This. I worked with youth for many years and had this conversation often. If one purposefully looks, acts or dresses differently than societal norms, some members of that society are going to act rudely and/or hatefully in response. This has been the human condition for…ever. The choice, then, is to stifle the need to be different and change the look/act/dress to comply with societal expectations, or continue to be different and expect more negative reactions - whichever is more important to you. It may not be right or ideal, but it is (and always has been) reality.
Only his mother was from Denmark, so he was a Dane-ish.
On the one hand, it becomes difficult to subtly do things like say “oh, look at the time” or just turn and leave.
On the other hand, the fact that it seems like such odd behavior makes me wonder if the person did not simply just rethink her desire to have a donut. I’ve certainly been in donut shops that have such a sweet smell to them that I find it unappetizing. I’ve also (more often) walked into a place that serves something bad for me, and then second-guessed myself. I mean, I’ve walked into an ice cream place, stood there, thought about it, and decided I didn’t want the calories that badly, and left.
It’s a small shop. Maybe she was looking past the OP entirely. There might have been a poster on the wall behind, with a gross photo of someone biting into some sort of gooey, filling-squirting, unnaturally blue pastry concoction.
Ok, OP you hafta give us some idea of WHY these people would say this?
racial? Fat? Dirty? Covered with tats & piercings? Chewing with your mouth open?
Otherwise, sorry, it seems like it had nothing to do with you.
Maybe the donut seller had been scratching her head or picking her nose, and the customer was trying to give a heads-up to the OP, like “whoa, you should really check that out, you’re missing how unhygenic this place is.”
Feelings are facts and you don’t get them from other people. They arise in you and belong to you.
No one can tell you that you shouldn’t feel however you do feel. It is what it is, right or wrong. It’s not in the realm of logic but rather emotion.
You can’t earn only good ones and you can’t avoid uncomfortable ones. Without both kinds we are emotionally unbalanced.
Feelings can’t hurt you or other people. What cause the damage is how you think about them after-the-fact or how you act on them. Sometimes I think we are a people always trying to make only “good” feelings happen and being afraid of the “bad” ones.
So I guess it behooves us to learn how to deal with the ones we don’t like in the most mentally healthy way possible to minimize the damage to ourselves and others by acting out of emotion instead of logic.
It hurts when we think people have mistreated us. And I would worry about myself if I couldn’t feel that. Because that is normal.
Learjeff speaks truth when he says that it requires repeated practice. At least so far it has for me. Maybe some people reach bullet-proof stage?
And I believe that it’s an unfortunate fact of being human that when someone acts with apparent disregard for my personhood that I’m the one who has to do the heavy lifting. But it does get easier with practice.
So here’s my light-hearted frame of thought when it happens - Aha, an opportunity to practice.
Or you can go after the offender and get even. But after observing for six decades I’ve noticed that that way of handling it doesn’t really soothe well and life becomes a series of perceived gotchas and get-backs.
Some people just get lost in this pattern. Burns a lot of energy that could be used for something more satisfying.
There are three people on this planet that I know personally that I would so do that to if I ever caught them in that situation. But then I would be a real snot nose to them in any manner I could to get them to attack any time I come across them.
But to a total stranger, not happening.
Okay, okay, there are a few politicians I would do that to because it is illegal to remove them from the gene pool.
Others do that sort of thing mostly for racial reasons, then sexual orientation, then clicks, or local social groupings, gang members, others are just asshats and the approved manner of dealing with them is to laugh heartily and live well without ever thinking of them again. That drives then nuts…
Using information gleaned on this and the other 2 threads:
[ul]
[li]You are a girl with pink hair and you ride a bike.[/li][li]You have had strangers at the bus stop move away from you as if you were going to harm them.[/li][li]You’ve had sales clerks follow you around the store as if you were going to steal from them.[/li][li]You’ve had businessmen with shops around your bus stop approach you and ask you if you were waiting for the bus.[/li][li]You’ve had an elderly lady change her mind about eating a donut at a shop after seeing you eating at the establishment.[/li][/ul]
Without the benefit of meeting you in person, I’m going to venture that you either look extremely menacing despite your pink hair, or that you need to pay closer attention to your personal hygiene. I mean, if you ride a bike all the time, it’s possible that you smell.
