Dear Monica:

You try at times to not care what other people think of you but you do. I think that everyone does. We are social beings that naturally want to be approved of, be liked by others. This guy who speaks twenty languages, reads to me, that he is impulsive and doesn’t think before he speaks. I understand your need to not spend any time with him. And I understand you being upset for being judged as rude and having no manners by the two acquaintances that witnessed you walking away from him.

Next time you come across this guy, alone or with others, simply say to him (and the others, if they are there): “excuse me, I have to go”, smile and leave. That would  take you a few seconds and will accomplish the goal of walking away. This is a good practice for future interactions with other people in your life that you want to avoid.

You recognize your strong tendency to harshly criticize others. Some call this criticizer the “outer critic” while they call the criticizer of oneself the “inner critic”. People with a strong inner critic often have a strong outer critic as well. When people criticize others they get a break from criticizing themselves.

The fact that a person is a foreigner in a country has its own challenges, but from my reading there are plenty of foreigners in KU and your harsh criticism of others and social struggles happened in your home country as well.

I think you harshly criticize yourself and this is why you harshly criticize others, which brings me to your post before last where you asked “what kind of a quality” regarding my suggestion that you “change your way of thinking and see your value as a quality that is not dependent on reputation”-

The quality I am referring to is the quality that I see when I communicate with you. I can’t see how you look like. I don’t even know what country is your home country. I don’t see how you dress, how you walk. I can’t hear how you sound, your voice, your accent, and I definitely can’t read the brand names of your clothes and personal items. I don’t benefit from your education, from the fact that you were accepted to a most prestigious university. I have no financial investment or expectation from you. I have no social benefit either. All the things that you value, they are not my motivation in communicating with you and for doing so this long.

Before I continue, I will ask you, what value do you think that I see in you, what value motivates me to communicate with you?

anita