How do you shake off a mean-spirited comment?
This is going to sound kind of wussy but it's something that's bugging me a lot right now.
How do you get your mind off something someone says that upsets you? Some background:
Lately I've been trying to make more friends, because it's an area of my life that is sorely lacking and it causes me a lot of suffering. It's hard for me because I can be very shy, but I've been making efforts to talk to people around me, to try and get to know them and show that I'm interested.
I have a few people that I talk to regularly now, which is great, but it hasn't resulted in anything much deeper than some casual conversation (I'm not invited out to do anything on the weekends). So it's been a very slow and difficult process and there are times I feel like I'm not making any progress.
Today I was with some friends and someone said this about my Facebook profile pic (me with two friends):
"I saw your new profile picture and I wanted to post a mean comment but I didn't."
"What were you going to post?"
"I was going to say, 'You have friends?'"
It was pretty painful, especially since this is something that is really bothering me right now. My lack of friends is something that is making me miserable and it was exactly that thing that they had to point out.
I laughed it off and made a comment back, and had a good time anyway. But now, looking back, it just sucks to hear someone say that.
I guess what's really bothering me is that people actively use that to ostracize other people, and so I felt like they were calling me out and saying, "You're a loser, you have no friends."
I'm still going to work hard at making new friends and learning to talk to people that seem cool and interesting, but things like this really hurt my confidence. How do I shake this off?