It is too easy to be rough. It is easy to be harsh, cruel, blunt, funny in a way that makes someone feel bad. It's easy to make yourself unapproachable, to glare at strangers who keep eye contact with you too long or raise your eyebrow at a nervous joke told too hastily. You can be melancholy. You can be hurt, nursing past wounds, unraveling stitches to keep cuts bleeding and fresh — that isn't hard, it' isn't hard at all.
But I am tired of looking myself and seeing jagged edges. I am tired of wearing away at myself, keeping myself rough because an older me, a past me, a me filled with naiveté and bitterness, thought it was what I wanted. Because I've done it, and I've lived it, and I've grown with it, and I have learned that there is nothing congratulatory or aspirational about this.
There's a difference between self-respect and mean-spiritedness... scaring people away is nothing to be proud of. It is too easy to be rough, but kindness is easier to respect than a bitter smirk.