I apologize if this isn’t the right place to ask this, but I have found myself in this situation many times now, and I’m getting frustrated.
There have been many moments in my social interactions whether with close friends, strangers, or acquaintances where they say something that is offensive to me personally and I don’t clock it until much later when I’m alone. Usually it’s comments that are racist or sexist or just plain make me feel unsafe. And I always get so frustrated with myself because I regret not speaking up/defending myself against them.
I’m way too wired to be polite so I always assume the best of everyone I talk to. And it doesn’t seem right to swing in the other direction and just assume the worst. So I’m thinking the middle ground would be to take everything people say at face value and not fill in the blanks for them, but I don’t know how to do that during a live social interaction. I’m always too busy trying not to be rude to even check in with myself long enough to understand I was just offended.
It sounds silly, but I would really love to defend and protect myself in the moment one of these days 😅