Recently, I had to wait behind a woman who insisted on holding me up at a light while she texted someone something that was obviously far more important than my right turn. I could tell that she knew I was behind her, what with my blinkers blinking and all. Plus, I could see her looking in the rear-view mirror at me. Anyway, I waited for that fraction of a second we all seem to wait before blasting my horn (well, it wasn’t a blast – more like a friendly reminder).
She gave me the universally understood middle finger of acknowledgment. And, two minutes or so later, after the light had changed from green to red, she decided to hang up and make the turn herself.
Now, two minutes is not a lot of time, but it got me to wondering: Why the middle finger? Why say “fuck you” when all someone did was gently remind you of an inconsiderate action? Is that a fuck-you-worthy event?
For maybe an hour after that, I fumed. I found myself thinking of Niles Crain and his complaints about what he saw as the world’s tendency toward ever-increasing boorish behavior. I found myself fixated on what felt like rude and inappropriate lane-hogging. I didn’t say anything in the moment and I certainly didn’t rush up to return the middle-finger-of-love. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t reacting.
On the contrary, I was silently fuming. How could anyone be so inconsiderate? And why wasn’t I standing up for myself? Why did I let the little event go?
Alright, so you might be wondering why I didn’t, in the moment after the middle-finger came up, simply go around her and make my turn? The problem is that while it seems straightforward, in that moment it didn’t feel straightforward. Maybe it was my fear of conflict, or the way that little girl (err, woman) acted like she owned the lane, but, somehow, I didn’t muster the courage to assert myself.
Think about how often you see this happen: Someone does something that upsets others — they yell, bully or leave people out, ignore emails, do shoddy work, show up late, text message during meetings, play favorites — and the people around them don’t say anything. To be sure, those people are reacting – they’re just not doing it openly.
I used to think that passive aggressiveness was simply some people’s way of being obnoxious. But while sitting there behind her, I experienced the cause of a lot of passive aggressiveness:
“Passive Aggression is the feeling of powerlessness that grows in the fertile ground between anger and silence.”
Passive aggression is an attempt to regain power and relieve the tension created by that gap between anger and silence. People complain to each other. They withdraw, use sarcasm, and resist the person in quiet, insidiously defensible ways.
Dealing with a passive aggressive person is one thing. But what if it’s you who is being passively aggressive? In the immediate case, how else might I have responded to the finger? According to several writers, there are four potentials:
- Do nothing. Just live with it . Of course, that is what I ended up doing but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t bothered by the driver’s behavior. If something doesn’t matter to us that much and our anger dissipates, then silence can be productive. In other words, if there’s no anger, there’s no gap.
- Gossip and channel the anger: Eventually I talked to several people about drivers in my small town. I gossiped, albeit without a specific person to gossip about. Everyone I spoke with was certainly supportive, and that made me feel better. On the flip side, of course, I’m sure those conversations created some amount of worry about what kind of guy would be so upset about be held-up at a stop-light for an extra two minutes.
- Claim the lane. Yes, I considered simply going around her. There were no pedestrians, and for that matter, no oncoming traffic, and the risks were quite low. But I am glad to announce that that obnoxious, if not potentially unsafe, response was not one that I made.
- Be super direct. This is, of course, the most mature way to respond and it’s our way out of the passive aggressive pattern. But it’s harder to do than the other three options because it requires that we talk about what’s bothering us and ask the other person to change their behavior. In the immediate case, it would have required that I get out of my car and approach the other driver, which of course was sure to result in her driving away like nothing ever happened.
Create an Arsenal of Response
It helps to have an established method for being direct about someone else’s poor behavior. And I am not talking now about traffic lights and middle fingers. I am talking about what to do in the moment, in person. What if you encounter the analog of such an event in the office? We can be direct and tell the other person that what they are doing is simply not cool, but somehow that feels like criticism and might very well result in a defensive reaction which would escalate the conflict.
In considering going around her, I was in effect wielding my power as a driver. But I didn’t want her to wake up from the texting and move her car to block me. That would result in something of a potentially unsafe stalemate and, worse, would have resulted in a diminution of my power – something many of us do to our detriment because we’re polite.
What I realized is that no matter what I do in a situation like that, I will end up feeling at least a little uncomfortable. That’s because, when we’re dealing with someone who is being selfish or inconsiderate, we need to be willing to assert our interests at least as strongly as they are willing to assert theirs. We need to be polite but also stand our ground. And that feels uncomfortable.
Here are three steps that might help, assuming an example in, say, the office:
- Ask a clarifying question. Is there a particular reason you are asserting yourself in this manner? The key is to be really curious (otherwise the question itself may be a passive aggressive move). There may be a perfectly good reason that someone is being inconsiderate (remember, they will not see it that way). Your curiosity might be the only move you need to make. If you hear a legitimate reason behind a person’s offensive behavior, your anger may simply dissipate. And, if they have no reason, they may simply shift their own behavior. If neither of those happen, then:
- Share your perspective while acknowledging theirs. I understand why you want to [insert whatever the inconsiderate behavior may be], but it’s frustrating to others around you. Have you considered what others might be enduring right now?
- Make a firm request. Since X is true, then please do Y. Saying it this way (“Since … please …”) suffuses you with a certain amount of authority. It lies somewhere between a request and a demand. You are setting a standard for how people should act and increasing the likelihood that the person will comply. I think this latter step is critical for leaders to master.
Mind the Gap
Avoiding the slide into passive aggressiveness requires closing the gap between our anger and our silence — either by dissipating our anger or breaking our silence. Breaking the silence isn’t easy, doesn’t feel comfortable, and risks open conflict. But standing up for yourself is important and, in the end, open conflict is preferable to underground discord. Boundaries, folks, are what we are talking about. Boundaries.
I know that having to tolerate a rude driver is not the best example for discussing passive aggression, but it was the readiest example I could come up with … not to mention that it is what got me to thinking about the whole subject.
