How to deal with unpleasant behaviour with grace

Here are a few ways to deal with rude and unpleasant behaviour.

Often, you come across rude and unpleasant, behaviour that may or may not be intentional. How you deal with it elevates your personality and shows your character on a defined light. Remember, rudeness is always unintentional. You don't wake up in the morning planning your day thinking about how you can be rude to others. But you are not their etiquette consultant, and you can show your maturity by conducting yourself in a certain way.
Here are a few ways to deal with such behaviour.
Hostility is a sign of insecurity: Sometimes you would come across hostility from complete strangers, which may leave you bewildered at first, It's no fault of yours, it's the emotional insecurity from the other person. Sometimes, social anxiety, emotional insecurity, emotional stress, mental health or even less confidence towards their own visual impact or beauty can trigger hostility and cold shoulder approach. Again, I repeat, it's unintentional.
An elegant, very secure individual would never be hostile or impolite to anyone. Hostility may come from the most beautiful woman or the most affluent man. Remember, everyone can have certain insecurities. It's only humane!
How you stay calm and deal with it with intelligence and grace would elevate your standard.
How to deal with it: Stay classy, be gracious and kind. Do greet them with a smile and warmth. Your grace will rub onto them with time. It's a silent code of conduct through your own manners.
Fairweather friends: We all have them. The friends who call and reach out only when they need your help or need you for their social, financial or personal growth. Friendship should be unconditional. You become friends with people you are compatible with. It's a beautiful relationship that should be treasured rather than exploited.
How to deal with it: Gracefully and discreetly distance yourself from fair-weather friends. If you offer your kind gestures and friendship unconditionally a few times, that should be returned with similar gestures. If it's a one-sided gesture and they are blissfully oblivious to offer graciousness and kindness in return, distance yourself. Kindness should not be mistaken for foolishness.
Elegant response: Before I suggest a few remedies, let me tell you a little story. There is this one time a friend, who is a lady of leisure, unintentionally told me that I get to teach business etiquette in the corporate world because she thinks I am a beautiful woman. As flattering as it sounds, it did hurt me at first, simply because i didn't realise how oblivious she is to think that way. Only If she had a career, she would probably know that there is a T&D and HR department in any large organization that decides on corporate training and does not choose the trainer because of their looks. However, I did realise it was unintentional. And one shouldn't be sharp-tongued to unawareness. So I simply educated her a little. One can also turn a rude comment into a joke, and let it go. Or give a polite one- liner which secures the boundary without doing much harm to the relationship.
There are certain ways you can respond, but engaging in negativity with the person who is rude or trying to be manipulative is like opening a door with people who cannot behave elegantly. Also, one thing I have learned with time is, surrounding yourself with an elegant and refined company also brushes off on your social behaviour. And no! It's not snobbish to be refined.
Till next week, #beextraordinary!
Konkona Bakshi is the founder of Savoir Faire Academie and former Miss Elegance World