If you could choose not to take offense to something why would anyone ever choose to take offense
I dare you to seriously try to take offence when i say the word "pickle" if you could choose whether or not to take offense this should be easy. i don't mean pretend to take offence i mean actually feel a negative emotion when the word "pickle" uttered
people can give offense
people cannot choose to take offense, i'm going to assume we all agree that by "taking offense" we mean invoke some sort emotional response specifically a negative one. I'm no scientist but i recall something about emotions being produced by hormones that are completely out of our control. what we do with that emotion is in our control people can either bottle it up or let it out in some way. but the act it's self of taking offense cannot be blamed on the offended.

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love you to crimbone no bad feels