A short spoken coaching segment offering a strategy for handling unprovoked rudeness: identify whether rudeness stems from fear/intimidation, lack of understanding, or insecurity/power-seeking, then respond with targeted, empathetic or corrective phrasing rather than a generic clapback. The speaker provides example responses tailored to each cause.
Oh, I can only imagine how frustrating this is. First off, let's remember that unprovoked rudeness usually stems from three fear or intimidation, the lack of understanding of something, or needing to feel a small sense of power. So one really strong communication strategy is to identify your responses based on the reasons for the potential rudeness. If for some reason they're intimidated by how unique your name is, you can say something like, yeah, it's a little different from your usual feminine name. I love it. If the rudeness is coming from not understanding, you can say something like, is this your way of asking for me to explain the origin of my name to you? It's a great story, so I'm happy to. And if the rudeness is coming from plain old insecurity and needing to feel some sense of power, you can say, that's very rude and not a nice thing to say about someone's name, or that's actually a very inconsiderate comment and it's not helpful. Responding to the rudeness with a smart understanding of where it's coming from is so much stronger than just a quick generic clapback. Good luck.
