“You dont even know me” [as a way of saying “you cant say what you just said”]

I first heard the “You can’t judge me” line in response to criticism of ones behavior on a talk show as a kid in the 90s and immediately knew it was nonsense. This is related to but not synonymous with other “don’t judge a person until you know them” style comments. Condemning a person based on limited information is always a bad idea, but criticizing behavior requires zero knowledge of the target and thus the “you dont know me” defense is entirely invalid.

If you say or do something stupid, foolish, inappropriate, or just factually incorrect – anyone is morally and logically allowed to observe as such.

It is not an onlookers responsibility to investigate your personal relationship to look for possible alternate meanings to your public speech and actions. If it comes off as foolish, you have only yourself to blame and only you can clarify. It is unreasonable and childish to expect onlookers to withhold obvious reaction to your actions based on the premise that they might not know your backstory.

So now you know.

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