This is brilliant. Forward to that person (or those persons) in your life who think their lack of civility is a badge of integrity. (CW: this is a post on a sex blog, so there's suggestive advertising on the page. It's technically SFW, but not necessarily the sort of thing you might want people at work to see you scrolling through.)
‘Have I offended you?’ is usually meant sarcastically: like ‘oh no! I have offended you! What horror! Your poor sad feelings might have been hurt! Well, guess what, fuckface?! I don’t care about your feelings! The TRUTH is more important!’
[…]
When someone says ‘that is offensive’ – that thing you do, or that statement you made – they aren’t usually saying ‘this thing is bad because it makes me feel upset/offended.‘ They’re not addressing your action purely because of the impact on them, but the impact on you. They’re saying: ‘doing/saying this makes you look like a bit of a prick.’
[…]
Most of the time when I use the word ‘offence’ or ‘offensive’, I am not trying to imply – as the ‘are you offended’ commenters believe – that you should go to great pains to avoid offending me personally, because my feelings are paramount. I’m instead using it as a gentle nudge. It is a nicer thing to say than what I am actually thinking which is: ‘saying/doing this makes you look like a bit of a prick.’