At some point in my life, probably in college, I decided that I was going to (mostly; when I’m not too scared to speak up; when I can think of the words to say, etc.) stop taking shit from people. So, online, I often say things like, “Actually, I wasn’t asking for advice, thanks!” and “Please don’t use that word in my comments section” and “This is a serious post where I’m asking friends for advice about apartment-hunting; please don’t derail it with inside jokes I don’t get.” You know, standard Captain Awkward-type stuff.

I won’t mince words about it: this is really, really hard to do.

I’m sure I make it seem easy; people often tell me how confident and extroverted I apparently am (I am neither of these things). Every time I make these calm, polite, rather friendly comments, I want to shrivel up in a hole. But you know, it’s absolutely worth it. Because now it’s been a few years in which I’ve been creating a social environment that I find comforting, supportive, and fun, whereas before I had to deal with even my closest friends constantly doing things that I found disrespectful or that conflicted with what I was trying to accomplish by interacting with them in the first place.

And a lot of the time, my worst fears do not come true. People do not belittle and insult me for having the gall to ask them to treat me a little differently. They often politely apologize or acknowledge what I said, and the conversation continues productively and enjoyably

But not always. Sometimes people resist and start defending what they did, as though their interpretation of the events must automatically supersede mine in my own virtual space. And what often happens at this point is that the person completely ignores what I’m telling them and starts to produce drivel like this: “I can see that you’re upset.” “You’re angry at me. I get it.” “You’re very upset about this.” “Wow, you seem to have a thin skin.” “You need to grow a thicker skin.”

First of all, unless you know me very, very well, you know nothing of my emotional state unless I explain it to you. Strong opinions do not necessarily stem from strong emotions. Or, the strong emotions that originally prompted them may have died down a long time ago. Most of the time when I’m writing or having a serious conversation, my mood is very calm and focused; that’s how I work best and that’s the mood that writing usually puts me in. Whatever you did that I considered disrespectful and called you out for was a blip on the radar, and the blip was one of annoyance, not hurt or anger.

It is incredibly patronizing when someone I don’t even know presumes to know how I feel and then conveys this assumption to me, not even as a question or a check-in, but as a statement of fact. “You’re very upset about this.” “You need to calm down, this isn’t such a big deal.”

Nobody gets to label my emotions for me. Only I get to do that.

If you’re honestly concerned that you’ve upset someone and want to find out if your suspicions are accurate, you can say, “I’m sorry, did I upset you?” But chances are, they’ve already given you all the information you need to know. If they’ve said, “Please don’t do this thing, I find it disrespectful,” then you need to either agree to stop doing the thing or leave the interaction.

When you think you’ve upset someone, it’s understandable to immediately want to smooth things over and make them stop being upset at you. But the best you can do is apologize and stop doing the thing, not turn a conversation that was originally about something else into a conversation about You’re Upset With Me What Do I Have To Do To Make You Stop Being Upset.

I understand that my emotional states are of immense fascination to everyone I interact with, so it’s only natural that people will try to derail otherwise-productive conversations to discuss them. However, what would make a lot more sense would be if people would either apologize for doing something I felt was disrespectful and continue with the conversation, or decline to apologize and leave the conversation.

And I understand that makes complete sense that some things I consider disrespectful are not things that other people consider disrespectful. They may feel so confused about why I find those things disrespectful that they don’t think they should have to avoid doing those things to me. That’s fine. But in that case, we’re not going to interact. Nobody has a right to interact with me. Your free speech does not extend to being granted an audience by any particular person. If we cannot agree on how we are going to treat each other, then we are not obligated to interact in any casual setting, like my personal Facebook page or my Gmail inbox.

Second, notice how the comments about emotional state are almost always inherently dismissive. “You’re upset, therefore your opinion about what I said or did and your request that I behave differently is invalid.” Insert your favorite synonym for poop here to describe how I feel about this tactic.

Even if I had the thinnest skin in the world, so thin that it is literally an atom in thickness, which is biologically impossible because cells are bigger than that, that doesn’t matter. You can decide that I am too easily upset for you to be able to comfortably interact with me, and you can stop interacting with me. Or you can decide that interacting with me is worth the added consideration required to not upset me, and you can make those considerations. Those are your two options. Telling me that my emotions are wrong and I need to stop having them is not one of the options.

(For the record, I have known people to have taken that first option with me, although, again, the issue isn’t so much that I’m easily upset as that I have very high standards for what I am willing to accept from people. Of course, it’s always a little sad to lose someone as a friend or acquaintance. But that’s what’s best for both of us. I don’t have to deal with them doing the thing that I don’t like, and they don’t have to deal with getting called out for doing things I don’t like. Perfect.)

It’s notable that none of these grow-a-thicker-skin evangelists are ever any good at telling their would-be converts how this can be accomplished. “Grow a thicker skin!” “You’re too sensitive!” Okay, that’s nice. Now what? Are there special creams for this? A medical procedure? Daily toning exercises? Anything?

No. Because they don’t really care about anyone’s mental health and wellbeing. They’re uncomfortable at being called out for their words and actions, which is understandable because being called out sucks. But rather than sitting with that discomfort and seeing where it’s really coming from, they assume that the problem is necessarily with the other person and their particular skin thickness or lack thereof.

Remember, too, that “thin skin” and “thick skin” are relative terms. There is no skin thickness measuring device. If you think my skin is thin, it may be because it really is, or it may be because you’ve been raised not to consider how your words and actions affect others.

Finally, here’s the crux of the issue. Some people think that anyone who asks them to stop doing something because they find that thing inappropriate/disrespectful is obviously upset. Why are people like me and my friends so forthright with you when you disrespect us, if not because we can’t mentally handle it? Why would we demand respect, if not because not receiving respect makes us have emotional breakdowns?

Here’s why: because we deserve it.

I deserve not to have people treat me like a pathetic little child who desperately needs their help by offering me unsolicited, patronizing advice. I deserve not to have people demean my gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity with slurs that promote the norm that it’s okay to demean those identities. I deserve not to have people make jokes out of my pain when I’m feeling honest and open enough to share it with them. I deserve not to have every profile photo I put on Facebook plastered with comments from random men I am not even friends with about my appearance. Interacting with me is not a right granted to you simply because you exist and possess a computer. It’s something you get to do only if I decide that interacting with you is worthwhile for me, and feeling respected is a major component of that. I deserve not to exist for the entertainment of others.

And because I deserve respect in these ways and more, I will tell people–first cheerfully and with smiley emoticons, and then more insistently but still presuming good faith when they ignore me, and finally bluntly and coldly–when they are doing something that I consider disrespectful. My emotions have nothing to do with it.

Whatever twitch of annoyance I feel at the actual thing fades quickly, and I know what it means for an emotion to fade quickly because I have ones that don’t. I have misery that sinks in my gut for hours, days, weeks, years. I have anger–the productive kind, not the destructive kind–that burns for months as I work on projects and fight my battles. I have joy, too, though it’s usually a bit shorter-lived. But not as short-lived as the annoyance I feel at an asshole online. That joy can go on for a few hours or days, and few people see it. Since joy is often a rare resource in my life, I conserve it as much as possible.

But none of that is any of your business until I choose to tell you about it.