solitaire grandmaster

And obviously your boundaries with your friends are completely up to you but you do need to recognize that if you cut off everyone who has done something wrong, you’re going to end up with no friends (and you yourself will have also fucked up in your life, and not lived up to those impossible standards either).

That said...I really don't expect anyone I know socially to respond well to "you did something wrong." I actually can expect it at work, because we have an office culture of "blame doesn't solve anything, let's just fix this." And we're generally pretty good about it in my marriage. But friends? No, you've got to be real careful and subtle with that shit.

(I'm going to apologize because there's a slur incoming but this won't make any sense if I bleep it out.)

We were talking about Trump's first round of tariffs and what it did to my friend's small business, and he said:

"Some sellers are really taking advantage of it, they're not even in effect yet and prices are going up. I just got gypped on--"

I don't know what material he got cheated on, because we both have ADHD so as soon as I stopped him that train of thought was essentially dead, but I cut him off mid-sentence and said "I know you're better than that."

He gave me this blank look and said "better than what?" I said: "Gypped." And then I just waited for him to process, which took a second or two (see: ADHD) but as it did he got the most horrified expression and said "oh. Oh. I'm so sorry. I didn't even--that's right. You're right."

I've never heard him use it again.

He's not a bad guy and he doesn't go around throwing slurs left, right, and center. He's not even unaware--he's a witch and will actively stop reading any instructional book the moment it mentions the G-word. It was just...a common word, where he grew up, and when he was frustrated and not really thinking about it, it snuck out of whatever corner of his brain he hadn't realized it was still hiding in. (It doesn't help that a lot of people spell it "jipped" and even the visual linguistic cue of its origin is lost.)

I could have stormed out of his apartment and never spoken to him again.

But I could also stop him and say "I know you're better than that," because I know he is, and draw to his attention what he'd said.

One of those things helps to push a bigoted term closer to its dying day (and good riddance). One of those things loses me a friend and does nothing to solve the problem.

And this goes both ways! We're both 90s kids from small towns. There was a day I used the phrase "trailer trash" and he stopped me and said "my Grammy lived in a trailer."

And you know what? He was right. It's a derogatory term used by poor folk to look down on those who are even poorer, and I never really thought about it until that moment. I haven't used it since.

Friends help friends better themselves. Friends help friends learn.