I literally don't understand why people act mean/rude.

Post Reply New Topic

Hi, I've been a lurker, but I never made an account until now. I can't find anywhere else to go to ask this because this question will get made fun of for sure on any other website.

I don't understand mean people, or their motivations for when they are temporarily mean but not mean all the time.

Example: If I asked this question on another site, this is what the people I don't understand will reply with: "Oh so you don't like it when other people disagree with you, then? Get over yourself, you arrogant jerk." Now, first off, that's not the problem - my husband and I have disagreements all the time and we work it out logically and rationally without calling each other names. Also, if they worded that type of response differently, I would not have a problem with discussing it further. But there are so many people, in real life and on the internet, who do this. I cannot understand it.

This happens with everything, whether it's a crazy question like this one, or if I reply to someone else's post, I'll always get approximately 20% replies that seem to be just to make me feel badly about myself. Maybe they'll ignore what I said and point out a grammar error. Maybe they'll laugh at me for enjoying one band or another. Maybe they'll find one small factual error and show it to me while calling me stupid. Maybe they'll question my intelligence levels or sanity, but not in a realistic way. These people aren't all trolls, though it's very hard for me to tell the difference -(how I tell is: other people on various sites will point out trolls and say to ignore them.)

Anyhow, this happens in real life all the time, too. A person who kept claiming to be my friend, for example, would laugh at me (and talk about me behind my back) for... being myself, or for not understanding a concept, or for not reading a book she read, or for enjoying a movie she didn't enjoy. She's definitely not the only one! This happens with everyone except for this handful of people (including my husband, thank god!) I don't get this. What's the reason for this? What motivates this behavior? What are they feeling like they accomplish with this? Do they actually accomplish anything with this? Am I missing out?

This isn't a rant. I don't need you to "just listen" or to pat me on the back. What I'd like is to understand this, because right now all it does is make me feel lonely and confused (by not understanding.)

This is the only part I do understand - if a person has a really bad day and they come home and are rude, I understand the reason for that - they are low on emotional energy, upset, and overtired. But this doesn't account for all the rude and mean things people do to me all the time.

I know you guys aren't the best at understanding this stuff either, but I know NT's come here and they are really gentle and factual with explaining social things to people like us. And anyhow, maybe one of you asked the same question and got a really good answer. I'd love to hear it. Please, and, thank you in advance.

Edit: reread your post.... you know what a troll is...

Umm, they are just jerks. I have a friend in real life who likes to act like an a-hole online. I have lectured him on it before, but I don't think he really gets it.

He's kind of dumb I guess but he's not dumb. He's fairly intelligent. Chalk it up to anonymity. People like to be jerks online. They deserve not even a second though. They deserve not even one minute of your time, period.

Years ago I noticed a particular bumper sticker. It read: "Mean people suck."

You know what, PurpleHaze?

Mean people still suck. They sucked yesterday, they'll suck today, and most likely they'll suck tomorrow too.

And just because somebody is friendly doesn't necessarily mean she is also your friend. A friend supports you, cheers you when you're down, listens when you need to talk, scolds you when you deserve it. A friend makes you feel good about yourself. When you're down-and-out, a friend will take you in and give you money. Definitely a friend will not teach you a lesson, nor will she hurt you by gossiping about you unkindly.

Letting go is a difficult concept for most people. For Aspies, it's an essential step to separating the true friends from the false ones.

Take heart, PurpleHaze, and find and keep your true friends. They're out there. Like gems, you need to dig for 'em.

Not worth your time to understand. Just remember where your car is parked. Better times ahead.

Fear and insecurity. All actions are a response to a stimulus.

The ability to be a jerk without repercussions can be alluring when faced with the possibility of being anonymous.

He's an internet tough guy, and he "doesn't get it" just because that's the real him online.

People who are habitually mean often don't feel very good about themselves and they take it out on vulnerable people to try and feel better about themselves. This is a common phenomena in school bullies. Bottom line is they're just looking for anyone to insult so they can inflict the hurt they feel on someone else. It's not you, it really is them. A psychologist once told me that every action people take, everything they say, it is based on their own emotions and their own baggage, not the person they are with. Nothing is truly personal. You're just an easy target online, like the poster above said. There's only so much fighting back you can do on a forum.

I was reading this wiki page today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_dis ... ion_effect

Also this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges

I tend to think that when people act that way, it's coming from them. The environment simply facilitates it, and does not create it.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

Same. The person is the variable. Otherwise, everyone on the internet would be like that, and they're not.

I'm pretty sure it does come from them. When I was younger, I thought it was all down to me - not that I knew what I was doing wrong. I'm now an observer (observing my own daughter). It's pretty much just the mean kids who are mean to her (and others). The nice kids are nice to her. She's a sweet wee girl and doesn't deserve half of the nastiness that gets dished out. It's always the same characters involved in any incidents. There isn't that many of them, but they make their presence felt.

People are not very logical, they are more emotional. Your mood affects how they respond to you rather than what you say. I find that having low mood or high anxiety results in a lot of negative reactions no matter how nice u try to be. Also people dont like when you lock urself up emotionally, u kinda have to connect yourself emotionally to them.

As for why people are rude and mean, its the way our society and culture is, it encourages it.

Last edited by Vomelche on 11 Jun 2012, 8:10 am, edited 2 times in total.

All the previous replies are great, but I just wanted to say that I understand how the OP feels.
Long before I had ever heard of Asperger's, one of my private interests was contemplating the way people attempt to understand each other, or fail to do so.
I had suffered so much meanness (not so much now, I know to keep my life free of that stuff), but what really hurt was that I couldn't understand why people would want to be mean to me.

I was pretty low on the food chain in my primary school, but there were some kids that were treated worse than me, and sometimes I found myself contributing to their hurt. Afterwards I would feel bad about it - why would I do something to someone that I hated having done to me? In the end I realised that when I was doing these things, I was able to do it because my sense of morality was not called into consideration. Either I ignored the usual "check to see what I am doing is not wrong", or I failed to view the target in question as a human being, equal to me.

It makes people feel better about themselves, basically. By putting you down they implicitly become better than you (in their own minds) and this makes them feel good.

That's the short answer, but it may be a bit misleading. I think in many cases people don't feel they're being mean - or at least more mean than is warranted - even though they are. That's because they they're responding to something they think you implied (though you probably didn't). You probably already know this, but NTs tend to not read things so precisely and just reply to the "general gist" of the communication. They often get it wrong. Your own example of asking this question on another site is a good one. You asked a very specific thing, but most NTs would assume you couldn't possibly mean what you explicitly said and must have meant something else instead. They will then make an assumption about what that is and reply to that. Weird, I know. It frustrates me no end, too. I hope I haven't fallen into this trap myself and have actually answered your question.

Because there are people who are just plain jerks and sometimes the only way to deal with them is to avoid them or punch them in the face. Some people like that cant be reasoned with at times.