Dear WovenGalaxy,

I think a lot of us tend to run on a kind "auto-pilot" much of the time. Rude people are no exception. They say toxic things more out of a bad habit than from willing the rudeness with all their heart, soul, mind and strength and without any impediments. I am quite sensitive to things although I have developed a thicker skin of late, at least a little. Something that takes a few seconds for a rude person to say can stick with me for hours or even days sometimes which is a pretty unhappy situation.

I have found that fighting back against a rude statement is not always helpful to me. I can only speak for myself here and realize we are all different from each other in many ways. Sometimes a person will say something rude to provoke an emotional response in me. If I launch a counter offensive, so to speak, then they win because the goal was to provoke an emotional response. If I respond in a kind of counter attack, they think: "I won, I got you." Now I don't want to give them that pleasure so I found then "what" technique pretty good because it is sort of an intellectual response which throws off their whole game and gives no no real satisfaction.

I try to keep perspective too. Rudeness isn't good but I think everyone has been rude at one time or another. I try to keep rudeness in perspective. Good and bad fall along a continuum and range of values. At the bad end are people like Adolph Hitler and Stalin who sent tens of millions of people to their destruction through genocide and ethnic cleansing. Now, realistically speaking, what is a rude comment compared to causing mass genocide? It is a small thing . . . far, far, far, far, far away from genocide. So I try to take steps to make sure my response to something bad or unpleasant is not out of proportion to the offense. If mass genocide ought to provoke "x" emotional response, what is the proper response to rudeness?

That is not to say that I have transcended the situation you describe. I can still get wound up and suffer rude comments and questions. But nowadays I am able to sort of defuse my anger a lot quicker than I used too. Not always though.

Perhaps this is not very helpful. It is hard to know what to say sometimes that will be helpful.

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen