That was unexpected

People can tell you so much about themselves when they think they're talking about you.

Now, I already know that I'm socially retarded. Just plumb enstupidated about people in general. Even when conversing in person, I will usually miss the subtle clues that other folks seem to pick up on instinctively. Body-language, facial expressions, tones of voice, etc... All that stuff usually just whizzes right over my big fat stupid head. Over the internet it's even worse than in person.

And on the flip side of that, I'm not particularly good at communicating my own thoughts either. It's not that I don't try, I'm just terrifically bad at it. For the longest time I just figured that everyone else in the world was retarded, because they could never understand or grasp even the simplest concepts when I tried to express or explain them. People all just lacked the mental faculties to process anything I said correctly. Everything just flew right over their big fat stupid heads. I resigned myself to the fact that no matter how clear I tried to be, people were just dumb, and were going to constantly misinterpret me. They'll think me rude when I'm not trying to be.

Hell, when I try to be as polite as I can, it just gets worse. Women think I'm hitting on them when the thought hadn't even occurred to me.

Eventually, I came to realize that the common thread was me. That doesn't discount the possibility that my earlier assumption was at least partially correct. These things are not mutually exclusive. It's possible, hell, even likely, that everyone else actually IS retarded. Maybe even as retarded as ME, or moreso.

My being retarded doesn't change the equation, it just re-frames it.

But that's not what what this post is about. It's about  how people can tell you so much about themselves when they think they're talking about YOU. I got sidetracked. It happens. A lot.

So back to the topic:

Imagine, for example, someone to whom you're pretty sure you've never been mean. Not even remotely. Leastwise, not intentionally. Someone you never had anything against. And you were totally unaware that this person hated you for whatever reason, right up until they started telling you off.

When they say something like "nobody likes you", they're just exposing their own insecurity. This doesn't mean what they said is necessarily wrong. It might even be right. It's entirely possible that nobody DOES like you. These things again, not mutually exclusive. But that's not the point. What they're really telling you is that they are so desperate for the approval of others that they just naturally assume you are as well, and that the thought being informed of your unpopularity will bother you somehow. They know it would bother them, so they think it will be hurtful to you. Because, y'know, popularity contests are what life is all about, right? They're subconsciously projecting their own neediness. They're also unintentionally telling you that they are not a very nice person, because a nice person wouldn't hurl such asinine statements at another.

When someone calls you "useless", they're probably right. To them, you ARE useless. But I have no idea why this would bother anyone. The alternative would be to be useful to them, and I would prefer not to know people who view others in terms of usefulness. These people are often called "users", and I wasn't looking to be used.

The most baffling part is when they pull out the tired old cliché of "if you don't have anything nice to say" in the middle of saying the meanest things they can think of. It tells you that they are simply too dim-witted to even be aware of their own hypocrisy.

In cases like these, what you can learn is just how mean, hateful, and childish that person really is. And they're unwittingly telling you that you're probably better off not having someone with such a poisonous personality in your life.