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Cartoons are right.

(This is the tail end of the Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Downer" - where he is almost consumed by (metaphorical, as it turns out) darkness because of an earlier bad mood but when he decides he doesn't want to be all alone, he "gets back into the swing of things" (Richard - Gumball's dad - is played as a giant buffoon, even dumber in some ways than Homer Simpson, but once in a while he has a good idea or heartfelt advice)

And yeah, easy to let the metaphorical darkness creep up on you;it happens to me some times. I suspect it takes a different form for different people. In my case, it's related to childhood issues, to the idea that "people don't really like you, they are pretending to be your friends either out of pity, or some of them are maybe maliciously trying to get you to reveal something that will later be used against you" (I had that second happen more than once as a child. Is it any wonder I have trust issues?)

But yeah, that's stupid. It's a big world and ESPECIALLY online, if people don't actually like you they either (a) ignore you or (b) actively harass you. And none of my mutuals have done that to me, and when it feels to me like I'm being ignored, it's that they're actually offline for whatever reason....

And yeah. Needing to get back in the swing of things. I did get 75 minutes worth of research-stuff done yesterday (even though that did leave me sort of tired). And this morning I sat down and did some tech-editing I needed to do (oh, would that it was tech editing of an amigurumi or knitting pattern but no; it's tech editing of research papers on native plants. Important work but not as fun as working through a pattern to check for errors and having a toy cat or a hat at the end of it)

So anyway. The person or two who was what I perceived as "rude" to me are actually people other people have complained about the tone of, so....maybe it's not me. Maybe it's not that what I felt was so very wrong, and maybe it's not that I was too sensitive.

(I often wonder, because I have been told on numerous occasions - times when I actually spoke up about something offending me or hurting my feelings - that I was "being too sensitive" and frankly it's hard to know if A. I actually AM and just need to woman up, B. The person is being a butt and is telling me I'm "too sensitive" as a way to run roughshod over my feelings or, as Grandpa Simpson would say, "A little from Column A, a little from Column B")

Anyway. I had a couple of good colleague-interactions this morning. First, after having read that kudzu was present in this county, I asked the ornithologist - who does more driving around in the boonies here than I do - if he'd ever seen it. He said no, but suggested that down along the river there might be areas of it and now I wonder if there's maybe some kind of a research project in that if I can find where it is. And I got involved in a discussion the MD/Anatomist was having with someone else about probiotics (and was happy to learn that he's in favor of them; my DO is and actually encourages their use but I know some doctors side-eye them). And that made me feel better because it reminded me that I'm not all awkward-saying-things-wrong or a bundle of easily-wounded feelings.

And some of my "mutuals" on Twitter just talked with me (either seriously, offering support, or jokingly, making me laugh, both of which are important) and that helped.

And part of it is just time. I think I do tend to give people too much benefit-of-the-doubt and even sometimes people I have been hurt by in the past - where I should be able to go "Hey, remember that person's personality grates on you in some ways" - I still go "Hmm, maybe they are right" when they say something unpleasant about me.

But yeah. I am not always good at going "some people are just butts" or "some people are butts some of the time" and maybe that's the problem here - someone was a butt to me, maybe they're not always a butt, maybe they're not even always a butt to ME, but for some reason they were at that point, and for some reason it got to me.