Avoiding Difficult People

I have been thinking about this for a long time, and have said it repeatedly.  I saw another example of it yesterday and today, and thought I'd throw it out here.

You know those people are just a pain in the ass to deal with.  The ones with whom every interaction is confrontational.  The people who are often gifted at gaslighting.  Who frequently respond defensively, often with the force of a nuclear explosion.

It is a common and natural response to avoid dealing with those people.  Sometimes we are afraid to cross them. To walk on egg shells around them.  To make nice to avoid the blow up that will inevitable occur.   To walk away feeling belittled, small and sometimes stupid rather than stand in our beliefs.  We often feel angry with ourselves for accepting such treatment.  We get resentful.

Our silence is often construed as acceptance.  As agreement.  People like this don't think, "Oh crap, they quit talking to me because they disagree."  They think, "I shut them up.  I won." or they blame the other person for the destruction of the relationship.  They don't worry that they lost our friendship, support, love, etc.  They just move on to someone else.

We can cite chapter and verse on why they behave that way, and why we respond that way.  But that isn't the point of this post.

The point is, that we help create the monsters.  When we avoid dealing with those people, they don't just get away with behaving that way, they gain power.  Every time we dance around a subject or make ourselves small to avoid the pain of the interaction, the other person collects power chips, like characters in a video game.  The power they collect is not just wielded over us, but others as well.  They use that "win" to build power for their next interaction - whoever that might be with.

Have you noticed that often, those difficult people end up in positions of power - in business, in organizations, in family dynamics?  They dominate over book clubs, PTOs, family gatherings, in companies.  They are the person everyone hopes will quit.  Or, to quote Lily Tomlin in "9 to 5", the person you hope gets "something minor.  Just enough to keep him out of lives for 20-30 years."

I have seen these people turn companies toxic, drive away potential members in an organization, leave support groups, turn off volunteers (and then bitch about the lack of volunteers) and destroy family relationships.  I would do so far as to say that we watched it almost destroy the U.S. from 2016-2022 (and the jury is still out on whether we can save our democracy).

It sucks to have to deal with these people.  I have spent most of my life avoiding - at any and all cost - engaging with such people.  It has taken my decades to realize that many of the monsters I have encountered in my life, I have contributed in creating.  I contributed with my tiptoeing around issues, remaining silent and making myself small.

Speaking up is SCARY.  Especially when the person you are speaking up to has legitimate power over you.  We collectively have to get better about not avoiding these people.  We need to do it early and often.  We need to do it before they have collected power and advanced to the top of the food chain. 

When someone speaks up, often that opens the door for others to speak up.  Sometimes speaking up will be emotional - that's OK.  Sometimes you will want to say it with as much love as you can muster - that's good.  Sometimes you will need to speak up professionally and objectively - that's smart.  Sometimes you will lose your ever loving shit in the heat of the moment - that happens.  

It is up to all of us to speak truth the the bullshit and change the damn narrative.