Reading r_pendragon's journal

I was wondering to myself, after a recent unpleasant interchange with a co-worker, why angry is so chic; i.e., why do people tend to think that people who are somewhat nasty are better than they are?

Take high school kids as a primary example. In many schools, the kids who are nasty (the preps or whatever you want to call them) are considered to be "the most popular." Which is so subjective, because really, is it that they're popular, or is it just that everyone knows who they are? I'd say there's a difference.

But as much as people like to think they outgrow high school attitudes, I think a lot of this persists into adulthood and adult interaction. Whether in person or online.

My disagreement with my co-worker is a good example– pushed to extreme ire, I finally lit into the stupid woman and told her exactly what I thought of her overbearing incompetence. She has since tiptoed around me. Some of this is probably fear that I'll snap at her again, but I think, with this particular person, is that she respects me now that I've been rude to her.

This in obnoxious. I am more than worthy of respect when I am being pleasant and friendly. Why should I have to inform someone of my rather low opinion of their intellect and capabilities to get them to respect me? I don't think someone who has a temper tantrum (me) is much worth respecting, but she had really, really pissed me off. (One of those people who thinks she's better at shouting my job at me from across the room than I am at actually do it. The breaking point came when she told me a basic, stupid thing, and I snapped "I am fully cognizant of that fact, thank you very much," and then proceeded to tell her off.)

Suddenly, my opinion means something to this infernally galling woman, simply because I gave her what for. Gah.

Work isn't the only place where things like this happen. On another internet message board that a friend and I frequented for awhile, an idiotic person made incorrect assumptions about me. My friend lambasted them, and for months afterwards that girl would attach little awed apologies to every post she wrote in response to me or my friend. Literally, she would type: "I think blah, blah, blah, blah," and then tack on: "And I'm so sorry, Rachel and Callie. I hope you don't hate me. You're such talented writers, blah, blah, blah."

Do people have such poor self-images that they think they're unworthy of people who dress them down? Whereas people who are kind to them must be stupid for being kind to them in the first place?

So much for my armchair psychology.

My stepdad isn't mean, he's just adjusting. -Death to Smoochy