Whenever I was being particularly unpleasant, Mom always used to tell me "you can't treat people like that because one day you will say the wrong thing to the wrong person and they will beat your ass." Well that would be true in any situation except in the Church, where it is possible to live an entire lifetime being so heavily coddled that nobody ever tells you that you are a prick.
Christians are afraid to tell other Christians about major character flaws. We are good at expressing thoughts like "When you said x, it hurt my feelings because of y..." But we stay away from conversations like "Nobody wants to be around you because you have x issue and it drives people away." Christian conflict resolution materials insist that when confronting someone you should always focus on specific behaviors and not mention general patterns. But sometimes sin is general. Surely there are times when we must say not "When you interrupted me it made me feel disrespected" but instead "You do not respect the opinions of others, and until that changes nobody will want to be around you."
Non-Christians tend to be much more direct -- occasionally to the point of cruelty -- about such conversations, which makes for miserable middle/high school experiences. But these experiences often turn out well-adjusted adults. Without going through the brutal social boot camp of normal, unforgiving relationships early in life, many Christians enter their mid-20s completely unaware of major social hang-ups that their non-Christian peers had beat out of them in 9th grade.
Sometimes there really is a "plank in your brother's eye."
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