Style Through Intelligence.com

If you do something different...don't explain why!

Have you ever worn, tried or done something new only to receive negative or condescending comments from friends or other random guys as a result?

Well…you’re not alone. This happens every day and especially to the stylish, adventurous and powerful man.

This IS a good thing

Truth be told getting negative comments is actually a good thing for you because it means you are doing something right.

This may sound counter intuitive, as a lot of successful habits are, but as they say in the marketing world if you’re doing something right you are going to have people oppose it.

It is not even that people are opposing it in a sense… In fact it goes a lot deeper than that.

Why do people make condescending comments?

There are a few reasons why people will make negative comments. Of course it will depend on the situation, environment and relationship you have to that person, but generally it will be one or a combination of the following:

• They are Jealous (or threatened) – This covers a large majority of situations. It can be from a close friend to a stranger, but in the end a lot of comments come back to jealousy
• They actually like what your wearing/doing/tried – especially in the case when close friends throw a tongue in cheek comment your way. Or as the British would say “taking the piss”.
• They want an excuse to talk to you – when strangers say something condescending to you the large majority of the time is because they want an excuse to talk to you, especially when women do this. Unfortunately a lot of men would react with a fight or flight response and the situation can only go worse from there.

So what do we do

Well…what we don’t do is justify ourselves. To illustrate justifying yourself here is a little conversation…

Them: Nice shirt…do they make them for men

You: oh…well…I was shopping the other day with one of my friends…we went into this store that she said was cool…and although I didn’t like it…she thought that it looked good on me, so I bought it etc. etc.

There is no need to go to this effort because:

1. Deep down you know they didn’t actually mean it negatively (refer to the 3 reasons above)

2. You are a stylish male and confidently know what you are wearing is badass; and

3. You don’t need to or want to drop down to their level.

So what would the stylish intelligent man say:

Them: Nice shirt…do they make them for men

You: Yeh they do actually, would you like one? Or something along this line.

Simply dismiss it, positively, confidently and short. It doesn’t even have to be funny at all. But, by no means get caught up in a verbal slogging match or a long winded thought out answer to try and justify your decision…there is no need for it.

Why not justify

For a truly confident man who is “somebody” it’s really not in your reality that anyone should be condescending you or anything you wear. So when you do hear those comments you treat the comment based on one of “the reasons they said it” as described before. i.e. they just wanted to compliment you on what you are wearing, or they wanted an excuse to greet you etc.

It’s basically selective hearing at its best, but is fantastic for your confidence and eventually image.

Plus…why should you justify yourself to someone else, because you have consciously made the decision to wear whatever it is that you are, and that is the main thing.

Take Action

1. 1. Next time you wear or try something different and get comments from anyone, remember there is no need to justify yourself. Be confident in your decision. The more you “don’t justify” yourself, the less condescending comments you will actually receive in the future, because people are not getting “a bite” out of you anymore.

What do you think? Have you had any situations where you felt as though you should justify your actions? What did you do in this situation?