Offended my aunt with my thank you card

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That's not a fact at all. That's your opinion. How is it blowing it out of proportion for someone to send a letter back saying they're hurt and disappointed by being called cheap in a thank-you note?

Yes, just like everything you have stated is an opinion. The difference is, i'm not ignoring what you say because it doesn't match my opinion, however you are ignoring what i say, which makes your reply rude! I demand you send me a message apologising

Seriously though, family members should KNOW what people are like, a polite "You shouldn't say that, because it can be seen as offensive" would have sufficed. I once said to my friend "You're mother is like a lady of the night!", i said this because she was always out at night. I had no idea that "lady of the night" meant prostitute. He knows what i'm like with words and he knows i wouldn't intentionally insult him. He didn't guilt trip me, he laughed and explained where i had gone wrong!


I mean that is so emotionally overloaded it's laughable! That's not a sentence from someone who is hurt, that is a sentence from someone who is trying to inflict hurt. To write a letter like that? it's malicious and guilt-trippy and is a blatently out of proportion. I can't give explanations as to WHY the letter was wrote in the first place or why that specific tone was chosen because i don't know the people in question, but i doubt it has anything to do with the percieved insult.

Except you stated that your opinion was a fact, and then say that I'm "ignoring what you say because it doesn't match my opinion" just because I pointed out that your opinion isn't actually a fact as claimed it was.



She probably felt quite the same thing about receiving a thank you note in which she was referred to as cheap. She may or may not have known about the AS, but it's quite hurtful to be called cheap, and I don't see how it's out of proportion to say so. It was a misunderstanding, but she was still hurt, and responding with a letter saying she was hurt doesn't seem like blowing anything out of proportion. As far as I know she didn't call her names or anything, she just sent back her own letter saying she was hurt. Particularly since she missed the wedding due to health problems. It probably seemed awfully "emotionally overloaded" to her to get a thank-you note saying "I guess you're not quite as cheap as I thought you were.."

Semantics.


Because the original letter was written with the intent of hurting it's reader.

I can understand why your aunt was offended by being called cheap, and agree with what pretty much everyone else has said about that.

You also mentioned that you are sending out the thank you cards in batches and that your aunt also commented on the fact that your cousin hadn't received one, or something to that effect.

I just wanted to say that I also tend to send out cards in batches, and I write and send them in family groups, so aunts, uncles and cousins from the same side of the family all get theirs at the same time. That way the people who are most likely to be in contact with each other don't find out that someone has got a card and feel they've been forgotten if they haven't got theirs yet.

Because you're the final authority on the intent of every letter ever written? And even if it was, that may have been because she considered the original thank-you note to have that intent. If she doesn't know about the AS, that would really be a reasonable assumption. You can't be any more sure about her aunt's intent in writing that letter than her aunt can be about the intent of the offensive thank-you note. For that matter, maybe her aunt has AS. It does tend to run in families and avoiding functions like family reunions and weddings is pretty common among aspies. Unless you're her aunt, how can you say you know the intent of her letter?

It's funny you would claim i'm acting like an authority here, it was you who attacked my opinion and you who is relentlessly attacking every post i make in this thread because you don't agree with my opinion. Do you really look down upon Spokane_Girl that much? Do you really think she is too stupid to read a list of opinions and correctly chose the most applicable to her? A thread in which advise is sought seems rather defunct if everyone has to post suggestions that agree with Maggiedoll's veiw of the world.


I've commented on what was written and the letter is projecting clear intentions wether they were intended or not. You on the other hand are now commenting on make belief "what-if" scenario's.

I sent out thank you cards per family like to my dad's friend and his wife, one card for them. My aunt and uncle. One card for them and their kids. I forgot to put my cousin's name on the card when I wrote "Dear Sue and Tom." Is that what you meant by batches?

Funny coincidence, my mom has said her sister Sue might have had it and then she was hurt by my "compliment." My mom says it's because they are shy to come out to family reunions but if they are so shy to come out to family reunions and weddings, then why do they go to the local family reunions that happens in their home state? So I do not buy "They're shy to come." They came to the 1992 family reunion because it was in Wisconsin and they were there for my seventh birthday because the reunion happened around my birthday and then the next day after my birthday, we all left.

I have a terrible time with Thank You cards, too. In fact, I rarely send them, which is bad, I know. I intend to, and sometimes even sit down and start writing them, but then I get stuck on what to say. And how to say it.

My in-laws like to send gifts to me, and honestly, I wish they wouldn't. There are very few things I want, and it's all either on my Amazon wish list or it's not possible to get for me at all. (An all-expenses paid week in London so I can see Alan Rickman on stage someday would be nice.) But they keep sending stuff that's not on my list, and I don't want it. My sister-in-law (who I don't even speak to, because I can't understand her accent) sent me a movie for my birthday. It was okay, but not great, and I didn't want it in the first place. It had one good scene, but mostly I felt obligated to waste my time watching it when I didn't really want to. How do I thank her properly for the gift? Just "Thank you for the movie?" If I don't say that I like it, she'll think I didn't like, and get her feelings hurt. But I don't want to lie and say how great it was.

Really, you can't win. Oh well.

And yeah, I agree with the others who say "cheap" can be offensive. But I can see how you wouldn't have known that. I'm not sure when I learned that, but it was in my adulthood, I'm sure.

