Dear trolls,

you keep leaving comments that are aimed at hurting my feelings. The problem is that you go about it in such a plodding, unimaginative way that you never achieve anything. I’m in a very good mood today, which is why I will share with you why your strategy is not working and how you could change it to be more productive in your labor.

Emotions always have an internal locus of control, which is why the source of every hurt and pain is always inside oneself. I know this is too complicated for you, trolls, so I will translate it for you. You can only hurt a person’s feelings by calling them a certain thing if that person has actively chosen to see that thing as hurtful. I understand that when you are dealing with a complete stranger, you project your own terrors onto him or her. But this is always a mistake because you are bound to meet somebody who is simply indifferent to all of the things that make you suffer.

This is why telling me that I’m:

a) ugly;

b) fat;

c) a Jew;

d) an autistic;

e) a typical academic;

f) old;

g) childless;

h) have bad hair;

i) an immigrant;

j) have no friends

serves no useful purpose for you. I don’t choose to invest these qualifiers with a negative meaning, which is why they cannot hurt my feelings. If you really want to hit me where it hurts, I have a freebie suggestion for you: remind me that I had an article rejected for publication in October. I still haven’t found a way to avoid feeling hurt by such things and I consider it a huge personal failing of mine that I feel this way about a normal part of an academic’s life.

Good luck in your trolling endeavors!