Why are some people nasty even if you're nice to them? My mom and I have been discussing this for the past few days, and we bounced different ideas off of each other, so she said “Cindy, what do you do when some one is being that way?”
So, I thought about it for a minute or two, and I told her….It is like I try to be more friendly with them, but they are just mean for no reason. Like, should I leave them alone and not be friendly?
At this point, we started remembering different ones we had known that were like this, and what trouble they ended up causing. And, some of it wasn’t simply minor stuff, they had really done and said some awful things about people.
Then both of us recalled something that happened, I think it was in Missouri about three months ago, where they were harassing this 17 yr old girl online, and even got a couple of people to disguise themselves and say mean things to her too. Remember that story? I do, because I remember going to school at that age and knowing my own share of bullies like that.
In the case in Missouri, the girl committed suicide, and the law determined that nothing could be done about it. So, when I thought about how I handled it in school, I remembered what I did, and I think it is a good thing to do even to this day.
Leave them alone. I had a friend in college who had befriended this girl that no one liked, and she felt so sorry for her, and I remember telling her that sometimes there are reasons that nobody likes them. Sometimes they are just mean and rude, and think everyone should make allowances for them.
I think of my mom sometimes, because a lot of the times, she will reach out to someone like that and she always ends up being hurt by it. I told her “ mom, just let her be, because her problems are going to become your problems, and now you are at the point in your life, that you just can’t afford to be nice to people like that who don’t really want to be any different than, just plain mean.”
Sometimes, she gives me reasons, and sometimes it is like she is saying, well I know what it is like to not have any friends, etc. etc.
I decided this time I was not going to let her get away with it, I said “ MOM! You have always been kind to everyone in your life and always gone the extra mile to be warm and friendly. You are not like her in anyway!”
When I was in college, like I was saying earlier, my teacher told me something that was probably as valuable as anything, I learned out of a book.
“She said, people are mean for all kinds of reasons, and most of them are not justifiable ones.”…..” I knew a girl” , she continued, “that was mean to people she was jealous of.”
Sometimes, they want your clothes, sometimes it is your looks, car, house, job, money, sometimes it is your life they want because it appears more glamorous than theirs.
Other times it could be because you have a good heart, and next to them you make them feel bad. The nicer you are to them the more they get mad and just get madder and madder till they want to strike out and hurt you all the more.
Then I remembered something. I was really nice to this one girl that every one I thought was picking on, and the next day she had spread a nasty rumor about me. What can you do? You can lend your heart out, and let them keep wallowing it underneath their feet.
I say No! I am worth more than that. I am not going to belittle myself to the point of that when there are so many other people in the world who would love a kind smile and a warm hello. I will not waste my time or my energy on someone who doesn’t want to do the simplest gesture toward others, by simply being nice. Kindness goes a long way, when it is spent on people who appreciate it!
