The Art of Being a Stone

This past Sunday I got a call from a friend clearly in distress. 

“I have to talk to you,” she said with a tone of angst in her voice.

“What’s wrong?”

“Well…last night I was at a gathering…and couldn’t help but notice this very attractive man over by the buffet table. So I thought…I’ll just go over and say hello…which I did and before long we were having a conversation.”

“Sounds interesting,” I said, as she continued on.

“So we started talking about the food and the weather and then he told me he was from Pennsylvania…so I made my standard joke about isn’t that where they make pencils…and we laughed,” and then she paused.

“Then he looked at me,” she continued, “and he said, you know…you’re quite attractive…but your 2 incisors are too long. You should get them filed down. Have you ever been mistaken for a vampire? And then he laughed!”

“OMG…how rude!”

“Yes, it was. I was devastated. And then of all things he asked me where my cape was!”

“You know,” I said, “I’ll bet it’s an approach he uses on all attractive women…and there’s no telling why. It could be he’s insecure and has to put someone down to make himself feel good…or he gets some kind of dopamine rush from being rude. His comment is a classic example of a backhanded compliment…or a compliment followed by an insult.”

“You may be right! Later I overheard him talking to another woman and he told her, ‘You have a pretty face…but your hair style reminds me of an alpaca I once met in Bolivia!’ She was speechless.”

“Well,” I said, "he must have been tripping on Ayahuasca or chewing coca leaves. But I’ll get a little Stoic here and say the best response to a comment like this is to say ‘thank you’ (for the compliment part) and then disengage. Treat rude comments with kindness and don’t get down to their level. And it’s good to remember many times these wounding statements are the result of someone not meaning to insult but just not thinking.”

“I suppose you’re right but it still stings.”

“Fortunately,” I continued, "these type of backhanded comments are few and far between. As Epictetus said, the best way to handle an insult is to ‘behave like a stone.’ You could stand by a rock and insult it all day long…but the stone doesn’t care. It doesn’t care about someone’s opinion. It doesn’t take it in and that’s how we should be.

“Easier said than done,” she said, “but it’s a good starting point.” 

After we got off the phone, I decided to check Josephine T. Baker’s book, “The Art of Conversation,” to see if they were even aware of backhanded compliments back in 1907 when the book was written.

In Chapter 12, The Cultivation of Tact, she gives the following example of what is also known as a left-handed compliment: “Mrs. B tells Mrs. C that she looks 10 years younger since becoming so stout.” 

She then goes on to say that most of the time these comments are not meant to be insults, but rather they are blundering mistakes made by tactless and “obtuse” people who don’t think before they speak. 

I was glad to know some of the advice I gave my friend was in accord with the wisdoms of Ms. Baker. 

Then my mind wandered back to Epictetus and rocks and stones and I thought, wait a minute, why not think big and be a boulder!