How To Act:
Conflict Exacerbation
All relationships are toxic.
With the population rising at a worryingly unsustainable rate, forming basic bonds with other humans might seem inevitable, but fear not! If you’re doing everything I’ve been telling you, you’re automatically going to spark a number of interpersonal conflicts between friends, lovers, colleagues, bus drivers, food truck vendors, strippers, muggers — you name it, you’ll annoy it.
There are a two main ways to address a conflict, that will depend on the following outcome you wish to prioritize:
1. Winning an argument
2. Avoiding conflict
They’re both great options for any situation, so go with whatever feels right in the moment. Dealer’s choice!
You could also try prioritizing getting what you want, but that usually involves having to be fair and balanced with yourself and others. Or, more realistically, manipulation. We’ll get to that later, but it walks a fine line between giving up and actually trying, so I don’t want you attempting it until you’re totally confident in your ability to succeed.
BLIP
Therapy people love acronyms so prepare yourself for some real doozies. Also, I'll probably write some songs and shit too that you can hear by pushing a picture button like in those children's books that parents throw away after hearing a single button is pressed 174 times per minute. Anyway, conflict. If someone is being a stubborn dick, don’t let them trick you into trying to understand their side and coming to an amicable agreement. Remember what Sean Connery and I said about winners? There can be only one! So, if you’re ballsy enough to prioritize winning the argument, BLIP it!
Blame
Lose interest
Invalidate
Piss off
Meagan was living with a bunch of other girls including one particularly unpleasant individual, I'm going to call her canker-blossom because some people don't deserve the time it would take me to make up a pretend name. CB was a bully who thought the world was out to get her, so occasionally she and the girls had some disagreements. One day CB found something she had written on the whiteboard had been erased! The horror! Well, this was clearly an attack so she had to stand up for herself:
She started with an accusatory tone right out of the gate, BLAMING everyone for an unprompted act of aggression and in return began spewing lists of personal faults with the other girls. Once her initial fuming waned she LOST INTEREST, being sure to shut down anyone attempting to explain how her past behavior might've motivated someone to remove the writing, thus avoiding bearing any responsibility. When someone miraculously managed to express how CB had hurt her feelings, CB immediately INVALIDATED her for being too sensitive and assured her that CB's feelings were the only thing that mattered in the moment. To finish off the tirade, she PISSED OFF all the girls by comparing them to Nazis and punched the door before leaving.
By shutting down everyone's irrelevant experiences before a proper discussion could take place she asserted her dominance and eventually exhausted the girls, who not only gave up on that discussion but also learned the futility in ever engaging in an argument with her again. Win-Win
RAGE
On the other end of the spectrum, you could find yourself crippled by the fear of ending up alone and willing to do anything to avoid another year of lying to your relatives about how you “just want to do your own thing for a bit” when they ask you about your love life at family gatherings. This is totally understandable. We both know you’re barely worth keeping around even when things are going well, so if you start rocking the relationship boat you’ll definitely be dropped like a hot potato in Dr. Atkins’ kitchen. And when that friend who was miraculously born with the genes for skinny thighs and big boobs (you know, that one who married her high school boyfriend who also managed to stay hot and successful) tells you “he doesn’t deserve you”, remember that no one deserves the punishment that is dating you so her bullshit is actually true this time. When you’re batting for this team you should chose to sacrifice your self-respect in order to appease the other person and avoid as much conflict as possible. Your go-to tool is going to be RAGE.
React
Apologize
Give in
Evade truth
Meagan made the age old mistake of dating a musician, and when the relationship became long distance his douchebag gene kicked in to overdrive. He decided every little problem that came up was worth breaking up over, since there was no longer enough crazy sex happening to negate the frustration involved with actually addressing their issues. Meagan knew it was better to roll over during each of their many fights, since standing up for herself would invariably cause her boyfriend to leave her, subsequently damning her to a life of spinsterdom. One of these classic conflicts centered around the ass cactus actively choosing not to visit Meagan. Let's see how she handled it:
First, she REACTED passive aggressively by expressing a general disappointment without being direct about how it made her feel and hoped his explanation involved loving her too much. Verdict = he didn't think he would enjoy the weekend if he spent it with her. Ouch. Next, rather than pointing out how fucked up that seemed and discussing what that meant about where their relationship was heading, she instead said only the things she thought he wanted to hear. She APOLOGIZED for whatever she could think of, like not having a more impressive job, or eating too much cream cheese and chicken fingers, or being diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Anything she knew his mother didn’t like about her. She didn’t entertain any ideas about what she wanted out of the relationship, but instead she GAVE IN to his suggestion that if she wanted to stay in the relationship the burden was entirely on her to make it work. She EVADED TRUTH by omitting topics regarding the underlying problems inherent in the relationship or telling him to stop being a pussy and just break up with her if he was so unhappy. Instead she promised to be a better girlfriend and even decided relinquish her free rent to move near him so they might save the relationship by having a ridiculous amount of sex again.
Did he break up with her? Not for another few weeks! A+ work Meagan!
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