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THE NARRATIVE ARC | DRAFT DAY 2025
Sorry I Called You a Meth Head
Whether I actually said that doesn’t matter right now.
You’ve probably been there. The receiving end of a text or email that, while not a direct affront, hurt your feelings. Rubbed you the wrong way. Perhaps this low-grade shade triggered a flashback to middle school, where slim girls with shiny hair once gathered to whisper and giggle and glance at your too-white Bobo sneakers from Payless.
I bet heat filled your gut — burning up real meaning and incinerating intentions — rose in your chest, reddening your neck and face.
Perhaps the sender sensed your inner inferno, backpedaled, said, “Only joking!” It wasn’t directed at you, they said. “I’m sorry.”
But that’s what verbal abusers do. Everyone says so.
A person who hurts your feelings is “not joking” but is “a passive aggressive personality,” “jealous,” “bully,” “narcissist,” “bad person,” “socially inept” and “means every word of it.”
Consult self-proclaimed specialists on Quora for more.
When you received the offending message, did you respond immediately and with the appropriate concentration of opacity and sarcasm? Good. Good.
