Monday, March 27, 2006

bitching about bitchiness

I'm just wondering. How can you tell when you cross the line from being witty to being downright mean-ass bitchy? I mean, witty people tend to crack insult jokes about their friends sometimes and these friends take it in their stride. But I'll be damned if there weren't one occasion when a friend actually felt offended but chose not to say anything.

Example
Friend: My hair makes me look like shit today!
Witty person: Well, you never looked good in the first place.

In such a situation, you either laugh it off or you feel a crack in your confidence. So how? How do you differentiate the witty from the bitchy? I mean, there are certain statements you can make that would be easily identifiable as either.

Bitchy: Get the hell out my sight you filthy maggot.

Bitchy comments attack you personally, pinpointing your greatest / most obvious weaknesses and twisting them around into vicious poison arrows.

Witty: Time is a great teacher, but it kills all of its students.

Some witty comments are neutral and can be enjoyed by everybody.

It's really the friendly digs that confuse me. Personally, someone once told me that a plaid miniskirt I have looked like tablecloth. To me that's okay because he's entitled to his own opinion, and because I didn't care what he thought as long as I like the skirt. I think that when it comes to dressing, you should never try to impress anyone except for yourself. But at the same time, some other girl who really cared about what this witty person said would have felt a little thrown off.

So I guess when it comes to borderline cases such as this, it really depends on 1) the personality of the target of the jibe, 2) the relationship between the witty person and the target and 3) the topic of the jibe itself as some topics may be taboo to even the most confident and easy-going target.

Guess prudence has to be practiced when it comes to deciding on whether to say something that you think is funny but yet a little bit mean. This is something I've got to curb as well as I have some smart-ass tendencies and well, nobody likes a smart-ass.

In time, I hope to master Selective Bitchiness, which is an art of switching your bitchiness on and off depending on whether you really wanna attack the person. But meanwhile, if I had inadvertently hurt you with a callous remark, you have my heartfelt apologies.