Thickening My Skin

Is there really such a thing as "thick skin" when it comes to the insults and assaults that go with everyday human interaction?  

I have heard about people who are thick-skinned.  I have even observed them in action.  Insensitive dolts hurl insults at them and they smile indulgently (if they even notice).  Brutally impolite folks point out minuscule flaws in their appearance, speech, personality, grooming, hygiene or penmanship.  And they glide along as imperturbable as a swan on a somber stream.  Bosses and coworkers gleefully offer stinging critiques during 360 degree assessments.  And these superhuman types thank them for the character deconstruction.

How do they do it?

And then there is the mysterious interchange of "giving one another a hard time."  Some folks appear to me to be wickedly brutal in their verbal assaults on one another.  Yet, these odd creatures treat it all as a game or even a competition.  "If I didn't give you a hard time, you wouldn't think that I cared," they may say.  I have no idea what that really means.

So what is this thick-skinned business anyway?  Many people are not highly sensitive persons, so those who are really do have pretty thin external membranes in emotional terms.  I have never been able to develop that thick skin in any natural sense.  I think that genetically I am unable to produce the extra layers of emotional covering.

So as an introvert who is highly sensitive, I find the emotional work-arounds to get through the day relatively happy and serene.

I work not to take myself so doggone seriously.  Of course, I can write those words, but I can live them out only in fits and starts.  I really am an amusing and often foolish creature.  I have odd habits and goofy idiosyncrasies just like everybody else.  Life is a lot more fun when I can just laugh at myself.  When I do, people get closer to me and I don't feel so alone.

After all, who do you know who as a seventh grader read the entire World Book Encyclopedia one summer for entertainment?  Yes, that was me.  No wonder I didn't get much of a tan that year.  Who brought home a pigeon in formaldehyde for dissection because it sounded like fun?  Me again.  Who reads this behavioral psychology stuff for relaxation?  Me.  Wow, I must be lots of fun at parties, eh?

Well, if I run into another overly intellectual introvert who's bored to death with all the frivolity, I am actually a laugh a minute...or not.

And I remember that most of the behavior that passes for thick-skinnedness is either narcissistic obliviousness or a well-practiced defense mechanism.  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words really will hurt me--unless I have a measure of sociopathology.  Only people who are damaged somehow really and fully don't care what other people think.  Many are less responsive than are we more sensitive types.  Many will laugh it off (even as they plan their revenge for another and opportune time).

None of that means that poking one another is pain free for the majority of folks.  When I remember that, then I feel less alone and less likely to respond badly.  I have not been singled out for mistreatment any more than you have.  One of the real keys to happiness is simply to remember that most of what people say is about them and not about me.  I don't have to accept delivery on that trash if I don't choose to do so.  And I can make choices about how to respond.

Finally, I can choose my friends.  And I can choose what to share.  Being thick-skinned is not really an option for me and my introverted colleagues.  Having healthy boundaries is.  Especially as public leaders, we pastors have to be able to let people into our lives without allowing them to deflate our spirits.  Perhaps that is as good a definition of mature leadership as there is.