I have very few things that I am boastful of. Even considering the skills that I’m better at than any of my other skills, I tend to underrate myself. But one “skill” I have that I will unashamedly boast about is my ability to be passive aggressive. Yes, I know, you’re undoubtedly thinking it’s not something to be proud of. That’s an entirely understandable thought from someone of a lesser intellect. Kidding.
But on my mind lately has been the reason why I’m passive aggressive. Why do I go out of my way to avoid direct conflict? There are many situations and motivations which come from different angles, but one unifying theme behind many of them seems to be the general sentiment of:
“Don’t force me to be rude.”
In this post, I’m going to discuss my motivation behind this style of passive aggression. I quickly realized while writing this that I had at least one other type of passive aggression which does not fall under this theme and it has sufficiently different motivations that it requires a post of its own.
Contrary to what many may think, I’m not afraid of being directly rude to people. In fact, I’m quite satisfied being directly rude to directly rude people. But on a daily basis, I rarely encounter these sort; this isn’t grade school anymore. The problem (or blessing) is that we live in a society which has evolved to value kindness and politeness. This is terrific, in my opinion. Even if we’re having a bad day, we smile and greet people kindly. We do our best to fulfill this established social contract. Often these half-hearted greetings are accused of being “phony”. Well, sure, the people making them might not be as happy as they let on. The pessimist might interpret their empty “Have a nice day” as:
“I couldn’t care less what kind of day you have.”
I see it as more than that. To me, they’re saying:
“I honestly don’t care what kind of day you have, but I’m going to make an effort to be polite because we live in a civilized society and I want to maintain that.”
Oh fair enough, I’m probably being overly optimistic, but I’d much rather live in a society in which everyone at least makes an effort to be polite than one in which people are not civil to one another, dependent largely upon which way the wind is blowing.
Every once in a while, some outlier comes along (or maybe just an innocent person unaware of the implications of their actions) who upsets the balance. Their own selfishness or thoughtlessness causes them to take more than their fair share, impose their will disproportionately upon others, assert their ego, or something of the sort. It’s a key point that these people aren’t directly, outwardly rude. If they were, I’d have no problem calling them out on it directly.
So here lies the dilemma for the kind, civil person who encounters these people. Does the kind person rudely tell them to stop hogging all of the laundry machines at the Laundromat? Of course not; they give the offender the benefit of the doubt. But… how does the kind person phrase their objection? If they’re too harsh, then they will be the jerk. If they’re too soft, the offender won’t know that anything is wrong. So an internal struggle often ensues, ultimately leading to a resolution which comes across as “passive aggressive”. The civil person gets their point across by showing the damage caused by the offender, without making any direct accusations. Perfecting the art of finding that balance is something I struggle with daily.
No comments:
Post a Comment