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Comment by GiorgioG | Hacker News Reader

It is not ok. Be an adult and deal with the emotional discomfort to pay your last respects.

Not a popular approach these days, but you’re absolutely right. This is an example where setting healthy boundaries has veered into hiding away from life and avoiding hard, messy human things.

I had my fair share of hard messy human things and I distance from that. Self preservation is more important than some official gathering.

It’s not self preservation, it’s avoidance and selfishness.

Avoidance can be self preservation. My friends are fine with me not attending, why aren't you? Because I dont wanna join some human made sadness gatherings with some religious idiot talking about how my atheist friend is with God now?

This conversation started as general advice, and as such, avoidance of human connection around death is poor advice. You sound like you have good reason for your avoidance, but you shouldn't extrapolate that it's a good general strategy.

It is a good general strategy. Place yourself before others. Ain't nobody is an altruist.

Humans are societal creatures. That avoidance as self-preservation can be considered a weak trait. Society only really works if we know we have each other's backs when the chips are down, so with you abandoning situations when the chips are down demonstrates you won't be there when I need you to be, so it's probably better to cut you out now, right?

Or, why would I put food on the table for the slowest gazelle?

We live in a post society. We are long past the "we need each other" part. Everybody only cares about themselves and im just reflecting what the world gives me.

> Society only really works if we know we have each other's backs when the chips are down

I'd disagree with this - capitalism tends to reward defection from this norm, and it's been a stable equilibrium for centuries at this point. You have more of a point when it comes to community, but even many intentional communities are massively hypocritical when it comes to this, with higher-status people having the ability to deviate from norms at will.

helpful reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinschaft_and_Gesellschaft

You can live your life however you like, but dealing with hard messy human things is part of being a functioning adult in society. At some point if you can't grow up and learn to control your expression of emotion then it really limits your options. This is something you might want to work on, perhaps with professional help.

It seems like, at least in online places like Reddit, "boundaries" has become this magical, get-out-of-jail-free word that justifies people to short-circuit norms and socialization and just do whatever they want in human relationships. "I want to do X, and I don't want to do Y, and I don't want my partner calling me out for doing Z. If you don't like it, that's your problem, and if you object, you're crossing my boundaries and are in the wrong!"

Before, it was just "being selfish and anti-social." Now, the same thing is called "setting healthy boundaries for myself."

Amen. I had a long and damaging relationship with somebody who did exactly what you describe. Used "boundaries" as an excuse for being a toxic human being, as many narcissists do.

A good test of the boundary-setter's true nature is whether or not they find alternative means of doing the thing or if they are just claiming "but muh boundaries!" to excuse their lack of being a decent human being.

If their "boundaries" prevent them from showing up at a funeral to provide a moment of comfort to the survivors of the deceased... well okay. There could be valid reasons. Suppose funerals tend to induce suicidal ideation in an individual. Certainly nobody would suggest that individual should risk a suicidal episode.

But, is the person finding an alternative way to show that care? Flowers, letters, a visit at some other time? Or are they just narcissisticly using it as an excuse to avoid spending time for the benefit of anybody other than themselves?

What exactly is wrong with being selfish and anti social? Most of yalls employers are selfish and you still work for them.

Max Stirner's ghost just smiled somewhere

To be fair, plenty of boundary setting is legitimate. I find that hypocrisy is an excellent tell for when someone is misusing the principle. Eg. when someone says "I don't like it when you talk about this subject" and then proceeds to bring up said subject all the time when they have something to say about it.

Agreed. I used to hate going to funerals and skipped some, telling myself it was because I didn't know what to say, might embarrass myself, etc. After being in the receiving line of a couple, I realized someone else's funeral isn't about me. The truth is no one notices exactly what you say because they're dealing with their own grief, and "I'm sorry for your loss" is perfectly acceptable. So now I just go, pay my respects, and feel better for doing it.

This is the worst advice someone could give. It absolutely is ok to decide on your own if it's good for you and the others if you attend or not. I wouldn't want anyone to come to my funeral just because others expect him to.

Someone should attend your funeral because they made some kind of connection with you in this short life. Being uncomfortable for 30 minutes is the least one can do. I am so tired of people being so emotionally immature that they can’t handle a little discomfort.

Seconded, the person you initially respond to is the target audience of this website, and would probably do well to take it in.

