Here’s a life lesson I wish I’d known earlier. If someone is going to not like you for no good reason, don’t try to change their mind. In other words, it’s taken me 47 years to realise there’s no point in trying to make people like you.
This week, I hoped it was something the Princess of Wales had learned. I won’t give the not-very-famous-at-all person the publicity of a name check. But basically, about Kate’s appearance.
Neither will I detail the insults made, because they are not true and they are nasty – a desperate attempt to fan the flames of a dying previous 15 minutes of fame from reality TV. The comments alone were mean but, given the royal has been undergoing some serious medical treatment for cancer, downright offensive. That’s the case whether they had been about Kate or anyone else in that situation.
Not everyone is going to like you – you, me, the woman next door. But imagine being the subject of debate by people you don’t know all day, every day. Fame or not, we have all experienced that awful pit-of-stomach feeling when you realise someone has said bad things about you.
Maybe it was scrawled on the toilets at school; or you had that sense that the moment you left a room, one friend (not really a friend) was speaking about you. The opinions of people you love and like count of course, but so what of the others? I’ve told you before about my small experiences of people I don’t know having an opinion of me. From the comments under a newsp.