It's easy and unattractive to gloat. For me, it's an endless source of frustration and worry when I piss someone off by accident because I'm scary good at doing it on purpose.

The thing that set me off was being told, in private, to "fuck off" but being told obliquely, in public, to "be nicer" when I was trying to be empathetic and kind but also helpful. I have too many friends who write their poetry in little books and only bring it out to show you when they've had too much wine. You never get an audience that way. If you want to write for someone else, you have to make concessions to the rest of the world. If you only want to write for yourself, you can't gripe when the world doesn't read you. Some people honestly don't realize this - I guess it's too stark for sensitive hearts or something. It's really important to be able to connect with your audience, though.

Thinking about it now, the tragedy was that not only was I lambasted for "not connecting with my audience" I was castigated for "not being nice" by someone who couldn't even look me in the eye.

It ground my gears unduly. When you're staring down the barrel of an empathy deficit you're only going to disappoint yourself by expecting understanding.