Ah, where I grew up in New Jersey was like that. A lot of diversity in a small area. Not my town so much (1/2 Irish / 1/2 Italian mostly but it was tiny) but once I got outside of it it was.
People said what they felt whatever it was but everybody (mostly) knew that nobody was going to stab them at the end.
There were stabbings of course, too. But mostly not. The occasional guy with a Katana but D&D was popular then.
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Hurting each other’s feelings was a big part of growing up. You got your feelings hurt and had to make their feelings hurt back and forth but in such a way that “we’re all still friends here” in the end.
Didn’t always work. I think it was some kind of mutual toughening up thing, but then there were bullies who didn’t get the memo to hold back.
I don’t look back nostalgically at that stuff. Then and now I saw it as an unfortunate part of things that wasn’t necessary. But it was what it was.
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