Oh, that would bother me. I wish I was too cool to care, but I want to be liked :-D At the same time, I have to do what I want to do, and be who I am, and if that bothers someone and they're mean/rude about it, then fuck 'em and I don't care.

You get used to it, after a while.

It would bother me. I'm a pretty sensitive person. I used to try to hide it but I don't think there's anything wrong with caring about what other people think. I DO think that you can only care up to a certain point. Some people just aren't going to like you no matter what and once you realize that there is no changing their minds then you have to let it go. Otherwise you could drive yourself nuts.

I care only what the brothers think.

Depends. If they're total lame asses, I wouldn't care. If they're relatively normal, it would bug me.

I really don't care what you think agro.

So.
Why do you ask?

Smirking why?

it would bother me too, if i had to work with them every day. Have you ever found out why?

I only care about what the voices tell me to care about. I hate it when they argue, though.

I just made an ass of myself on #metachat and I bet they're laughing behind my back as I write this.


*sigh*

I don't have any coworkers snickering about me that I know of. I just picked it as a test of how much people care what others think.

I care terribly what other people think.

*whispers to matildaben*
*points toward agropyron*

agro, not being aware is the first clue that they really are smirking!!!!

I think it's extremely rare for people to truly "not care" one way or another... Some people may regard it as a badge of pride to be disliked by certain groups, some want to be liked even by those they dislike, and so on up and down the scale, but remaining authentically, completely unconcerned is probably a good indicator of some types of mental illness, or at least serious irregularity.

fuck them all.

*assumes cool, detached, uncaring stance, hopes they're watching*

exactly, q.

People who don't care don't spend so much time trying to convince us that they don't care. They're too busy building full size replicas of the Brooklyn Bridge out of gumwrappers, banging their heads repeatedly against any hard surface, or reporting back to the mothership.

I assume my co-workers are making fun of me so I sneak up on them alot to try and catch them at it. Starting conversations with "A-ha, you filthy backstabbin' toilet licker" tends to mean I eat lunch alone.

fenriq, I would TOTTALY be your lunch buddy.

I look at it like this: if people have that much time on their hands they are either

A) bored and poking fun to kill time, play the game and not really serious, or

B) avoiding whatever shriveled black moldy area inside that terrifies them shitless to face.

That being said, if I didn't know the smirkage was taking place, I wouldn't care. If I did, it would probably hurt my feelings being the insanely off-the-charts sensitive person that I can be.

Oh, and what LeeJay said.

As long as *everyone* doesn't hate me, I don't really care. I mean, someone is always going to dislike you for something. It can be frustrating and annoying if you have to deal with them face-to-face on a frequent basis and they insist on making a thing of it, because then it's an annoying obstacle. But at this point, so many people have thought that I was bad person . . .

I care to a certain extent what people think of me, but a precious few carry such weight in my heart/world that their disappointment in me or loss of their approval would bruise me. I would definitely say that I take a great deal of pleasure in pleasing people but I've never been one to chase after approval or constant validation from others. As long as I feel that I'm being fair and not damaging to those around me, I keep a close eye on an internal compass and let the rest go, because personal integrity is more important to me than popularity.

This doesn't mean that I don't think there's no stank in my poo and I'm constantly taking account of myself in an effort to stay on track. Chasing popularity and approval, though, is a slippery slope and in the darkest hour, it's ultimately me casting a colder light over my own actions and motivations than anyone else could dream. All the outer approval in world won't buy me peace of mind or well slept night.

Also, I don't really care if people make fun of me, so long as it isn't malicious or belittling. (Conversely, even when I don't think highly of someone else, I try hard to deal with them respectfully.) No one is more talented at making an ass out of me than I am, so I feel as though not giving me a good ribbing where/when due is a lost opportunity and, generally, I'm the first to open the season on that activity.

I can handle hostility ok -- I don't like it, but it's an inevitable part of life -- but what I find hardest to take is niceness to your face followed by knifeness to your back. For instance: when I got engaged, a woman at work stopped by to congratulate me and look at my (lovely but modest) ring. She was someone I knew disliked me, so I thought oh, for perhaps she's set her feelings aside and wants to start afresh. Later, I learned that she insulted me, telling other people that I must be either ashamed of my ring or of my engagement itself to fail to go around telling everyone about it. Obviously, she would have complimented me had I gone from cube to cube crowing "OMG I'm ENGAGED isn't it AWESOME!" and shoving my jewelry into everyone's face.

She's such a bitter, mean person -- a middle-aged divorcee, hardbitten and endlessly suspicious and cynical about others' happiness. I knew I shouldn't take it personally -- it is her condition, and I don't envy her for it -- but it stung, I won't deny it. There's something just so awful about the pretense, about someone taking your hand in hers and smiling while silently cutting you into tiny pieces.

How to respond? I try to be cooly civil to such people. If pressed for personal details or conversation, I keep things short and cordial. If the person's name comes up in conversation, I'm totally silent. Really, the worst thing you can do to such people is draw a mental X through them. Like taz said, aside from people with truly faulty wiring, everyone cares about being well perceived, no matter how aggressively they claim otherwise. Looking through such people -- treating them as annoying background noise to be filtered, as entities that don't matter -- wounds them worse than direct confrontation ever could.

(Which isn't to say I didn't have fantasies of cornering her in the bathroom and telling her what an utter shit sandwich she is -- but ultimately, she's just not worth it.)

But isn't trying to wound someone doing the same thing you dislike them for?

No, not when it's a form of self-defense. If, as in my example, someone's going to try to fake me out with kindness, and then use whatever personal information they ferret out to hurt me, there's really only two choices -- direct confrontation, or polite dismissal. Because she was a coward and refused to say what she really thought and instead smeared me behind my back -- and not for the first time, either -- I can't confront her and clear the air. If I treat her with polite coolness, it maddens her, because she wants me angry and hurt. That's her problem; she made it for herself.

Hm. I'm not sure what I think. But thank you for answering my question.