“you make them feel stupid”
I’ve had this leveled against me a couple times in my life. I make people feel bad, I make them feel stupid, embarrassed. Why?
I still don’t fully understand. I can wrap my criticism in a sandwich of positive and negative, doesn’t matter. I can sugarcoat it with “Maybe I misunderstood…” “It came across to me as if…” “I could be wrong…” “It probably wasn’t your intention…” and other stuff like that, still. I do so much to help the other person save face and it’s not detected. I think some people still haven’t learned that negative emotions don’t mean something bad happened that should be called out or punished or makes the other person bad. Sometimes, the way you react is more about you than them. Maybe your ego was hurt, maybe you felt misunderstood. That’s okay. You can argue against it. You can say “Thanks.” and move on. You can choose not to accept it. But why punish the other person or tell them they should be nicer?
I never understood how these people go through life. Do you never want to be corrected? Do you never want to be told what you could do better? Do you never want people to give you feedback on what hurt or disappointed them? How you come across? It’s like starting to cry because someone pointed out your shoe is untied.
I’m tired of feeling like I’m victimizing someone by engaging in normal, open and honest conversation without the need for being cruel or inconsiderate. I’m tired of feeling like the bad guy for normal disagreements.
You disagree with someone in front of others, you “should have done it 1-on-1”. You do it 1-on-1, you “jumped them” or did it at an inconvenient time. You announce it beforehand, they get anxious until the talk happens. You write it down, they prefer a talk because “email sounds angry and stern and is prone to miscommunication”. You get upset in the process, now the tone or choice of words is a problem.
Honey, I think you simply don’t wanna hear it no matter what avenue people choose! And there are so many people like that out there. A different delivery wouldn’t have made you clowns feel better, we both know that.
You will feel bad in life. Other people will make you feel bad, and embarrassed, and stupid. I can’t avoid it either. I have dealt with unfair, insulting stuff before, so I am baffled when I can’t even correct someone’s pronunciation without offense. Like, have so many people been raised in perfect homes? My mother called me a whore when I was 7, and accused me of trying to attract pedophiles because… I was wearing a crop top on the playground that was included in a child magazine. I was called a moonface in school and people said I looked like I ran against a sign because my side profile is very flat. In my childhood another kid once invited me to their birthday party as the punching bag - to openly insult me and laugh at me and tell me how weird I am.
You better believe I was blamed for things unfairly and hurt for the sake of hurting. It wasn’t constructive, it wasn’t helpful, it wasn’t supposed to help me. So I know and I try to consider that when criticizing someone.
But some other people’s sensitivity is off the charts. It’s like they consider each friend, partner, person they admire to be so safe that they should never make them question themselves. Doing so is betrayal. I challenge you to find a partner who’ll never have additional requests and concerns about household things or your intimate life, though. It’s not possible. Pleaaaaaase, just get comfortable with it.
And especially get comfortable with it when the heat is returned! Don’t come for someone and then be offended when they have receipts to prove you wrong or poke holes into it. Don’t be mad when you’re being weird about someone and they call you out on it. Don’t be mad someone holds you to something you said!