a tiny epiphany

Something I realized about myself today.

Someone was rude to me online. Doesn't matter greatly the full context but there was fundamentally a "no great loss [if something bad happened to me]" implied in it.

I was startled at how hurt I was.

I just muted the person - didn't want to block them, because I think you can see when someone blocks you, and  I didn't want to risk giving them the satisfaction. (I know how bully's minds work)

But I realized something: if I were a tougher person, or someone who had grown up in a rougher milieu, I might have been able to do the equivalent of flip them the bird and move on.

I really shouldn't give unpleasant people space in my head. But I never learned that trick of (to phrase it politely) saying "forget you" and moving on. I wish I could. I wish I were more like that - where if someone insulted me, instead of being hurt, I could give them back as good as I got, and walk away with my head high.

I don't know why I need people to like me. I wish I didn't, some times.

And yes, it's stupid to give some random internet idiot free rent in my head, and I've mostly pushed them out, except for the fact that.....it is just strange to me I can't retaliate in that way.

I mean: I know friends who had that kind of weird low-level adversarial relationship, where they used insulting names affectionately (Like, "Hey ****head" or similar) or flipped each other the bird, and neither thinks anything of it because that's how they relate. Or the whole thing in certain subcultures where you talk badly about someone you're actually friends with.

I don't get that. I don't know if it's a brain-wiring thing, or as my mother regretfully said once, "I raised you kids to be too nice" or if it was a childhood of being rejected by peers so now every kind of playful insult feels like a rejection - and once or twice when someone who was kind of newly-knowing me tried it on me, and I kind of sadly went "okay I'll go...." and started to amble off had to go "no, no, no, no, I didn't mean it THAT way" but yes, I kind of interpret that stuff as hostile and I don't think I'll ever be comfortable with the joking trading-insults thing some people do.


But yeah. Once again I ask: Do I really WANT to go back out when COVID is over?

Though in one sense I do. I very much want to be able to comfortably go back to JoAnn fabrics or a bookstore or even a big grocery store and be able to shop there unmasked* and take as long as I want and not stand at the end of an aisle and wait if someone is lingering there (because I don't want to push past them or get within 6' of them, even if I know exactly what I need on that aisle and they are taking all day.

(*Well, that ship may have sailed, at least in future flu seasons, though I really thought the Asian-style public mask usage would have been better adopted here when it was shown to be fairly effective)

But for what else? I don't know. On the one hand, yes, I am terribly lonely and would love to have just a real face-to-face conversation with another person or a small group of people. On the other hand - ugh, people. People are the worst, some times.

I guess the tl: dr is - I got my feelings hurt today and realized I wish I were the kind of person who could just say a less-polite version of "forget you" to a person who hurts my feelings. 


Though really, there are other things I want:
To go visit my mother, obviously. And for us to feel comfortable going out and doing "fun" things while I am there, not a "I ride the train up, then quarantine for a while, and then we are in the same house that we don't leave for a while, and then I go back home" visit

And to go hang out with my friend Laura and see her new puppy and go shopping with her and go to museums and stuff

And to go back to church and be able to sing and to hug people without worrying and to do communion the proper way and have potlucks

And to have potlucks at work, and to meet in a room with my colleagues instead of over Zoom where people with softer voices or worse microphones don't always get heard and it's just awkward

And to maybe sometimes go to talks or nature programs or....things. I don't even remember what kind of things I used to do in the before-times.


Maybe I've always had that dynamic tension in my mind - of "ugh, people" vs. "I miss people when I'm alone for a whole weekend." But what I said the other day about "I think people are kind of frayed and tired and maybe we're seeing more sniping back and forth online because of that" is perhaps true. Or maybe I'm more sensitive to it because I'm not going out into the world and having a colleague say stuff that makes me laugh, or having someone at church hug me and tell me they're glad to see me and so the bad stuff seems worse because there's less good stuff to counteract it? Maybe?