9 01 am pdt [ too precious to resist ]

I am obviously oversensitive to what people say to me in a way that gives total strangers power over how I feel. I am trying to work on this. I need to find some balance where I can dismiss people without letting them get to me but I can still be considerate of other people -- even strangers -- because that is a quality I like about myself. I even requested some Instant Karma from gingerblue.com for strength while I work on this problem.

The one thing that never gets to me is when someone's insult is so intentionally cruel as to have no basis in reality. Someone once sent me an e-mail saying simply, "You are a fat, stupid, bitch." I am neither fat, nor stupid, nor a bitch, so her e-mail did not phase me. Likewise, when "Janet" took the time this Sunday to send me this message:

You seem so pretenious [sic] and Naive and completly [sic] selfish. Your dreams and desires of you talking abot [sic] your hair. [sic] you suck, stop trying to be like every other girl, be yourself.

You're wondering where I talk about my hair? Janet was clever enough to insult me on something I wrote two years ago, sending her message via the form in my 08 December 1999 entry.

Her lack of any pertinent insult and also of proper grammatical structure allowed me to remain untouched by her words. I was reminded of a guy in middle school who used to call me "algae" and continued to verbally taunt me throughout high school. One day I turned to him and said, "I feel really bad for you that you have to insult me to feel better about yourself." He was stunned to silence and his friends all began teasing him about how hard I "dogged" him. So I sent the same message to "Janet" because I really do feel that way. Can you imagine if your pleasure was derived from sending nasty messages to strangers via e-mail?

It was with mirthful surprise that I found her response in my inbox this morning:

Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 13:21:36
From: Janet
To: rachel@cinemaspace.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re:

Hey there Pretenious woser, [sic]
Actually people like you make me feel a whole lot better about myself, thanks! No in all seriousness I can't believe how awful you are...you should be ashamed of your self!! [sic]