workflowsauce
commented
1 month ago Why do these comments feel bad to receive?
To me, it reads like a dunk. I do this sometimes. When I do it, it's because I had a clever idea and it feels good to just get it off. I'm not thinking of how it makes the person feel.
If I got a comment like this, it would feel a little abrasive. It sort of shuts down conversation. It's not open-ended, it's not invitational. It's just a drive-by dunk.
At this point, I would just engage with them directly.
"That's not quite what I'm looking for. I want public people to be able to comment on them if they're in the thread, but not to broadcast every little side-channel conversation I have to the whole world.
It's like if I was at a party. I'd welcome people to wander up and chat with my group, but I wouldn't suggest we get on stage and start shouting across the whole room."
I try to avoid phrasing these type of comments in this way.
I'll use phrases like "I think" or "it feels like," or a question mark:
It also depends on the relative stance of the people. If they are on stage, sharing something to a broad audience, I feel pretty comfortable taking up a little space with my opinion/perspective in the comments and not caveating it as much. It's less personal:
My response also heavily depends on my relationship to the person. If it's someone I don't know very well (but I'd like to grow closer to), I'm much less inclined to engage. I'll just gently shrug it off:
But if it's someone I know and like, I'm much more inclined to try to resolve the apparent disconnect:
Or if they threw an idea out there in an open-ended way, I feel much more comfortable coming in with a strong, uncouched opinion:
Or if the person has a history of sharing strong opinions, and I am sharing one that probably aligns with theirs:
So, there are several factors that determine my response:
- Context: Is it more 1:1 or more 1:many?
- Familiarity: Do I know this person well? Or is it someone I don't know at all?
- Balance: Did they phrase their message tightly or open-endedly?
I used to feel bad receiving things like this. But now I rewrite it in my head. I imagine they wrote:
The important thing is: I'm not being delusional. This is a more truthful translation of what this person is actually saying
My tweet caused them discomfort, like physical discomfort, because they read this and got confused. So it's coloring their response. If I respond with "no why are you being rude", now they feel extra bad because (1) they feel bad for being rude (2) they're still confused about the original question
So most people after that would double down and then no one is having a good time. But if I answer the root cause, we both have a better time