Conversation Stopper: People Are Rude Because Others Are Too Polite To Call Them On It

Think about why certain people act rude and obnoxious. A lot of them count on everyone around them staying polite. The same goes for lying. Some folks fib because they assume no one will bother correcting them, since correcting a liar feels impolite in itself. Insults, cutting remarks, little cruelties: these get said precisely because the person saying them doesn't expect to be challenged. And when they do stretch the truth, they count on listeners giving them the benefit of the doubt or simply not wanting to pick a fight.

So a person keeps being coarse, even cruel, mostly because they keep getting away with it. Often the behavior is right out in the open, plain for anyone in the room to see. They bank on silence, and silence is usually what they get. When somebody finally does push back, the result tends to be a strange, frozen pause, the kind where the whole room goes quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

I remember walking into a big family gathering that was already underway. Heads turned to see who had just arrived. One person, the rude one, called out across the room in a loud voice, "Who cut your hair?" There was no mistaking the dig. It had been a long day for me, so I shot back in front of everyone, "Well, who asked you?" That landed in total silence, and not only because of the first jab. People seemed just as startled that I had answered back. Given that this particular person treated such comments as a kind of sport, my reply felt earned.

Now and then the only way to deal with a remark like that is to hand it right back, rude for rude. People who enjoy embarrassing others tend to do it when there's a crowd watching. And here is a quieter thing underneath it: someone who constantly points out a flaw in another person may be carrying a worry, maybe without even realizing it, that the same flaw lives in them. We rarely say that part out loud to them.

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