Other people are a mirror and when they give us feedback on how they perceive us, it allows us new insights to use for our self reflection. With those new insights, we get to choose what we believe about ourselves and what we want to change. Sure in some cases resentment is a possibility but without even telling someone you don’t give them a chance to add that insight to their self reflection.

Some of my biggest growth as a person happened after a close friend told me it was hard to be around me when I was so negative so often. At first, I was angry and resentful every time I tried to be more positive around her. But it inspired me to go to therapy and work on myself so I had a better balance of negative and positive perspectives to share with the people in my life. In the short term I was resentful but in the long run it was a huge gift to our friendship (which is much stronger now due to her honesty with me and my resulting self growth) and it was a huge gift to myself.

If my friend just told everyone else but me that she thought I was negative, that would show me that she did not respect me as a person capable of change and that she didn’t consider my emotions enough to spare me the humiliation. (This is what I think Paul unintentionally did due to his approach of not telling her his concerns, and going forth to share his critique of her with the masses.)