Being sensitive versus "oversensitive" - where's the line ?

[steve2470]

I've been accused of being oversensitive many times in the past, so I reckon there is truth there. But, don't some people use that term too freely ? What do you esteemed DU'ers think ?

[amazona]

1. I'm sensitive, YOU'RE oversensitive

See, it's pretty easy when you do the grammar.

I think don't worry about it. There is always someone there to say you are too sensitive and always someone there to say you are too insensitive in my humble experience.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[MichiganVote]

2. You're sensitive about being thought of as oversensitive?

Or is it the other way round? Can someone be callous or over callous?

Beats me what you are.

[Redstone]

4. It may indeed be oversensitive of him

to be so sensitive, or possibly even oversensitive about being so sensitive about the possibility of being oversensitive.

Or am I just being oversensitive about his sensitivities?

Redstone

[MichiganVote]

9. I think you're being sensitive to the oversensitivities noted by his

sensitivity. Or something like that. Am I being oversensitive?

[Redstone]

10. You might be.

I'm pretty sensitive to this kind of stuff.

Redstone

[MichiganVote]

11. Me too.

[phaseolus]

3. calling someone oversensitive...

...is often just the equivalent of sticking fingers in one's ears and shouting "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU..."

It doesn't address any points you've made... they're just telling you to shut up.

So punch 'em in the nose, next time... :evilgrin:

[progmom]

12. Can I nominate your post for the greatest page?

I love it. Punch 'em in the nose, indeed.

[steve2470]

13. sure nt

[coloradodem2005]

5. I really don't know.

Where's the line with anything really.

[El Fuego]

6. I think they're saying that you are being intolerant of their jerkiness

In my experience, some people want to act like total a**holes to you, and they'll call you oversensitive if you don't go along with it. (As I type this, I'm thinking of the office freeper who called me oversensitive when I didn't think his "jokes" about killing my cat were funny.)

[madison2000]

I hear that a lot too

but I think it happens because if you have a pattern of being non-assertive most of the time, people freak out when you occasionally assert yourself.

[mcscajun]

7. It's a power thing. *I* get to decide that *you* are Oversensitive

when *I* offend *you*.

On the otherhand, if *you* Offend *me*, then I'm not Oversensitive, *you're* just an INsensitive jerk.

Simple equation, really. :)

The preceding was for purposes of illustration and should not be construed by anyone to mean anything directed to anyone, at all. :)

[Sugar Smack]

8. Bad manners drive me crazy-

Like when I'm in line at checkout or in a bank, and a full-grown adult invades my personal space behind me and breathes down my neck. Or when someone comes up behind me at work and watches what I'm doing. Or when someone comments on what I'm eating for lunch. Or when a total stranger stares at me and doesn't have the courtesy to avert his gaze when I glance up.

Or when I get a haircut and the person doing it says in an 80,000 decibal voice, "Omigod!!! YOUR HAIR IS SO THIN!!! What's WRONG with you?" Or when some guy or woman says to me, "So how come you've never been married, at your age?" Bush bumper stickers tend to set me off. The last parking spot in the lot invaded by double parkers. I hate being crashed into by people idly stepping backwards at the store, sending all my stuff flying, with no aplology.

It miffed me when a girl friend of mine ditched me at a bar with no way home for a complete stranger, who she never saw again. I was also insulted when another girl friend left our friendship for Jesus and said I was not really as "moral" as she would have liked...

But maybe I'm just...."touchy". :)

[Missy Vixen]

14. It's a discount of your feelings

I have to agree with the poster who said that anyone calling you "oversensitive" is trying to deflect from the awful thing they said or did to you.

The last person who called me "oversensitive" got an earful, and she didn't enjoy it. My response to her was that she perhaps might want to acquaint herself with the words "I'm sorry" before insulting me again by name-calling.

Julie