I’m of a couple of minds on this — people who troll like this love to get an emotional rise out of…

I’m of a couple of minds on this — people who troll like this love to get an emotional rise out of the person they’re perturbing, because they tend to see emotionality as weakness. I don’t see emotionality as weakness. I don’t see caring, very openly, as something cringe-worthy or shameful. So while I don’t want to give these people satisfaction, I don’t want to have to blunt myself to play into the same value system they uphold, either. I find that calling attention to what they have said, and writing about it, and sharing that it hurts allows me to kind of have it both ways…it allows me to process and share my emotions, but in a way that can reach people other than the ones who tried to provoke an emotional response in the first place.