I don’t know how it is in Australia, but around here where I am people will get really passive aggressive if you don’t care what they think of you. It’s as if they find it personally insulting that you don’t place so much importance on their opinion that you feel bad when they don’t like you.

So they stop insulting you to your face, yes. They just go behind your back and make shit up about you where you can’t even defend yourself, and then no one confronts you about it or asks if it’s true, you just see the light fade in people’s eyes as they recognize you as that person that they heard some shit about without ever confirming the validity of it.

And you can never find out exactly what the rumors say, or exactly who’s spreading them. You just find that one space after another is no longer a warm and friendly place, until all you have left is your own home with the blinds drawn shut.

And no, I’m a short guy so if I stand up for myself people call it a Napoleon complex, but if I just roll over and take it then I’m a push-over and for some reason that’s seen as blanket permission to double-down on me.

or calls you a dumb cunt

I thought that was a term of endearment in Australia?