Has anyone overheard something offensive, bad, or just plain hurtful behind your back?

I’d stop dead in my tracks and approach the person with a great big smile saying… “May we have a private talk together”?

I would tell their parents… even on adults to straighten them out

If it was overheard, of course it would be hurtful. I cannot imagne what it would take to just brush it off and move on without a backward glance. From experience, most people talk/vent about another at some point. If they have an issue, I prefer that they come to me with it so that we can work it out. If I accidentially overhear a conversation that involves me, which has happened, I either confront it, ignore it, or take the unsolicited constructive critizism into consideration. The last is the hardest, but how else am I to learn about the effects of my own behavior if they feel like they can’t tell me?

I would consider the source, and probably dismiss it as irrelevant.

This has happened to me more than once and 80% of the time, I walked away from the situation. There was just too much crap I had to deal with already.

What has hurt more than anything else is overhearing my parents say things about me. I am a chronic eavesdropper. I wish I could go back in time and cover my ears so I wouldn’t hear my mother yelling at my father about how she suspected I was a hypochondriac. I’m not sure how long I cried after that one. Neither know I was listening.

I guess it would depend on how much truth was in it. I tend to get more defensive when it is straight out lies, vise truths that are just painful to hear.
I’m a whole lot better against a lie than the truth. Even if most of what they said is a lie but it has a plenty of truth in it, than I just get quiet and walk away.
If its out right lies, I get extremely defensive and usually will want to knock someones head off or at least give them the full experience of honest opinions that will be something they won’t forget.

All the time. My current bf used to work for both stores I work at now. For a year while dating then no one knew we were a couple and so they used to talk about him freely within earshot of me. A lot of what I heard hurt my feelings and I couldn’t say a thing. Once some people learned we were a couple then they still talked about him but also me, lots of suppositions that hurt my feelings but I still kept quiet. I really hate people sometimes but have to pick my battles.

Nine times out of ten, I’d confront them immediately. I’m a ‘head on’ kind of guy. If I didn’t address it immediately, it would eat away at me and, frankly, I need my sleep.