• Question: You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire. They all start criticizing a close friend of yours, not knowing she is your friend. The criticism is distasteful and unjustified. What do you do?

    Asked by scarlettekarina to Alexander, Josh, Serena, Simone, Stuart on 20 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Simone Sturniolo

      Simone Sturniolo answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Unusual question… well, a part of me being a scientist that influenced my personality is that I try as hard as possible to look at things in an objective way. This means that people making stuff up for no reason annoys me; more so if they do make it up to insult a person I care about. If I admire these people, I’ll probably start thinking they are doing what they are doing in good faith, because they genuinely think what they are saying, and try to defend my friend with arguments and telling what I know about him/her and why I think their judgement is wrong. If they are reasonable people, they will probably listen. If they are not, I will see no reason to hold respect and admiration for them any more. I’ll just lower my expectations about them. This does not mean I will never speak to them again (sometimes you have to deal with people you don’t like – you may be forced to work with them, or they might be friends of someone you are friend with), but I won’t see them with the same eyes and will not consider them to be friends of mine. They are entitled to their own opinions, after all, but so I will be to mine that they are wrong and mean.

    • Photo: Alexander Munnoch

      Alexander Munnoch answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      It would certainly lower my respect and admiration of them – but bear in mind, they are human as well. My gut-reaction would be to defend them from what appears an unprovoked attack. Obviously, the three people in question don’t know you well enough to know of your friendship to the person they are criticising. If people are worthy of respect and admiration it is usually reasonable to assume they are rational – accepting if you voice a different opinion. On the otherhand life isn’t always as simple as that and you may have to ‘get on’ with people even if you disagree with them for the sake of work or family etc…

      With that in mind, you do not have to respect or admire absolutely everything about someone – you can like some aspects and dislike other ones. Ultimately, I’d say do what makes you feel best about yourself because then you are being honest with yourself and you won’t lose any sleep over it!

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