This will start with positive energy and then veer off. This is known as a warning.
It is strange blogging because I am ‘talking’ to strangers and friends and family, all at once. My goodness, it has to be strangers as I had 300 hits day before yesterday. My mind cannot get around that. It is not that I do not tell everyone and anyone within shouting distance about my blog BUT 300 people? Phenomenal!
I do so love and appreciate what my friends and family say to me about my efforts in this regard. My cousin Gail emailed that she loved reading my blog. This brought a rather interesting response from me. “My blog is my favorite child, an unexpected and unplanned one but one that is, therefore, so very dear to me.” My friend Bruce, a friend since I was 19, wrote something fiercely intellectual which I cannot fully comprehend but gives me something to think about. He wrote: You have a very long history of quite deliberate and planful acts of life destabilization. This very much keeps you alive and energized. You will have a constant need to figure things out. You could keep this blog going for years because the next life change is just around the corner. I think the Uncle Dave book and the blog share in this same identity finding purpose for you…the meaning of your past will be re-interpreted in the context of your newly defined identity. Quite fascinating, really.”
Don’t you wish you had a friend like Bruce? He has been my guiding light through many of these planful acts of life destabilization. But I am not sharing. His wonderful wife Nancy is a great sharer, otherwise we would not have a friendship. But I am not as big hearted as she is.
Now onto the negative stuff. passive aggressive behavior. The beginning of this rant was written two or three nights ago. So this is where it begins, the I am still part.
I am still and yet again the victim of passive aggressive behavior. It haunts my days and nights. It is rampant in my life and perhaps the life of others but I do not so much care about you. I knew the term from a along time ago. I think the term is nascent in my consciousness, if you want to go fancy. But in a moment of almost divine inspiration it came to me that the rage I was experiencing was because the individual sitting next to me was being passive-aggressive. I told her so, she didn’t get it and flounced off. Good bye.
But then in the sanctity of my flat I did what I usually do when I have a big question. I emailed my wonderful friend and the font of all knowledge, He is going to remain nameless and his credentials hidden because I asked him and that is what he wants. He wants merely to be known as a “friend who is full of wisdom or the s word” (hereinafter FWIFOW). He actually went a little passive aggressive on me at first and did not answer back immediately (At his point I laugh at my own joke). Where would I be without my sense of humor? I would be in jail because I would have killed one of the individuals who have treated me in a passive aggressive fashion. It would hopefully occurred in the UK where there is no capital punishment. But when I get really miffed, I get really miffed and I loose all sense of direction and geography. I could be dead in the USA with all of the victims of mass shooting because there is no gun control.
But wonderful FWIFOW came around and answered. He began by saying, sort of, look it up on google. Why did I not think of that? (I laugh again, I am in the waiting room of a private hospital but it does not particularly seem to bother anyone, not that I would care at this moment.) But then the F guy (I am tired of typing all those initials) became helpful and answered some of my specific questions. “Is there a cure for it?” I asked. But the bottom line answer I knew. Basically F guy replied that really all you can do is get away from the person. OK, I got that and I did it almost intuitively. But it is clear I have got to do it again with this guy tonight. But with him I learned about this trait sooner, rather than later, and so therefore, Phew! So F guy has credentials but I am not supposed to mention them and will not but I can say that he has been a friend for about fifty years. I have some of the best friends in the whole world. I am lucky!
But back to the rant. Parenthetically, ever notice this with guys? The batteries and their phones are going dead. It has been a recurrent theme in my life, this is the third time since September. First it was Funny Man, then someone you have read about recently and now this guy who shall remain nameless. Who wants to entrust your life into a guy that cannot even keep his battery up? Much less anything else. Joke, but this time I am not laughing out loud.
Funny Man called me last September after dead phone excuses. I screamed at him over the phone for at least ten minutes, occasioning someone who overheard the tirade to say: “I am so glad I was just ten minutes late. I could not endure what that poor man went through. The ten minutes late tirade was bad enough!” I swore a lot but he was manly. He said: “I love it when you talk dirty. ” And he did turn up on time and was there. Once.
Then a man you have heard about in a prior post. His battery went dead, but who cared? Another dear friend was there ( M) I texted him on 16/1/2017: “You guys and your dead phones! Forget it!” He told me he was so offended. I said: “Too bad.” But we are friends again.
This guy, tonight? I texted him: “Good Bye”. See F guy, my friend of 50 odd years, I can listen and heed. I can because I have people like you in my life.
So you poor souls, looking to me for wisdom. Here is comes. Lateness is a trait of passive aggressive people. If they are late, give it to them as I did with HH. If they are young, it can be a learning experience, but probably not with her. And when someone does not show up at all, like tonight, it is probably a blessing. That is how I am taking it and using it. My stories of betrayal will be appended to this blog. One will tell the story of Derek who stood me up at an orthodox synagogue in New York about four years ago. Honest to goodness. All of these things could only happen to me. But my consequent disaffiliation with him was one of the best things that ever happened to me, my whole life. What if he would have shown up? Disaster, I would be living in New York and you would not be reading this blog.
Thanks nameless. HUGE favor, your no show. Eerie, the music playing on the soundtrack is Blackbird Fly, or a title to that effect. How prophetic.
But back to to F guy. He is so smart and rational and thinks things through. I have not seen him since I moved to London in 2014 but I remember he never was passive aggressive. I share his wisdom with you.
“Obviously there is much on the web about passive-aggressive behaviors, including lots of advice for identifying and dealing with such behaviors. But in thinking about many of the behaviors, it takes two to tango is my conclusion. The so-called silent treatment when someone is angry is passive-aggressive if it is done to annoy someone. On the other hand some people just don’t talk much at any point and others may find such lack of conversation annoying, but I wouldn’t call the lack of conversation passive aggressive in that circumstance.
Passive resistance to various things in work or personal life may come naturally just as aggressive resistance comes naturally to some people. The degree of awareness, I think, is variable. For some PA behavior is fully conscious and understood, but for others it is more of a learned behavior or life style or personality trait just as aggressive behavior might be with varying ideas of awareness.
Also, behaviors that result from inaction may only seem passive-aggressive if the other dancer of the tango wants action. So letting things slide about housekeeping may not be considered to be passive-aggressive if none of the parties really cares about housekeeping. Same for schedules, keeping appointments, and decision-making. But if two people’s approaches are at opposite ends of the PA spectrum, they may well be at odds. And like many things in event, one may debate whether the chicken or the egg came first. E.g. aggression may spur passivity as an adaptive response in some circumstances.
You asked about cure. I would only say that people can develop insight into their behavioral styles and change their tunes, so to speak. (Though some presidents are apparently unable to make such adaptations—not that I am referring to anyone in particular.)”
So there you go! I think that is a Canadian expression. I am working on my manners and Canadian colloquialisms prior to my return. Canadians are so polite! I will go into shock after encountering all of the rudeness in this London town. Thanks Dolphin Square as you are responsible for my return to Canada. Now they want an inspection of my flat. I said: Why? Then I will say: No. They are not passive aggressive they are aggressive. And this inspection is a form of harassment, But they picked on the wrong person. I had 300 hits day before yesterday and I am sure that none of those hits are on their side. If you are on the side of management at Dolphin Square stop reading this blog, immediately if not sooner.
Wonderful to hear the birds at night.