I think I want to talk about ugly people this morning.

Not “ugly” as in physically unattractive, but people who are coarse and calloused.  Like unpedicured skin under a big toe.

Abrasive.

Sandpaper.

Fortunately for me, it’s rare that I’ve encountered these people in my life.  The ones who are genuinely mean.  The ones who take pleasure in causing others pain.  And especially the ones who know it.

I can tell the real ones — the genuinely bad ones — apart from the ones who were just brought up rough, who don’t know how to handle themselves, who have issues deeper than the need to hurt, by the way they make me feel.  If I mostly just feel sorry for them, they’re the ones who can still be helped. Who probably aren’t really mean, but, for whatever reason, have a hard time with the world.  They’re fixable.  And one day, if someone is patient with them, they can find a way to be happy.

But the others?  The unfixable ones?  They make me feel frustrated.  Angry.  Sometimes hurt, if I forget myself and the fact that they don’t matter in the scheme of things.

And the bitch of it is, they’re relentless.  An air of nastiness precedes them when they walk into a room, and your muscles tense, and your jaw clenches, and you can feel the eggshells scatter across the floor like a flower girl tossing out so many petals.

How many times can a person not react when a rock is thrown?  A jibe is tossed?  A button is pushed?

The answer is, countless times.  Because as difficult as it is to not react to a person like this, the alternative feeds them.

It’s the oldest lesson in the book, but for some reason it’s one of the hardest to grasp.

Just ignore it.

It’s HARD because words do hurt.  But it’s important, my friends, to take into account where the words are coming from.  If they’re coming from an ugly person — a person who feeds from your pain — then their words have no meaning.  They’re just tools that person uses to get what she wants from you.

A reaction.

And if there’s anyone in this world who doesn’t deserve to get what she wants, it’s the calloused canker sore of a bitch who will never understand.  Who will never know what it’s like to have friends or people in her life who don’t tiptoe around her acidic aura.  And I’d pity her if it weren’t a waste of my time, because she likes how she is.

So.

It’s unfortunate that these people exist.  But they do.  And we can choose to let them affect us — to make us uglier, too, with our reactions.

Or we can let it slide.

I know which way I choose.

How about you?