I never understood mean. I can understand hurt and brokenness, but mean is beyond me. I am not talking about hurting someone feelings as an act of acting out, this is an act of self defense. An episodic lack of judgement at best. I am talking about behavior that is repeated and hurtful and often steeped in selfishness and fear. It is when you have lost the humanity of others, and your selfishness has infected you to a point of nastiness, that your authenticity is lost.
I don't think the opposite of mean is nice. Nice can be mean with a smile. I think the opposite of mean is authenticity. If you are mad be honest about your madness. If you are frustrated tell me why. If you simply don't like someone, that's okay too. It's when all of that frustration, madness, and discontent consumes you that you become mean.
I have been mean. There have been times in my life when I was so self involved, so worried about how I was being seen that I purposely lashed out at others. It feels awful. I lied to myself, the way we all do, and told myself that the person I was mean to deserved it. They didn't.
So why am I writing this on a Sunday night? Why am I preaching to an invisible choir. Because I have been hurt by someone who is choosing to be mean. Twenty years of therapy and a lifetime of being human have taught me that I am in control of how I feel, no one can make me feel a certain way. And here I am sitting on my sofa feeling hurt and mad because of a mean girl.
It stinks when someone does not like you. I really like being liked, and not being liked is annoying. It's like that dress you see in the boutique that is so cute on the hanger and when you put it on it looks ridiculous. You are cute, the dress is cute, and together, garbage! You want it to look good, you want be liked. And sometimes it doesn't and sometimes you aren't.
That's not what I am talking about.
I did my best. I worked my hardest. I was authentically me. I tried. This person looked at me and didn't say, you are not for me. They did everything they could to intentionally hurt me. They were mean.
The hard part is I want to be mean back. That's what meanness does. It ignites pain and deep feelings of hurt and it begs to push back as hard as you are being pushed. It is a chore and a choice to not give in. I want to scream and tell the person that they are mean, but they know. Just like I knew.
My hope is that I will start to care less about their intentional hurt. That I will turn off the part of my brain that tries to figure out why they want to hurt me. I hope that I am able to see them and let them go. That the emotional toll that is being paid with cease to exist and their actions will be invisible to me.
Also, just don't be mean.