This offense that no one but one has heard

In the circle of friends or family, the wounds that hurt the most are often the ones caused unintentionally and unnoticed during a light-hearted conversation. End-of-year celebrations that bring together affection tend to be fertile ground for these types of misunderstandings, where what one says is interpreted in a completely different sense on the other side.

After the New Year’s Eve celebration, at home and when the couple wants to throw their tiredness onto the bed without another word, the question arises:

-Did you hear what your brother said about me?

-I heard it clearly. It was a compliment.

-Is it a joke? To me it seemed to be the opposite. It freaked me out in front of everyone. I wanted the earth to swallow me.

One would say that humiliation requires an audience in front of which the humiliated person is devalued. The view of third parties, on which the image we form of ourselves depends, completes the affront.. Those who humiliate damage this image by revealing to the witnesses a supposed weakness or something that embarrasses us. Therefore, in ancient times, the offended person tried to purify his honor by challenging the perpetrator to a duel, as a sign of his courage with which he wanted to regain the questioned dignity in front of society.

Perhaps the deepest humiliation, however, remains the one that goes unnoticed by others, even those who inflict it without the slightest awareness of the deadly power of their words. These words usually seem delayed because the recipient, no matter how touched they may be at that moment, is not yet able to grasp the depth of truth they contain. They act like a bee sting. We feel the sting, followed by a sudden and temporary burning sensation, but the suffering comes later as the poison affects our body. The itchy swelling without any remedy is the symptom of loss of balance.

So the words that had initially caused only a momentary discomfort suddenly, with a delayed effect, provoke an intimate humiliation for which there is neither witness nor anyone responsible, because no matter how much passion there may have been in the discussion or in the conversation in which the acid was inoculated, there was no intention on the part of the agent to cause harm. That little thing that no one paid attention to and that was destined to be forgotten as soon as it was spoken, somehow lodged itself in us and later activated who knows what latent wound that we thought was lost or overcome.

There is no duel with witnesses worth saving from such humiliation. If any dignity needs to be restored, it is no longer in front of third parties, but in front of ourselves. For we must admit that these words, spoken in such a way that they would be carried away by the wind, which nevertheless contained an insult that no one but us noticed, awakened an unfinished business that we unknowingly carried in our backpacks. There is no point in taking out frustration or anger on the other person. The problem is our business. And in that sense we are faced with an opportunity. What wound from the past has the salt contained in these words brought to the fore? What aspect of ourselves are we not particularly proud of? What unresolved traumatic event?

The first reaction in these cases is to attribute a certain level of malice to the author of the toxic phrase. We all find it difficult to face what we have kept hidden, perhaps because it confronts us with our most hidden or vulnerable side. It’s easier to attack the source of our fear. But whether the intention was to denigrate us or not is a second-order question. Sometimes we even attribute it to enabling safe behavior that allows us to avoid the important thing. The key here lies in the muted truth with which the sentence in question has hurt us, after a few hours, when there is no longer any possibility of responding to it, it hits the open topic that it brought back to the surface and now hurts like hell. Facing this truth may be the only way to close the wound and cover the flank where the bullet entered.

You will tell me that there are people who deliberately seek to offend or humiliate others, and that many have developed the ability to do this subtly and almost unnoticedto the point that we want to go back to the 19th century so we can challenge those who always carry a dagger under their poncho to a duel. OK. But it is also true that there is a certain degree of insurmountable ambiguity in human relationships.

-I’m telling you, it was a compliment. I know my brother.

-I know him too.

-What do you mean?

-That I can distinguish between his praise and his arrows.

-What luck. Sometimes he is unable to do this.

-Arm.

-Let’s see, what bothered you?

If we cared about the fate of this couple, we would advise them to end this dialogue immediately and not continue. The tone began to escalate and it was difficult for the back and forth to end well, especially when the birds began to make themselves heard and a not insignificant amount of bubbles had been ingested, as was the obligatory rite of the holiday. There are dialogues that you should continue to have with yourself. Maybe the question hanging in the air isn’t a bad place to start.