Learning Curve…
Over the past week, I’ve had two more encounters to practice my “walk away from rude people” skills with.
It is not easy.
I’m trying to stick by the idea: they start insults, I walk away.
On the second encounter (multiple people, typical mob mentality), I was talking to one person when a second person started with the insults. So, I stayed a little longer to finish what I was saying to the first person. But, then, I realized there was no point in even bothering talking to those people because:
a) they are incapable of having a conversation with me without bringing up their prejudices against me.
b) they are incapable of having a conversation with me without attempting to insult me.
c) they are incapable of having a conversation with me without attempting to turn literal sentences I say into a perceived insult. (ex: “You really do have an interesting point” is interpreted as sarcasm and then they go off on my ‘instigation’, despite the fact that I tell them my intent was in no way sarcastic or in any way insulting.)
d) they are extremely insecure and, thus, incapable of having a conversation with anyone who disagrees with any tenet of their point.
e) as soon as they see one person start with insults, the additional people start with insults. They really ARE like sheep, following anywhere the loudest of the bunch tells them to go – becoming willingly incapable of independent and/or critical thought.
And so, with this understanding, I am moving on to more important things.
I do have a knot in my stomach and I do feel anxiety, because I do actually feel upset when people insist on putting words into my mouth and then REFUSE to even acknowledge that they were wrong in doing so. I feel upset, too, that I have no chance at all to even speak my mind because they start their idiocies any time I speak a truth they do not want to hear. Additionally, I feel upset that these people intentionally misconstrue my words – I truly feel care and concern, and they just feel contempt and hostility BEFORE I’ve even said anything.
I’m done with this. I am DONE.
Basically: insecure, lying, exaggerating, insulting, utterly illogical, prejudiced, prideful, supercilious, self-centered, willfully ignorant, intentionally offended people are now on my “not even worth consideration” list.
The main problem is that I have to reconcile this with the reality that I will have to deal with some of these people in a peripheral manner for the rest of my life.
Maybe I can’t pick my relatives, but I CAN pick my family.