Can I ask how you did that? It's something I struggle with and was wondering if you could share a couple of tips?
I'm not sure if I have any tips or suggestions that would work in any or every situation, but I have noticed that people tend to react to
how something is said more than
what is actually said. A small insult delivered violently will sting more, and evoke more of an equal counter-reaction, than a really deeply penetrating one delivered in a stoic manner. Emotions projected forcefully and tangibly seem to have deeper psychological weight than mere words and concepts. As such, people can easily insult you in other languages merely by their tone of voice and histrionics. You don't have to syntactically understand such an affront, it makes itself present purely by its physical tonality and structure.
More than a few times, I have told some people how I really feel about them, or how their actions impacted me and others, in calm and metered words. This tends to come across far differently than a finger-pointing, obscenity-laden screed delivered with clenched fists at high volumes and pained, distorted facial expressions. One can defend themselves calmly while not needlessly increasing the emotional intensity of a confrontation. People who fear confrontation often fear the seemingly inevitable escalation of emotions that they have likely experienced elsewhere, especially in prepubescence or in that most revolting of all human institutions, the High School. So they tend to avoid it altogether, fearing that their emotions will burgeon their behavior into something that they don't want to identify with themselves. It happens easily.
What I've found is that I can, with practice and not always successfully, get my point across without raising the stakes, which makes saying how I feel less fearful. Plus, I never try to insult the person back (I may not always succeed in this), but I try to point out where the person has failed themselves, or at least where
I think they have failed themselves (and I may be wrong,
of course). People are more than mere singular episodes and even the person who takes the slightest insult as an instantaneous call to violence can actually have a loving and understanding nature in other ways. We are extremely complex critters and we often equate to fleshy piles of walking moral and conceptual contradictions. People
rarely live their beliefs and these are areas that one can criticize another in a way that may actually be productive. I don't know if any of this is what you were after or if it makes any sense, but defending oneself has more to do with defending oneself against the misconceptions or prejudices of others rather than defending something about yourself against juvenile platitudes.
I'll take an example from this forum where I wasn't completely happy about my response or defense. Not too long ago, I left a very long post (kind of like how
this one is turning out) and another member shot in with a pretty infantile response about the length of the post, adding that shouldn't I be more concise, etc. It wasn't a particularly well-written, witty or articulate response. In my opinion, the person insulted themself more than they insulted me or my post. That other people gave it a "thumbs up" disappointed me. Did they
really want to defend that inarticulate mess? It also seemed obvious to me that the person hadn't read the long post, either, they just didn't like how long it
looked. I feel sorry for such people. Not wanting to read something because it looks long, or being intimidated by long strings of text, won't help a person in life. Conciseness often comes at the expense of more complex concepts. One can't always express something in a Tweet or a Haiku. Deeper concepts will never come across in a few sentences. I'm
not saying that my original post was brilliant or without errors or that people
should have read it. My complaint had nothing to do with my long post at all. It had to do with people openly criticizing a post merely for its
length. That doesn't make much of a point. You make
yourself look ridiculous and easily excusable more than anything else with such an incoherent tirade. Why not criticize what I actually wrote? That would be far more engaging. Plus, this forum is filled with long posts. I've never seen other people complain about post length before.
Anyway, I decided that I should respond in some way rather than let it rest. On another thread, the person had complained that "nobody reads." I took the chance to throw this back at the person and probably went a little further than I would have wanted to. I think I may have insulted the person more than just their post and that wasn't my intention. My main point was that, rather than look shallow, just don't say anything in such a circumstance. Plus, the later complaint contradicted the earlier one. I tried to be constructive. The person could have just said to themselves "that's too long to read" and moved on rather than pollute the discussion with nonsense. I've skipped over longer posts here myself when I'm short of time. Though I
don't consider any of this a glorious victory or any sort of a great triumph, a younger me would have probably said
nothing at all and the issue would have stewed inside me. I wasn't proven "right" or "wrong" in my response, but I was able to get my frustration out and let the person, and anyone else who read the posts, know how I felt. In short, I spoke up and so I could then move on. And, as this post shows, I will still continue to make long posts despite that earlier invective.
) and they have adhd and possibly autism so they were like saying they didn't know that stealing is wrong. That's one. Later on they sort of apologize but not before going on to their blog and complaining about how their life is a struggle, causing more unnecessary drama. Now I end up feeling guilty for trying to defend myself.
