Passive Confrontation
That feeling, the one where you know someone you have to interact with on a regular basis has decided they really dislike you but they haven’t said anything to your face about it and you don’t know if it’s going to be cathartic or apocalyptic to confront the situation.
I hate that feeling.
And that’s one of the down-sides to being a person who is able to read others well. Because it’s not low self-esteem and it’s not paranoia: it’s understanding the visual and verbal cues that tell me that someone has a problem with me.
When I think there’s something productive to be gained from engaging the person and discussing what’s happening I’m willing to take it on. People often say things like, “I can’t handle confrontation the way you do” to me – honestly I don’t think of that as confrontation, I think of it as having an adult conversation to clear the air, but I guess that is confrontation if you get right down to it. But the ones where it’s completely uncertain if a conversation would be productive or just lead to slippery avoidance or some other backfire really sit hard on my mind.
Do I? Don’t I? Do I? Don’t I?
Because sometimes when you’re dealing with someone passive stuff just…you know…passes. Whatever wrong was perceived is somehow righted, or time passes and the person gets over it just because, or I say something that makes it clear that whatever I did or said wasn’t that big a deal. Without a conversation I never know, but I’ve seen it happen enough that I know it does happen. And being confrontational with someone passive can cause them to freak out or explode in ways that don’t allow for recovery.
So. I hang out in the uncomfortable limbo of inaction while knowing there’s a problem. Wondering, waiting, and overthinking about it.
(c) Regan Wann 2018
