Did you ever notice how often people start off a semi-insulting statement by saying “No offense, but ….” as if that phrase is supposed to write off any offense that someone feels? This actually came up in conversation recently, when a guy was talking about relationships between men and Asian women and there was a White woman in the room, and he was saying “No offense, but White women don’t act the way Asian women do.” The White woman actually called the guy out about it so it made me realize how wrong it is to say “No offense,” when you indeed know that you WILL be offending the person you are talking to.

I guess the reason why people say it so much is because they want to say something truthful in how they feel, but at the same time they are TRYING to be considerate of the other person’s feelings (for a second) and realized that it’s going to come off as offensive. So by prefacing your statement with “No offense” it’s supposed to make your statement less offensive? That’s how most people think.

On the other hand, you have people who don’t hold any value to that preface and just say it because it is so common in every day conversation. Like you know what you are going to say is going to be offensive and you just don’t care.

By saying “No offense” you cannot expect the other person to not be offended. So if you are going to be prefacing a lot of insulting statements with those two words, be prepared to defend your argument.  Don’t be surprised when the other person DOES get offended – because most likely, they WILL be.

I am 100% guilty of overusing this preface. As one of my 2010 resolutions, I am going to try to not say it at all unless I do intend on offending someone and trying to be smart-ass about it ;) 

Do you guys feel me?