*sighs*

[conuly]

A certain person once pissed me off so much I posted about her, and will post the link if I ever find it again. Basically, she called me rude... and wouldn't explain why. And eventually drove me to the point of tears by not explaining WHY she called me rude and by expecting me to not care that she'd just done that, thus propelling her that much closer to my very short "list of people I actually dislike".

It's possible she's just earned a much-coveted place there.

See, on this comm I read (NOT childfree!) somebody had posted that while working, a little kid (three or four years old, she said) had pointed to her and called her fat repeatedly, and the father, though embarassed, had not been able to stop the kid. And person-I-don't-really-like piped up with "It must be the mother because kids have to learn this somewhere, and I'm sorry she was so evil".

Ahem.

1. Kids do have to learn this somewhere, but school and neighbors are just as likely as parents, especially with objectionable material
2. At that age, it's very like that the kid didn't mean what she was saying. Or, rather, that she meant what she was saying (fat) but she didn't mean what the cashier was hearing (lazy, slow, greedy glutton, stupid and ugly, let's make fun of you). Not only do those prejudices take time to develop, but little kids take a lot of time to learn not to say something just because they think it, and, indeed, what things can't be said.
3. Kids aren't really evil, nobody is (though I recognize a hyperbole when I see it, it still irritated me).

Which I said. Well. Okay, I only pretty much said #2, and I skipped the part about hearing what people aren't really saying because I didn't want to go on and on about it. And now she comes back with "you're always being rude to me, and snide, and I don't know why you do that, and it's so very mean..." What? I just said I disagree! I didn't call you stupid or mean, like you said I did, and the fact is that I only remember talking directly to you twice, the other time being the time you went out of your way to upset me. But apparently, those two times, the second time being purely a "I disagree" statement are enough to build up to me being a rude snot who really hates her.

Well, okay. I guess I do. Like I said, sometimes people don't hear what other people are saying.

Comments

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

*rolls eyes*

I saw the original post (but before you'd commented, I think.)

When I was four years old, I went around giving people the finger for a whole day, simply because I'd seen a poster with an orangutan doing it. I also remember once pointing out a woman on the bus and saying, "That lady has hairy legs!"

Did my parents raise me to be rude?

Of course not - small children mimic all sorts of sources, like to hear themselves talk out loud, and are still developing that little switch in their head that makes them consider the effects of their words. I felt bad for the woman who made the post, but from the father's embarrassment, I certainly don't think there's any evidence to blame the parents.

Given the way this woman responded to you, I'd suspect it's an issue of thin skin on her part.

[conuly]

Yeah... she is WAY overreacting. She's right to think I don't like her, let's be honest, but until JUST NOW, I had never considered responding to her to show off my personal animosity.