No offense taken! I was that kid in middle school, but I've grown a lot since then. I've learned to read people very well, and as a result I've been able to win elections in school clubs, join a fraternity, date, host dinner parties, and basically have a social life that's as active and healthy as anyone else's.

I think often we assume that people are criticizing us because we are starting out from a place of insecurity. If you suspect and worry and fear that you deserve criticism, then even a neutral description of your characteristics can feel like a harsh personal attack. It's hard to listen to someone describe you, just like it's hard to listen to an audiotape of your voice or a videotape of your face. We are all more awkward in real life than we imagine ourselves to be; this is just the corollary of overconfidence/optimism bias, which says that we predict better results for ourselves than we are likely to actually obtain. It's OK, though. Honest, neutral feedback can be uncomfortable to hear, and still not be meant as criticism, much less as trolling.

Are there thousands of narrow-minded people who will read the article and laugh and say, "Haha, those stupid Less Wrongers, they're such weirdos?" Of course. But I don't think you can blame the journalist for that -- it's not the journalist's job to deprive ignorant, judgy readers of any and all ammunition, and, after all, we are a bit strange. If we weren't any different from the mainstream, then why bother?