Everything could be going fine until one inconsequential comment, one offhand remark ruins your day. Your mother casually criticizes you. A coworker offers unsolicited feedback on a presentation. A friend asks for everyone’s opinion on where to host their birthday dinner, except yours. The infraction rolls over and over in your mind: What did they mean by that? I’m an idiot, right? Why would they do that? Hours, days, even weeks can pass and, still, you can’t seem to shake what is arguably a minor slight. You ask yourself, Am I being too sensitive? Well, are you? Mark Leary, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, says sometimes, seemingly insignificant snubs are effective at getting under our skin because they send a signal that we don’t matter. “It conveys that I don’t have a whole lot of relational value to you,” he says. “You don’t value your connection with me, because if you did, you’d treat me better than this.” Certain people are more sensitive to these upsets than others, Leary says, while others can easily brush them off. The eternally-sensitive among us are equipped with, essentially, more emotional information-tracking sensors, according to Kelly Guynes, a licensed clinical social worker and the clinical director at the DBT Center of Houston. “The more ‘sensors’ you have,” she says, “the more data you’re getting, meaning you feel the world more deeply, more intensely.” As a result, you may be more emotionally reactive. A movie that a friend thinks is merely sad could leave you in tears. You can ruminate for hours about an eyeroll from an acquaintance at a party.“The world keeps going and I’m getting hit and hit and hit, so I never have the time, or even have learned any skills, to bring myself back to a baseline.”Without effective coping strategies, a lifetime of mini-hurts can compound. “Maybe one friend hasn’t texted me back yet, and I’m ruminating about it, and then my coworker gives me some constructive criticism, and then the vet bill was way more expensive than I thought it was going to be,” Guynes says. “The world keeps going and I’m getting hit and hit and hit, so I never have the time, or even have learned any skills, to bring myself back to a baseline.”Being more attuned to our emotions isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But if you’re constantly offended or walking around with hurt feelings, it may disrupt the ability to connect with others. Your triggers may be totally perplexing to those who aren’t inside your head. So, why do some people have heightened emotional awareness? What can they do about it?The role of nature and nurtureThe degree to which someone is emotionally sensitive can be completely out of their control. Some people are genetically predisposed to bigger feelings and have an extremely sensitive temperament, Guynes says. As a baby, they may have been harder to soothe and more affected by light, sound, and people. They may grow up into highly sensitive people — a personality trait associated with greater emotional and environmental reactivity. They’re more attuned to noises, smells, and temperature, as well as social cues. (There is an online self-assessment, developed by the psychologist who first began studying highly sensitive people, to determine where on the sensitivity scale you fall.) They probably have been told at one point or another to grow thicker skin or that they’re overreacting, says Audrey Kao, a therapist and registered social worker.But life experiences also impact the way you interact with and perceive others. A history of neglect or trauma as a child and past experiences of rejection may cause someone to develop rejection sensitivity — the expectation and anxiety around being burned again in the future. When a friend makes a joke at your expense, these fears are activated, “and any behavior that remotely resembles rejection is going to be perceived as rejection,” says Ozlem Ayduk, a psychology professor at University of California, Berkeley.Gendered stereotypes can also play a role in how you come across to others. Women are often accused of overreacting or being too emotional, but research finds men to be just as likely as women to be highly sensitive. In studies where participants self-report their levels of sensitivity, women tend to consider themselves higher in sensitivity. In a study of twins, researchers found no differences between men and women when it came to sensitivity. The belief that women are more emotionally reactive is indicative of social expectations: Men are calm and collected while women are more in touch with, and at the mercy of, their emotions. The desire to matterBecause value and acceptance are at the root of a sensitive person’s hurt feelings, they may be overly motivated to make a good impression on everyone they encounter. Some people crave the approval of many, from strangers online to their closest confidants. Others are perfectly satisfied knowing they can’t please