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Originally Posted by EdmundJohnstone
How should someone respond to mean people? There are multiple options such as being mean back to them as well, not being mean to them and keeping the bad feelings and emotions inside, which in time will start to hurt, or being indifferent and try not to keep the emotions inside (sort of hard for myself)
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I guess it would matter why you consider a certain person to be mean. How we define something, or someone, is how we will approach them.
I choose to substitute the word “mean” with the word “difficult,” and I have known some difficult people. People who are difficult for me to interact with.
So the next question is why is it difficult for me to interact with certain people. I can not change others but I can change how I choose to see others.
Sometime ago a woman who I did not know very well asked me a question and I told her the truth as I saw it, she responded saying that I was being mean.
But I told her I was not being mean, I was just being honest.
People who are mean, or difficult, usually have a pattern, they are consistently mean or difficult. They are uncompromising. The first thing is to assess your
relationship with such people, and if you value your relationship and they value the relationship they have with you, then there is room for understanding,
sensitivity, and learning may take place.
Now if I witness someone being mean to someone else, and I do not have a relationship with either of the people involved and they are both strangers to me.
Should I intervene? In my opinion you have to feel this out because you could end up being attacked by both people. If there is violence involved, or a child
involved, I would take a picture, or video, and call the police. I most likely would physically get involved myself if a child is involved or if there is violence involved.
But I have seen people who tried to step in and help two adults who were arguing get attacked by both the person dishing out the mean-ness and also the
person who was on the receiving end. One of the most dangerous calls for police officers are domestic violence calls, especially domestic violence calls from
those who are not directly involved. Because sometimes the person on the receiving end of the argument will vigorously defend the perpetrator, and both will
end up being arrested.
I saw this sort of situation when I was and ambulance paramedic. As a rule I try to feel intuitively whether or not I should intervene. Most often I will just ask
the person on the receiving end if they are okay, or do they need any help, but even that could escalate the person who is dishing out the mean-ness. I think
it all depends on the environment, if there is law enforcement or a security guard near by, etc. I think we have to very quickly go through our options with every
situation. It really upset me a number of years ago when a University of California student saw his friend was going to rape a young girl, he walked away, saying
it was none of his business.