How to Handle the Haters (Like a Frickin’ Champ)

They say once you have haters you’ve ‘made it’, but…

“Haters are confused admirers who can’t understand why everybody else likes you”~ Paulo Coelho. Image by freepik

So, you’ve got yourself a hater. A cantankerous, churlish, crotchety, choleric, cranky curmudgeon who tries to crap in your Cheerios. Well, congratulations! They say once you’ve got haters you’ve really ‘made it’. However, in my experience, that doesn’t take the sting of their stink away.

Lately, a few people have asked me how I deal with the haters. Those particularly belligerent, bellicose, bilious brawlers. Honestly, I get fewer haters than I probably deserve for being as snarky-pantsed as I am. I guess it’s harder to hate someone when you’re giggling.

I remember one specific hater though, Elena. This particular hater happened while I was living in Mexico, and was a friend of friends. She hated me right down to my tippy toes from the beginning. I never did understand why. And I never won her over.

Elena refused to take off her sassy pants even though they were thoroughly drenched in grump. She gossiped behind my back, talked shiznit to my face, and regularly spread rumors about me. So if you’ve heard that I have superhepaghonaherpatitus, *ahem, it was probably her.

She even tried to steal every boyfriend I had.

She succeeded once. Her punishment for that was that she got to keep him.

I never won her over, but I never fought back either. I didn’t give her fuel for her hater fire. It took some time, but after a few months everyone saw through her and eventually, she withered away.

Ever since Elena’s miraculous sisterhood of the traveling grumpy pants, I’ve figured out how to deal with people who drink a big ole glass of Hatorade for breakfast.

Human Framing

While cartoon stink lines can give you a giggle and improve your mood about the hater scenario — it doesn’t take the sting away or solve the problem. What does take the sting out of your caboose (or, pride) — is properly framing your hater. Framing mentally, not hanging on your wall for visual motivation (in that regard I find taxidermy more effective).

The first step is understanding what a hater is, which I define with an acronym:

H.A.T.E.R.S — Having Anger Towards Everyone Reaching Success

Generally, haters ‘hate you cuz they ain’t you’. It’s always easier to try and tear someone down to your level than to try to elevate to theirs. It’s simply feeling gone awry in a cosmic karmic chain link of events — because hurt people hurt people.

This doesn’t make their behavior any more tolerable, which is where step two comes in. My second step to framing your haters is to visualize them. I picture them as having cartoonish stink lines coming out from them.

This is Elena. Can you believe I made this? Yes…ok then, moving on.

Picture them as Grumpier than Oscar the Grouch on garbage day. Give them a penis as their nose like the famous grump Squidward, and the voice of Ebenezer Scrooge on tax day. Picture them with a scowl that rivals Walt Kowalski, Clint Eastwood’s character in Gran Torino.

Alright, now that you’ve got a mental image of their pants excessively crankied, remember that they’re just puny humans. They’re mere mortals. And humankind is often more of the former and less of the latter.

In the words of my homeslice T-Swizzle, “Haters gonna hate”. Perhaps we expect too much from humans, expecting everyone to be gracious — after all, we’re just sentient potatoes. Haters gonna hate; taters gonna tate.

But Wait, There’s More

Dealing with haters is real life, not an infomercial-esque one-size-fits-all solution. So here are a few more ways that help me mentally frame haters in such a state that it’s hard to stay mad at their grumpy pusses:

1. Understand Pre-Ruffling

Some people wake up with their panties in a twist. Someone clearly pissed in their Cheerios. Or maybe they’re just offended by everything because they’re the snowflakiest snowflake to ever snowflake.

But none of it has anything to do with you. Them being an asshole is their problem, not yours.

2. Pity them

They’re the mayor of Haterville, and living in the state of hatred is a horrible place to be. They’re inviting you to their space because misery loves company.

For me, it’s easier to not be bothered by someone when you feel bad for them. Unless you want to start sharing their cloudy disposition, simply feel bad for them.

Hate nation is nothing but motivation. Image by freepik

3. Don’t listen

The human mind has a horrible way of listening to the negative over the positive. I think many of us are hardwired that way. Since the caveman days, we stayed alive by becoming attuned to the dangers that negative stimuli warned us about.

Listening to the dangers (like haters) is a survival tactic honed through millennia, that we haven’t evolved our way out of yet. But times have changed and human beings are in our feelings era. Listening to the haters only works if they’re warning you about a clear and present danger.

But generally, they’re not.

So instead, remember this…

If you wouldn’t take their advice — don’t take their criticism.

4. Starve ’em

Fire doesn’t happen in a vacuum; it needs fuel to survive. Starve them of the fuel of your response, and like Elena, they’ll wither away.

5. Win

Were the above too Pollyanna for you? Alright, how about simply just not letting them win? If you succumb to their haterade — they win. Be a stubborn arse and refuse to play their game of hater hot potato. Leave them holding the burning potato by not participating.

TL;DR

Too long; didn’t read? No worries booboo, I gotchu. Here’s a lickety-split recap:

1. Haters are just humans human-ing badly.

2. It’s not your fault they put their grumpy pants on today and then chugged a Hatorade.

3. Don’t fuel their fire.

4. Don’t take their criticism if you wouldn’t take their advice.

5. Don’t let them win by reducing yourself down to their level.

Voila. My methodology for dealing with snippety, snarky, stuffy, sulky, snarly snappers. Now go forth and shake off the petty, pouty, peevish, petulant, pugnacious pricks.

And if they still won’t wither into the stink-lined ether from whence they spawned, remember this:

If they don’t like anything you do, but watch everything you’re doing — they’re still a fan.