Carolyn Hax: Respond with grace, humility

Dear Carolyn: My boyfriend, Jeremy, has two childhood best friends. Both have girlfriends who were extremely close with his ex-girlfriend. We see them only about once a month, however, when we do all get together, these two girlfriends sit and whisper about me. They make faces at me, make rude comments, and generally are not very friendly. A part of me chalks it up to pettiness and possible jealousy (I am a resident in one of the most competitive surgery programs in the country and fairly attractive. They are in dead-end jobs and one of the women is slightly overweight).

Regardless, I always get sooo nervous around them. I then end up acting like a witch and getting snappy with my boyfriend, in front of them, because I am so frustrated at being put in this awkward situation. I can’t win, no matter what I do.

It’s depressing and stressful. I have fabulous, beautiful, successful friends who love me. Why do I fixate on what these two wenches think of me? Jeremy has apologized for the girlfriends’ behavior, and his friends are very nice to me. – At My Wits’ End

They are in “dead-end jobs”? One is “slightly overweight”? Quel trash!

I’d make faces at you, too.

Clearly you are accomplished. Maybe you are beautiful. Sometimes, though, the most beautiful accomplishment is to resist the impulse to look down on people from your pedestal of accomplishments and beauty.

Truth is, you don’t know why they’ve shunned you, and it serves no one – least of all you – to assign an explanation that conveniently flatters you. It not only invites deeper alienation, but also blocks introspection.

Which is badly needed, given that you’re judging them viciously at the precise moment you’re publicly, inexcusably, mistreating someone who cares about you. Look in the mirror, baby, and not just to admire yourself.

I’m not completely unsympathetic. It’s understandable, and certainly not uncommon, that others’ rudeness brings out your worst.

But that’s another great impulse to resist, if for no other reason than it only deepens the muck. And it is possible to override this impulse. You can:

Be civil, patient, gracious;

Assume nothing;

Sit tall;

Tread softly;

Ask (nonintrusive) questions that show an interest in them;

Deflect or ignore insults;

Treat Jeremy kindly;

Treat his friends kindly;

Treat the unattractively unsuccessful kindly;

Stay home when you’re not up to making this effort.

You can win. Every time. You may never disarm them, and you may never want to. But grace and humility have never made someone feel worse. Not wenches, not patients, not you.

Carolyn: I can’t believe I’m 30 years old and asking this. But isn’t it common courtesy not to make inside jokes in a group where people have no clue what you are talking about? – Inside, Outside

Of course it is. But when you’re 30, it’s also okay to diagnose it as a relatively harmless social miscue, as opposed to the standard middle-school diagnosis of an intricate conspiracy to single you out as a complete idiot.

That is, if it happens occasionally. When someone habitually tells in-jokes around outsiders, then your inner middle-schooler can have its revenge by mentally singling out the in-joke-teller as the complete idiot, and you can get on with your life.