How to Handle Negative Comments?

A couple of weeks ago, I published an essay that inspired a great number of comments from readers. I jumped in, excited to see what people thought. Many loved the piece and could relate to it, recounting similar stories from their childhoods. Then, a negative comment came up, which stopped me cold. The person said some mean things about me and my family (the subject of the essay), hurtful things. As I didn’t want to come across any more bad comments, I stopped reading. It didn’t matter that the positive outweighed the negative by a large magnitude. I’d seen enough.

Some writers and performers browbeat themselves for letting negative reviews bother them, but I’m here to tell you it’s natural. In fact, it’s evolutionarily ordained. We fear the negative more than we rejoice in the positive because the consequences are so much more dire. Imagine if our human ancestors did not react with trepidation to threats, we would not be here as a species. Our biology makes us focus on and remember negative feedback. There — now stop beating yourself up if you are ruminating about that one review amidst 1,000 glowing ones. Our biology is not necessarily rational.

Actually, I’m pretty thick-skinned when it comes to my writing, having written mostly opinion and commentary pieces up to this point, as well as severely reviewed scholarly research articles. In response to my opinion pieces, I’ve had readers track down my email address and tell me how wrong I am, which is disconcerting in that they are so motivated that they would spend time doing that. I once wrote a piece about the internet not being a good thing (in 1997? Published by St. Martin’s Press, I remember that) that was anthologized for freshman English courses, which resulted in my being simply roasted by eighteen year-olds. But none of it bothered me much. This time, it was unnerving, because it’s the most personal piece I’ve published to date. In fact, it made me question if I would be able to write a memoir after all.

I remember the days well before the internet, before email, when one had to write a letter, find the writer’s publisher’s address to send it to, and walk to a mailbox, if you wanted to comment to a writer. In fact, I did this twice in my life: to the the writer Richard Rodriguez, whose memoir Hunger of Memoir evoked shocked resonance in me, and the poet Stephen Dunn, in response to an essay he wrote about whom poetry was for. Long story short, some years later I ended up meeting both of them, and they were ever so gracious, thoughtful, and sweet than any fan could hope for, and neither had been worried that I was a crazed stalker (I asked). Nowadays, it’s too easy to fire off a comment and forget that there is a human being that will read them. As a professor, it’s keenly obvious that over email, students will say things and make demands that they would never say or make in person. Anonymity emboldens, and erodes empathy.

Given this state of things (ancient evolutionary tendencies + modern age communication), what can one do? A good friend offered to read the comments to me, skipping over the mean ones, but that would be a huge imposition on her time, not to mention that it wouldn’t be facing the problem, would it? Then I remembered the time I was sued by an employee for wrongful termination. It was early in my career, and I was bewildered, and petrified. How could I be sued — literally in a court of law, a subpoena served on me like in an episode of Suits? I said this incredulously to a friend of mine, who just shrugged. “How could you be so nonchalant?” I screamed. “Well, if you’re going to try to do something in the world,” he said, “you’re gonna be sued at some point.”

Now, obviously this is not to be taken literally, as many people accomplish a great many things without ever being sued. But I understood the larger point. That is, as a writer, or in life, are you really reaching far enough if everyone loves what you write/do? If you never evoke a contrary opinion, perspective, or emotion?

After a few days, I opened the comments again and started reading. About six comments in, a not-so-nice one popped up, but reading it wasn’t so bad. I thought about how I had reached deep to write the piece, and not everyone agreed with me, and that was a good thing. I kept going, and at some point, the sheer wave of warmth and goodwill that people felt for me was overwhelming.

I return to this feeling still.