I did not attack your opinion. You claimed that your opinion was a fact, I told you that your opinion is not a fact but your own opinion. It's not the same thing. You said "The fact is, it's been blown out of proportion" and now you're getting all pissed off at me for telling you that that's not actually a fact. You didn't say "I believe it's been blown out of proportion" or "It seems to me that she's blowing it out of proportion." You said that your opinion was a fact and the final authority on the matter. You said that she should tell her aunt to quit being whiny for being offended that she was called cheap, when you can't even handle being told that your opinion isn't a fact. I don't think that makes much sense.
I don't look down on Spokane_Girl at all. I'm attempting to point out that she and her aunt may have a lot in common and that that may be part of the basis of the misunderstanding. You are insisting that her aunt meant to hurt her with the letter, which may not be the case.



How can her intentions be unintended? You are saying that her aunt's letter was intended to hurt her. If that wasn't the intent of the letter, it wasn't the intent of the letter. It also may seem that a thank you note saying "gee, maybe you're not quite as cheap as I thought you were" was intended to hurt, when in this case it wasn't. Assuming that her aunt's letter was intended to hurt her is no better than someone her aunt talks to assuming that the original letter was intended the same way. I'm not commenting on make believe scenarios at all.


It could be a combination of things, too. If it's in their home state, it also makes it easier to leave, may involve slightly less interaction, and not involve staying somewhere strange or anything like that. If you're nervous about going to a family reunion, going to one for just a day thing will be a lot less nerve-wrecking than having to find somewhere to stay, having to fly, all that stuff. It may also be money, but it's not necessarily "cheap" to not spend a lot of money to go to a family reunion that's making you nervous in the first place. Most people, I think, kinda have to force themselves to go to stuff like that. (You always hear people groaning about family reunions..) I don't think it's unreasonable for someone who is shy and nervous about stuff like that to not want to have to deal with airports and hotels or staying with relatives, all that stuff, in addition to the reunion itself.
It sounds like your dad kinda says some mean stuff about her as well, which probably hurts her and might contributeto her not wanting to spend long periods of time at family functions?

I've said it a couple times before and say it once again: Spokane_Girl is the most innocent person in the world. I honestly can't think of a worse social mistake than this one. However, it's such a huge mistake that it's obvious it was done without malice. What's f****d up is society, not us Aspies. I'd consider giving the aunt a call and telling her you have been diagnosed with a mild condition that makes you sometimes unaware of appropriateness of comments and you tend to err towards the "too honest side", you regret the hurt it caused her. I'm sure they'll forgive and love you for it. Do tell us if you do and what she answers. A married woman is expected to start a direct relationship with relatives, and not through the parents, so it's time you get her phone number from your parents.

I don't have her number but I wrote her a letter instead. I have her address. I must say I am not the most innocent person so I have no idea how you get that.

I have freely pointed out it was an opinion, yet you continue to drone on and on... Your persistance in this matter is clearly an attack, wether you intend it to be or not. Since you are not allowing me to have an opinion.


I've also already exclaimed "semantics!" in reply to one of your previous posts. Because wether my statement is a fact or opinion really doesn't make a difference. I wasn't forcing the statement upon Spokane_Girl, i merely offered it as advice which she dismissed. I accepted her dismissing it, because it's her choice.


Demanding an apology was actually sarcasm, attempting to show you the falsibility of your statement... Clearly wasted on you.


So when spokane does something unintentionally she has to apologise for it? But when others do things unintentionally, we should think about all the "possibilities?". It's ashame her aunt didn't think of the possibility that her well-meaning, socially deficient neice may have not meant to harm her! But you know, she probably did consider this. Relations generally show offense to small things like this, when they want to and opposed to when they are genuinely offended.


Maggiedoll, the letter was wrote in a way to inflict pain, not to share the fact that the writer was hurt. It's possible that it wasn't intended but the fact is, that's the way it was wrote. You're being very inconsistent in justifying the aunts offense to spokane's letter, yet justifying the aunt's letter. You can't have it both ways.


Which hints at ulterior motives for the letter being sent. Which is why i suggested spokane should reply in kind or completely ignore it! Using third parties, in a proxy-war style family feud is put bluntly, pathetic and it would be best to forcibly remove oneself, or remove oneself via inaction.

Well first let me state congratualtions on your marriage. and you sound just like me LOL! One good thing you did vs. me is you wrote an apology letter while for me I feel about about saying/doing X thing and dwell over it. I feel usual we say things and don't mean them to be rude or insulting. IMO the #1 issue I hate is doing this since I don't know what is right/wrong to say/do. As others have said the aunt took as being called cheap perhaps the other family members know her better so they laughed but the aunt didn't expect you to say something like that so it upset her. (Stuff like this has happened in my family for example my grandfather mention "Did my sister start losing weight yet?" My mom laughed it off since my mom knew her father would say that but would we EVER tell my sister NO WAY since we know it'd upset her feelings.

Well good news, I am finally over it. I talked to my dad on the phone at work during break and he said why does it matter if I hurt her or not, I never see her and when was the last time I saw her? 1998. Also he said we all say things and people get offended and we apologize and move on and if they don't forgive you, it's their problem, not ours and we move on. He did say it's true they are cheap and they probably never go on trips and I said "Except local ones that are in their state." I knew my dad wasn't using cheap in a offensive way and he was using it in a literal way. They probably can't afford to travel far and I figured maybe she has low self esteem about her money so she took it the wrong way or because of a medical condition she is currently having but her husband and daughter still could have come so maybe that was an excuse she was using for not coming which didn't bother me. Not everyone could make it. My husband suggested maybe she needed them there to help her so that makes sense why they didn't come out.