A back-handed compliment
By
Dave Winer on Wednesday, May 02, 2012 at 11:38 AM.
"I think you're an okay person. Why do people say you're an asshole?" 
This used to happen a lot, not so much these days, but it still happens.
What do you say when someone says that. There are so many things wrong with it. I don't even want to try to list them.
I tend to want to respond with something approximating the truth.
 The "people" who say this, if there really are any, are doing it behind my back, not to my face. We both know that's not a highly principled thing to do, right? I'd like to say I don't care, but I'm a human being, and we are approval-seeking animals. So when you say that, and it registers -- and believe me it registers -- my body chemistry reacts as if I've been threatened. I then have to have an internal conversation about it to compensate. "There really is no threat," I say to myself. And that's energy I'd rather not spend.
But maybe there is a threat. Who knows. It's such a vague statement. You know what, if you say that to me, you aren't being a friend. Maybe that's the best, simplest, thing to say.
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