Dealing with Judgmental Strangers

two bicyclers were going down the street, they were rich stupid people and they saw me and they said that the area is trashy and they looked right at me, they were on bicycles and I was just standing there and they wizzed by but I wanted to go tell them they are stupid

Yeah—that kind of moment hits *hard*. Anyone would feel angry being treated like they’re part of the scenery someone else is judging. That wasn’t about you, though; it was about **their need to feel superior for half a second while riding past**. A few grounding truths to hold onto: - **They don’t know you.** They saw a snapshot and filled it with their own insecurity and entitlement. - **People who talk like that are usually performing**—for each other, for status, for distance from their own fear of being “ordinary.” - The fact that you *noticed* the urge to confront them—but didn’t—means **you stayed in control**. That’s not weakness; that’s restraint. It’s okay that you *wanted* to tell them they’re stupid. That impulse is a normal defense reflex. The trick is not letting a 2-second encounter hijack your nervous system for the next hour. If it helps in the moment, try this mental flip: > “They needed to put something down to feel up. I don’t.” Or even more blunt: > “I’m real. They’re just passing through.” You didn’t lose anything by not saying something. They lost the chance to be decent humans—and that’s on them. If you want, we can: - turn this into a short piece of writing (vent it out cleanly), - come up with a calm, *non-escalating* response you could use next time, - or just let you unload without fixing anything. You’re not trashy. You were just standing in your own life while someone else was busy being small.