A funeral is not 'some event' that you can just skip for your own benefit. That's not what it's about.

Well, it turned from the original "breaking down", through "slight discomfort" to "skipping for a benefit". Just let me tell you for someone to break down can mean a panic attack, where they can not catch breath, or they just crawl into a corner acting like a kid, it can mean throwing up violently or it can mean falling into a long term depression. Everyone can have their own reasons and way of processing pain.

Whats so special about a funeral? It's just tons of sad people. I meet the relevant people in unofficial circumstances. My friends understand this, so I dont see the issue.

I have no idea what point you’re trying to make here.

“It's just tons of sad people.” - this makes you sound like you have the emotional acuity of a 4 year old. You can fix that, but you can’t do it sitting in front of your computer.

It's weird, in one comment you say you only care about the deceased "person in the casket," and here you mention the respect of friends (who are presumably living) as important. It sounds to me like you might be a younger person with a slightly naive worldview on death.

Looking at his submissions, he/she is a younger person. But even still my 13 year old has more sense than them.

Tim Dillon has a nice explanation if you want something a little more bombastic and attention grabbing.

If I was close to someone and they skipped my funeral for no other reason than their own mild discomfort I would seriously question how close we were after all.

> ...they skipped my funeral ... I would seriously question ...

This isn't how death works

Maybe you could haunt them or something, who knows

It’s absolutely okay to prioritize the needs and comfort of the living.

The guest of honor won’t notice, I promise.

If the other (living) attendees have a problem with it, it’s at least 51% a them problem, IMO.

This take is sad. We have become a society of emotionally weak people.

My wife and I make our kids do uncomfortable things because that’s what separates children from adults. An example, and not even the hardest one: Yesterday we were vacationing at the beach and we got a call from the dog boarding facility keeping our 8 year old dog, she was having seizures and had to be taken to an animal hospital. We drove 3 hours to see her. There was lots of crying, in front of everyone - who gives a shit. We had to have her euthanized. The 4 of us stayed with her for the entire process. We could have just told them to put her down over the phone and continued our vacation, or we could have left the room as they ended her life. She wasn’t conscious and we have no way of knowing if she was aware of our presence, but if something/someone makes an impact on your life, learn to be a little unselfish and be present. It hurts, but just because something hurts doesn’t mean we should shy away from doing it.

Learning to steel yourself is an important life skill. Obviously a dog is not a human, but the parallels are there - as humans we have honored the end of a impactful life throughout our history.

It's also selfish, narcissistic and kind of anti-social. Somehow, we've uplifted "taking care of yourself" over every other societal norm, obligation, and courtesy. Humans are not meant to be "on the comfortable/happy path" 100% of the time. Sometimes, we are expected to act altruistically. Sometimes we should make small sacrifices for others' benefits. Sometimes we should be go out of our comfort zone to comfort someone else. This doesn't mean torture yourself and ruin your mental health, but it does mean stepping out of your usual routine occasionally, for other people's sake.

A funeral is not done for the deceased. A funeral is for the people who are still there.

These people, the real guests of honour, will remember your absence for the rest of their lives.

This is such an anti social take. How dense to you have to be to not realize attendance is for the benefit of the living. The dead person is not the guest of honor it's the family of the deceased if there is any "guest of honor" at all

Not attending rightfully costs you a lot, even if you're lacking the social skills to perceive it

As far as I am concerned I dont exist for the families of my friends. I exist for my friends. Never cared about their families and they never cared about mine, its just how we move.

I’m in my mid-40s. When I randomly reconnect with friends from my 20s, they still ask about my parents and my parents still occasionally ask about them.

Yea so everyone should do that? Or are other platonic relationships allowed?

[flagged]

You're clearly not capable of seeing that humans live differently which is completely fine. Some tribes eat people, some tribes bury them. Just because most people value ordinary people things doesn't mean you should be forced into their culture

Look, if you want to live life like a hermit, that’s on you. As you get older, you will lose people, friends, family, acquaintances, not only through death, but growing apart for “normal” reasons, moving away, job changes, changes in interests, getting married, etc. Rarely in life do you make more connections later in life than you had when you were younger. The more you rail against social norms, the more you isolate yourself. If that’s what you want, fair enough. But if you want to be part of a well functioning social group, the rest of us value getting together at the end of someone’s life.

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