Not to exaggerate too terribly much, but we are all
hyperbolic as fuck now. No, most things hardly qualify as truly
“awesome” in spite of rampant use of the word, and checking out someone’s Facebook photos, the ones they posted
deliberately with the explicit understanding (or hope) that they would
be looked at does not make you a “stalker,” and in most uses, that
woman you’re calling a “psycho” has merely committed the crime of
still being around when you said get lost.
Some of these instances of word bloating are more egregious than others.
“Stalkers,” for instance, are a terrifying reality
for many people, mostly women, who given the choice, would I’m sure be over the moon if the dude who is
plotting bodily harm or worse against them would just “stalk” their online
photos instead of, you know, hiding in their bedroom closet with a weapon.
Using the term “survivor” for things that don’t
always literally involve your life/death though, doesn’t quite warrant the indignant response it is getting in a piece over
at the Good Men Project called “Newsflash:
You’re Not Special for Going Through a Bad Breakup.”
In it, Ward Anderson posits that the use of the word has
gotten out of hand. That people going through divorces shouldn’t get to claim
they “survived” anything (or be applauded), because contrary to what
they seem to think by using such a term, they are not, in fact, special, or
unique, or snowflakes, or any other thing that signifies being worthy of a such
a word. Everyone goes through breakups, he tsks. Most of them are bad. In fact,
over half of marriages end in divorce and nearly all relationships will end. So get over yourself.
Patting
yourself on the back for “surviving” it is just a slap in the face to those who
actually deal with life-threatening situations.
You and the ex
argued a lot and screamed at each other? That doesn’t make you the victim of
domestic violence. That makes you a bad fit with your chosen mate. You lost a
lot of money in the divorce? That doesn’t mean you were inches away from
death’s door. It actually makes you pretty much just like most people who go
through a painful split.
The problem
here is not people’s feelings of self-importance; it’s the devaluing of certain
words. Pre-9/11, we called a good athlete a “hero.” Calling someone who had a
bad break-up a “survivor” is a similar kind of First-World-Problems hyperbole.
But it belittles those who actually persevere and overcome true,
life-threatening obstacles. Imagine telling the rugby players who resorted to
cannibalism in order to survive that plane crash in the Andes Mountains that
you’re on a similar level because you married a passive-aggressive jackass.
Huh, where to start. Well, for onesies, people don’t say they “survived” because they feel special, they say it because they feel they SURVIVED something terrible. Also, for two, I find it super hard to
believe anyone would suggest they are on a “similar level” as a
temporary cannibal if they ran into a plane crash survivor at a cocktail party. If you actually met a rugby player who resorted
to cannibalism to survive in a terrible crash in the Andes Mountains, you
prollz wouldn’t relate the story of your divorce as a way of trauma bonding.
You’d definitely know that the two situations were wildly different and I bet your divorce wouldn’t come up at all, unless, say, maybe you hit it off and wanted to let them know you were single.
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