I hope this is relevant for this community, because I don’t know where else to post this. I’m honestly scared to post it anywhere else.

I live in Eastern Europe. I’m a university student, and recently, we got an American exchange student. They’re a very outspoken liberal.

A few days ago, we took them out with a few mates out for beers (they’re under 21, so they didn’t drink, even though you can here if you’re at least 18) to break the ice and make them feel comfortable. We got talking and because I’ve never been to the US, I asked them what I thought was an innocuous question. For some context, I’ve been a communist for a very long time, and joined the communist party the day I turned 18.

I basically asked them: Why would I vote for Harris? How would that improve the situation in the US and abroad? I’m not too familiar with her, but her politics don’t seem too appealing, especially her support for Israel and her incarceration background.

That made them launch into a screaming rant about how I’m a conservative for doubting her abilities and deserve to be jailed for wanting to infringe on the rights of women. There were a few more insults targeted at me for asking that question, I didn’t really understand them. The entire time, I was not even saying anything, I was honestly too shocked to react, but they just kept screaming until they got up and stormed out in a rage after calling me a Trump supporter, misogynist, and a fascist. My mates were equally confused. We tried to figure it out, but everyone is equally stumped.

I’ve been thinking about that entire situation for a couple days, and I’m so confused about their reaction. They even refuse to speak to me now.

What have I done wrong? Can someone please explain? ☹️ I really don’t understand what happened. We have liberals here of course, but even the worst ones never behave like this.

  • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]
    ·
    3 months ago

    I think for me it was a few different things, that largely boil down to

    1. Misremembering the post (i.e. "her" referring to both Harris and the lib, the accusations of misogyny being a weaponization of the lib's gender)
    2. Making assumptions based on my own mind's eye
    3. Reading singular "they" more like a marker of social distance than a marker of explicit gender-neutrality, and thinking that women are more likely to get they-ed than men, because men are often a little ashamed of associating with women in a way that women aren't with men (this requires assuming OP is a man)
    4. Reading JaredLevi's comment first and assuming it was correct about the lib's gender

    And these things are honestly all pretty problematic, I should've done better.