everyone and only care about the opinions of a smaller group of treasured connections. The more someone yearns for acceptance from another person, “the more you’re going to have your antennas up for any indication that other people may not care,” Leary says. Therefore, your ego might be more easily bruised when the barista doesn’t remember your name because it’s important to your self-worth that you’re significant to them. The reality is, we can’t be adored by everyone. Instead, Leary says, it can be helpful to be more discerning about whose opinions really matter.How valued and accepted you believe you are influences your reactions to perceived social slights. When people feel valued and cared for, they’re better able to brush off, for instance, snide remarks from their in-laws. “But if you perceive that your relationships and connections in your life are tenuous,” Leary says, “you’re going to be a little bit more worried about indications that you’re running out of connections with other people.” Those with low self-esteem might already feel undervalued and these comments only confirm their insecurities. “We’re going to take that comment more to heart,” Kao says, “because it feels more personal.”How to be a little less sensitiveIf you suspect that your sensitivity is preventing you from having healthy relationships — because others are always upsetting you or you’re afraid they might reject you — you may want to learn some strategies to blunt the pain.Because those sensitive to rejection are primed to see slights everywhere, they may jump to worst-case scenarios and, for lack of a better term, overreact, Ayduk says. But every social cue can’t possibly be a sign of someone’s negative feelings about you. If you believe every interaction is potentially threatening, you’re way more likely to read it the wrong way, Ayduk says. Emotional and rejection sensitivity are sometimes self-fulfilling prophecies, Ayduk says. If your feelings are constantly hurt by benign comments, people might stop hanging out with you, only reinforcing your fears. Ayduk is currently studying whether it’s possible to break this cycle with a little self-awareness. If you know that your sensitivity can actually push people away, can you change? “I don’t know the answer yet,” Ayduk says, “but I think just knowing is probably not enough. But knowing and then learning some skills,” like not assuming the worst, may potentially help.Reality may not be as calamitous as the story you’ve drafted in your head.According to Ayduk and Leary, it’s helpful to remind yourself that you have a tendency to jump to the worst possible conclusion: that your friend hates you, that your neighbor thinks you’re rude, that acquaintance would rather do anything else than talk to you at a party. Reality may not be as calamitous as the story you’ve drafted in your head. “Maybe my mom’s just having a bad day, and she doesn’t feel good,” Leary says. “But when she snaps at me, I assume it has something to do with our relationship, and it may have nothing to do with that at all.” Then, ask yourself if the perceived wrongdoing is significant in the long run, Leary says. Is your mom’s short temper fleeting or is it an indication of a larger issue in the relationship? Sure, she shouldn’t have snapped, but maybe this is a rare occurrence. In which case, you may decide it’s not worth bringing up your hurt feelings with her. “This is not an effort to eliminate entirely your concerns,” Leary says. “It’s just a way to try to make sure that you’re not over-blowing it [out of proportion] before you think about how you should respond.”Thinking through the significance of the rebuff allows you to slow down and take a considered approach if you do decide to say something. Airing your concerns like an adult features a few gold standards you’ve likely heard about by now: Use “I” statements, calmly explain why you’re hurt, invite the other person to weigh in. All that applies here, too. It’s much better to say, “I’ve noticed you snapped at me a few times over the past few days. Is there something I’m doing wrong?” rather than, “Are you really going to lash out at me again? I’m done.” How the other person responds is on them. They might not have realized they hurt your feelings. They may also accuse you of overreacting. If they’re a more distant relation — like an acquaintance or coworker — you might need to be more guarded around them in the future and try to move on, Kao says. For closer ties, the dismissal of your feelings can be incredibly deflating, she continues. “It’s fair game to say to them,” Kao says, “‘That’s really invalidating and it makes me feel like my feelings are unimportant and I need to feel like my feelings are important to you.’”In the end, these tendencies are difficult to break, Ayduk says. But it doesn’t mean you’re forever burdened by sensitivity. Sometimes an offhand remark is just that and not a harbinger of a relationship in turmoil.