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I think that people sometimes feel very defined by other people, so someone being mean to you can seem to be an indicator that something's wrong with you, if you do tend to feel defined by others. A good philosophy to have is to see their meanness as a problem they have, rather than it being an indicator that you have a problem - after all, instead of something like constructive criticism, they're resorting to doing something negative, which doesn't really produce any benefits. Also, you can sort of "get them" if you take the approach of patience, and respond by calmly saying you don't see things the same way, or even change the focus by saying that they're being unnecessarily aggressive. It will throw them off and give them no little "high" off of getting you down.
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