Bellgab, Butthurt and Buddhism

I learned the word "butthurt" while hanging out on bellgab. Apparently, the rest of the world has known about this one for quite a while now. According to knowyourmeme (which also gives a timeline for the word's growing popularity), butthurt

"is an online slang term used to describe a strongly negative or overemotional response. It is used to draw attention to a person who shows signs of being irritated due to a perceived insult, an unfavorable situation, or a lack of decent communication. On occasions, it can be also used to describe unreasonable users behaviors without an apparent explanation."

Time reported that the Oxford Dictionaries added the word to their lexicon in 2015, defining it as an adjective meaning "overly or unjustifiably offended or resentful."

These definitions make it appear as if butthurt is the new hysterical - or maybe the new asshole, depending on the gender of the person it's being aimed at. But as I saw how the word was actually used on bellgab, I became quite taken with it. It connoted acknowledgment that someone is in the grips of strong emotional reaction, even if that reaction appears foolish to others and will likely pass as soon as the person comes to their senses. You might comfort someone who's having a hard time with something by saying, "Don't worry, you're just butthurt," or, feeling grumpy yourself, grumblingly admit, "I'm just butthurt."

There's a couple things going on there that are highly sophisticated when it comes to emotional intelligence. Thing One is the implicit recognition that everyone has strong emotional responses that make them act like unreasonable idiots. I may not get butthurt by the same things you do, but butthurt itself is universal. I can recognize that both you and I experience butthurt, even if you experience it for stupid reasons and I experience it for good reasons. Thing Two is that butthurt is a transitory state. You cannot be a butthurt; you are butthurt, and after a while it will wear off.

From a [*burnishes handmade sardonyx mala on sleeve*] Buddhist point of view, Thing One and Thing Two are good Things. Being able to recognize that others besides ourselves experience butthurt, even if their reasons aren't as good as ours are, is to begin to exercise compassion. Compassion is a difficult and even sometimes odious practice, but one that Buddhism holds to be effective in reducing the overall incidence of butthurt nationwide.

Recognizing that emotions, even powerful ones, are impermanent and in a sense deluded is also implicit in the notion of butthurt. So you got overly invested in something and it ended up disappointing you or falling through or betraying you or defrauding you or whatever and you got butthurt? Once you lick your wounds all better, listen to your friends or figure out for yourself where all that butthurt came from and what you could do differently now you know.

Butthurt is a passing state and sometimes an opportunity for learning . Everyone experiences butthurt, but our butthurt does not define who we are. Indeed, there is no one butthurt that is more specially butthurtful than others; it's all just butthurt.

Handmade Sardonyx Mala on a copy of Frances Wood's The Silk Road

Interestingly, the notion of butthurt arose from the internet where lived experience is mediated by the implicit diasynchronicity of textual communications.