Can I see your digs? You bet I can.

I was talking to my friend Ross the other day about a situation I was in recently involving a person who was making me feel horrible.

What's interesting is that this person was coming off all sweet, nice, even helpful. She was phrasing her digs as something that either had nothing to do with me, or as just a seemingly random comment on something she had an opinion on.

But though it was veiled, I could definitely tell that it was directed at me, and the subtlety and casual delivery of her comments made the sharpness of her digs all the more incisive and deep.

The person I was discussing with Ross is not the only one, either. There are other people who say things that end up hurting me, but they pull it off in such a way that I'm left thinking, "they couldn't have possibly meant it that way" or "maybe they don't realize how much it hurts when they say that".

It is very subtle most of the time. It can be just the person going off about how she hates something that you really like (and that she knows you like). Either that, or if you're having a really rough day, maybe at work or something, and they'll either not respond to you at all, or they'll say, "oh, I'm sorry..." for a few minutes, and then they'll almost immediately transition into "did I mention that I had a great day at work today?" and will go off about their success.

You could be really excited about a recent purchase and tell her how much it was marked down, and the person will exclaim, "wow! That's a great deal!" [that was the niceness, the disguise] "I wouldn't have guessed it was worth that much before it was marked down!" [that's the dig.]

It's always phrased carefully, so that the digger is covered if she's called on it. Someone who knows you have a weight problem, for instance, might smile sweetly and ask you, "are you getting enough to eat?" when you're in the middle of eating something that she doesn't think someone like you should be eating. Again, the dig is cleverly and subtly disguised with smiles, a very pleasant voice, and a very casual, seemingly random or routine delivery.

My first reaction is to dismiss this kind of pointed negativity, to not want to believe that someone - especially someone close to me or in a situation where I desperately want to be accepted and liked - would want to throw digs at me. Like everyone else on the planet, I have a very deep (and normal) need for people to like and accept me. My own personal reaction to this need is to go out of my way to earn people's respect and to be extra kind to them, in hopes of getting the same treatment in return. Often I invest so much energy getting people to like me that I feel horribly drained and violated when that isn't reciprocated. Something I'm working on.

It's difficult for me to believe it when people seem to want to make you feel bad, whether they want to on a conscious or subconscious level. It's difficult for me to believe that this kind of subtle verbal attack is, in fact, intentional. But the more I think about it, the more I know it is.

Because I know these women - and they're all, in my case, women - aren't stupid. They are damn smart. They know exactly what they're saying. Which is why they say it so suavely, in such a disguised way as to really dig. Their comments are like little spiders - you don't necessarily feel it when you're bitten, but the bite makes you feel horrible later. They also are ambiguous enough that if called on it, the digger can hide behind the comment, feigning cluelessness and just saying, "oh, I didn't know that you liked the very thing that I was just ragging on or cutting down!" - even if you were just talking about it in that same conversation, or you know damn well that that person knows that you represent in some way the very thing she's cutting down.

Which is what makes it difficult to call these diggers on it when they throw their negativity around. What can you say? "Excuse me, but what the hell did you just mean by that?" "Would you care to translate that to tell me exactly what you wanted me to hear or feel from that comment?"

I just looked up a book on Amazon.com that is called Coping with Difficult People by Robert M. Bramson. I might just have to buy it.

Ross reminded me that these people who want to make you feel bad are insecure, and might not even know that they want to bring you down because they feel so crappy. I know this intellectually, but at the same time I don't want to just be a punching bag for these people.

One thing I want to do is to tell these people who think that I'm just going to give them the benefit of the doubt, who think I'm going to just keep letting them make their little digs, that I'm onto them. I know their game and I am not going to let them play it. I need to know how to better confront and intercept these snipers in the middle of an attack so they stop it. Either that or I'm just going to severely limit my time with them.

That's going to be hard for me since I'm used to staying everyone's happy ray of sunshine, even in the face of abuse and adversity. But that's all about to change.

WWXD? (What Would Xena Do?)