Offensive Behavior

I have generally been lucky with the various groups of friends I hang out with. I've never really been in a situation where someone was acting like a complete asshole to my other friends, and certainly not to the point where I felt compelled to intervene.

Of course, that doesn't mean it never happens, as stories like this one demonstrate. For that matter, it's certainly possible I simply failed to notice such things going on around me in the past.

That particular blog post is quite long, and it links to other pieces (the five Geek Social Fallacies and the Missing Stair post) which are a good idea to read first, but all of it is worth a read. It's got a lot of great points about how to react to people who are being offensive or creepy - or how to avoid being at the same events as them in the first place (arranging your own events if necessary) and how to explain that decision to others.

I particularly like how it covers several different ways in which people try to defend offensive behavior or avoid calling it out, and why those justifications are wrong.

There are plenty of people who will happily argue that they hate this sort of behavior and don't want it to continue... but the instant calling people out causes any discomfort or awkwardness, they'd rather shut down the discussion, even if that means the person who originally spoke out can't do anything about their discomfort.

There are even more people who will refuse to believe anything bad about their friends - who refuse to believe there's even the slight possibility of a problem - until they see it themselves... no matter how many trustworthy people attest to the existence of those problems.

In the end, we all need to be willing to hold the people around us to a proper standard, and be willing to address the situation if that standard isn't met.