This was dumb of me. I am aware. Was having a conversation with a relatively new friend of mine and recently we’ve been into talking hypotheticals. What would you do if you were kidnapped by Dwayne Johnson? What would you do if you had eight million dollars and could only spend it on food? Random stuff like that.
Today we got on the topic of future kids somehow and she asked “What would you do if in the future your kid came home with a tattoo and they weren’t eighteen yet?”
I argued that if it was something meaningful I would be okay with it. I’d be upset they didn’t ask but I would get over it. But she said she would never let them get away with it under any circumstances and they’d have to be punished.
This happens often, we almost always disagree on what we would do and we have a fun lighthearted debate over it. This is just our personalities, it’s never an actual argument or anything of course, it’s just for jokes.
So I said “not even if it was super meaningful to them, like a tribute tattoo or something?”
And she said “nope, nobody under eighteen needs any tattoos”
Now I respect that opinion, but I’m just trying to see if I can make her budge at all, because that’s part of this little game after all.
So I (quite stupidly) said “really? What if their grandma died really tragically and they want to memorialize her? Like imagine your mom died, you’d be devastated”
….
There is an awkward silence and she just goes “my mom died of cancer last year 😐”
I honestly couldn’t tell if she was just making a bad joke but it became evident she was definitely not. So yeah. My bad. I shouldn’t have assumed that she still had her mom I guess, but she’s only nineteen and it didn’t cross my mind that her mom might have died so early.
TL;DR: we were talking and she said she’d never let her kid get a tattoo under any circumstances before 18. I stupidly countered that with “what if it’s a memorial tattoo? Imagine if your mom died or something” and… well… her mom is dead
Comments
No one should get on you for saying something that would require mind reading powers to know.
>I shouldn’t have assumed that she still had her mom I guess, but she’s only nineteen
That is a very reasonable assumption for a 19 yr old.
Thankfully not me, but a good friend of mine lost her dad at a pretty young age, but old enough to remember very well. She does not react well to people who try to get her to donate to any cause with “not everyone is lucky enough to have both parents” and “imagine if you lost a family member!”
As someone orphaned at 13 and now 20, I would find this hilarious. Then again I also love “your mom” jokes. You didn’t mean to hurt anyone, OP. It’s not your fault. You had no way of knowing
I one time told someone whose mom had died that I fucked their mom, and upon being told that their mom was dead, I doubled down and said “too bad I still fucked her.”
Don’t be a douche.
My mom has since died.
I knew this girl once when I was young. When we met we started making all kinds of stupid jokes to each other quite quickly. Quite soon after that I made some “your momma” joke that was indeed quite offending out of the context, and this is how I learned her mom died when she was 8. We dated a couple years after that, so I guess it wasn’t a complete train wreck, but I can still remember how I felt my stomach sank after I realized what I had just said.
OP. I was on a first date hang with a guy in college at a coffee shop listening to a local college band. At one point, he got a thousand yard stare. I took his hand and said “guysname. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your mom is dead.”. Turns out she’d been dead 5 years, breast cancer. We later married and had kids. Putting your foot in your mouth happens.
My grandmother, who I was very close to, died last year and I had to take some time off work to attend her funeral interstate. When I got back I was talking to a colleague, who knew where I’d been, and apologised for something I’d messed up (I can’t remember what – I think I’d missed sending an email or something). She said “Don’t worry about it, it’s not like anyone died,” and then I get to watch the look of horror cross her face as she realised what she’d said. It was hilarious, and actually just what I needed.