Why are people so mean sometimes?

Especially to people that don't seem to deserve such unfair treatment!

So people may annoy you, fair enough - and you can choose to not have any contact with them. However, to take situations that you have not personally witnessed and then use them as reasons for treating people like crap, to me that is wrong. You cannot use hearsay and the feelings of others as a good reason for mistreating other people... that is wrong! Neither can you take a dislike to someone and then go all out to make them feel as if they shouldn't exist, snub them, give them catty remarks and just generally treat them badly.

I've been on the end of a malicious smear campaign like that when I was younger (at school) and let me tell you it never goes away, those feelings of eternal judgement and of never feeling good enough... the sidelong glances you get and the feelings of people talking about you behind your back (and in my case I was totally innocent, but one girl hated me and made sure everyone else hated me as well)... they stay with you forever, and they leave their own creeping bitterness and a mental scar that never fully heals. You never feel the same way about the people that do it ever again, and neither do you want to after the way they have treated you.

Granted there are some people that are complete douche bags and they seem to bring negativity upon themselves... but they shouldn't get that from people they have not done bad things to personally, and people have no right to do that either just because they may have acted badly to your friends. We all make mistakes and if we are constantly having those acts shoved in our faces it just makes us bitter and we fail to learn when we have gone astray because we are forever being punished for the past. Who can honestly look back and say they have never hurt someone, even accidentally? I know I have hurt people in the past and I am sorry for having done that... but if the friends of the people I had hurt kept treating me like shit and being mean to me , even if I had never done anything mean to them personally, I know that would hurt me so much (especially without even hearing my side of the story) ... and it's also not fair, or right, or just! It would make me angry and I'd be so confused as to why I was being treated that way.

Defend your friends, fair enough, but there must come a point when the people suffering from the online harassment need to stand up and defend themselves and stop asking others to do it for them! How long can you keep ignoring someone and not telling them when they are doing wrong and then wonder why that person keeps bothering you? Just tell them straight, once and for all. It's not that hard to do... is it? If after that, they still keep coming after you, then get the reinforcments and do what you have to do.

It's not being disloyal to your friends to choose to treat the other person like a human being... it's being disloyal to yourself to treat them badly just because others dislike them and want others to avoid them ,too.

It just strikes me as ironic that I can give people that have messed up more chances than some Christian people I know who are actually COMMANDED to forgive their brothers and sisters unlimited times... not bad for an "evil pagan" is it?!