  I felt that this person didn’t care for me at that moment and for maybe thirty seconds, I felt offended - irked, slighted perturbed, annoyed, insulted- but not angry because it was about me.  I think being offended is being mad due to your own discomfort. 

What a great feeling!  This emotion was one that prior to this experience I think I only knew hypothetically.  I had never really taken it quite seriously before.  Surely others had acted in a self-centered way toward me in the past, but those don't bother me, I think because you have to really care about the other person to really be upset by them. 

I know myself that I usually didn’t want to purposefully offend anyone, but when it happens, I often would rationalize away the mutual discomfort by mentally sharing the blame with the person I offended – they were a little too sensitive and not thinking about why I could not possibly have meant it in just the way they took it.

I know that we all have to share our space and that we’re going to offend each other.  I don't think that the answer is trying to avoid offence, but I need to be mindful of when there is a need to know how to speak up when I'm actually offended and apologize without parsing blame when I offend.