> They will just silently embellish minor transgressions, or take things out of context to paint you in a negative light... And it doesn't really require embel

> They will just silently embellish minor transgressions, or take things out of context to paint you in a negative light... And it doesn't really require embellishment. Context is everything in this case. The difference between a small joke meant to be endearing and an attack can be entirely in the eye of the beholder. Even something as inane as "working hard or hardly working?" can be taken negatively if you're already primed to expect it that way. It's very, very hard to get back to even neutral with people that have negative assumptions about you. Even if you point out that some initial interaction that gave them a negative impression was entirely mistaken on their part or unfounded, it's not like people go back through all the interactions after that point which they interpreted negatively because of that, so these self-reinforced opinions are very hard to shake for people. It really brings into perspective that old adage, "you never get a second chance to make a first impression."