how come rudeness happens in clusters?

[Nicole Erin]

Like today I was out and went to one store (not walmart) but some weird guy was looking at me laughing as he backed out of a parking space.
Side note about that, I would have paid $100 to see him back into another car as he was paying attention to me.
But then go in and get a couple weird looks/stares.
As i was leaving, some woman made some kind of snark remark.

I live this full time and it is pretty rare that I get rude comments, laughs, stares, whatever. Or if people do, they keep it to themselves.

If I am to be realistic, for every 100 compliments I hear, there is maybe one or two rude ones. BUT the problem is - if it is several bad interactions, they all seem to happen in a short time frame like a couple days or a week.

Where do these spurts of bad interactions come from? Why are they not spread out? I hope this makes sense.

[Cheryl T]

The reactions that are crude come primarily from people's fears.
What those fears are I have no idea. It could be they feel threatened by us because we aren't like them and what they think of as "normal" (whatever that is), it could be because they fear that it's contagious and we might spread something to their family.
On that note, a dear friend had a child with Cerebral Palsy (a birth condition) and prior to her daughter's birth she and her husband were good friends with a neighbor couple who had a small child. After the birth the couple shied away and when confronted said they didn't want their child to contract what hers had. Ignorance at it's best and an example of how fear and ignorance affect people.

Try to focus on those 100 compliments and ignore those ignorant people who try to seem superior to you.

[Teresa]

Nicole,
I'm sorry you've had a bad experience , they say bad luck comes in threes so lets hope you have had your quota for a while .

I've been out full time since Febraury and haven't had a bad experience yet , I did learn very quickly to stop looking for a reaction , once I decided that I find I don't get any . At the same time I accept I don't pass 100% so I'm not that naive to think it won't happen . Somedays you do feel you stepped out the wrong side of the bed , nothing totally gels , those are the days when the rest of the World appears to be suffering from the same problem .

I guess it's just human nature , I satisfied so many people in my photography business , they blend into the background it's the bad cutomers that surface , I still wonder about some of them and wonder where I went wrong . I came to the conclusion that taking pictures is a very subjective thing and you could never please everyone and it wasn't always what I did that caused the problem .

[Sarah Doepner]

It could be observational bias. By that I mean when you notice one stare or hear a rude comment you become more aware, maybe even hyper aware of everything else going on around you. Then it seems to cluster until you finally either recover your confidence or become so distracted by other things that it drops off your radar.

It is unfortunate that those negative interactions tend to hit that one not-so-sweet spot we tend to live with for years before finally accepting ourselves. The embers of self-doubt continue to stay warm long after we step into the public eye. I guess we need a "Smokey-eyed Bear" to remind us to stir the ashes of that fire, drown it with all those compliments, stir and drown it again to make sure it's not just out but "dead out".

In the meantime, I attempt to convince myself that I really do deserve any compliments I receive but have nothing to do with any disrespect that comes my way.

[Anne K]

Check your lipstick!😁