There is a cancer growing in our body politic; our social makeup is causing an allergic reaction, breaking out into an unsightly rash that everyone can see but are too polite to point out.
I'm speaking of course of Passive-Aggressive behaviour.
Clinically, this website defines Passive-Aggressive behaviour as:
- passive resistance to fulfilling social and occupational tasks through procrastination and inefficiency;
- complaints of being misunderstood, unappreciated, and victimized by others;
- sullenness, irritability, and argumentativeness in response to expectations;
- angry and pessimistic attitudes toward a variety of events;
- unreasonable criticism and scorn toward those in authority;
- envy and resentment toward those who are more fortunate;
- self-definition as luckless in life and an inclination to whine and grumble about being jinxed;
- alternating behavior between hostile assertion of personal autonomy and dependent contrition...
Yeah, that's clinically acceptable to me. Pretty much covers all the bases.
Let me state unequivocally for the record that I despise such behaviour. I hates it like poison, so I does. It's the one pattern guaranteed to set me off every time, bar none. It causes an almost animalistic urge in my primitive brain to rend, tear, and cull the weak from the herd with my snarling, bloody teeth.
The passive-aggressives in my life have run the gamut from avoiding contact with me but telling everyone else I know how much I intimidate / provoke / am insensitive to / hate them, all the way to sitting in the same room with me, speaking nothing but allowing a giant storm cloud to gather over their heads affecting every single other person's mood until they finally force me to ask them what's wrong, thus giving them the control the want.
In the animal kingdom, these people are the ones who die with their teeth in you so you have to cut out their mouthful with them; who don't have the decency to crawl off into the bushes and die but do it right out in the middle of the highway where they force you to drive over them.
They are the social inepts who sigh loudly and lustily to get you to include them in your conversation; the "victims" who whine about how they're hurting or how unfair life is; the "worst luck in the world" cases who say they can never succeed because "the world is against them."
And we are breeding them by the boatload.
We encourage this. It started as simple manners: Don't argue or criticize in public, only in private; don't start fights; don't appear churlish; don't don't don't.
However, there are always those who manipulate the system and what once were manners became weapons. "I can't because." "She won't let me because." "They hold me back."
Some of my friends don't even return phone calls because they don't want to tell me NO. They just pretend they aren't home or didn't get my message. I mean, for GOD'S SAKE.
Do I look like I'm afraid to confront you?
But do you know what I hate WORSE? I do it. I catch myself doing it and it infuriates me. What am I, a little kid? And do you know, that's exactly what this whole Cult of Passive-Aggressiveness reminds me of: Little kids doing everything in their power to avoid a spanking. They'll lie, hide, pretend they didn't hear you, or try to distract you with the old "look-what-I-can-do" routine and then pretend that nothing ever happened.
They'll see you next week and just pick up where you left off before the argument or whatever happened. GOD. Do you people think I'm stupid, or are you really that insane to think the world works that way??
Except apparently, it does. Let's move on, ain't no thing, don't get worked up about it, take a pill, calm down, water under the bridge.
Fuckers. I will not give in to your cult of lies.
"But Agent M," you exclaim, "your website is replete with references-- some very thinly veiled-- to people we know personally and you're just trashing them out of hand."
I must point out the difference. Every single thing that ever, EVER goes on my website is something that I have said, out loud and to the face of, the people in question, if it indeed does concern certain individuals-- and it's also something you can call me on if you want to cry "bullshit."
"So why do you use a pseudonym for your site?"
Because it's the theme of the site. I'm a SPY, dammit, I get to have a cool name. Do you think I'm afraid for the world to know that my full name is Craig Michael McAdam? Don't make me LAUGH. I'm not hiding anything.
Comments are allowed and encouraged. Discourse and disagreements, politics and posturing, go ahead, fill your boots. I don't fear your criticism and I'm happy to receive your congratulations.
What a pity that those of you out there that this is meant for won't say a word. You'll just go for coffee, smoke cigarettes, and tell all your friends what a sad loser I am. Somehow, though, I can't seem to bring myself to care.
But then again, maybe I'm just being passive-aggressive.
Sure, it's only an opinion. But at least it's MINE.
Posted by Michael at June 03, 2002 09:27 PMEvery Agent can always trust their mom to come by and clean up their language for them.
Sigh. :)
Posted by: Agent M on July 4, 2002 06:55 PMYeah, don't say fuckers... cocksmokers is a much better word.
Posted by: Brucie on July 20, 2002 06:06 PMI was googling "passive aggressive friendship" and came upon your site. You're young enough that you may not have experienced friends dying -- but in my experience, when they do, you don't even remember the petty offenses -- you just wish you could relive all those good times you'd forgotten that will suddenly flood your mind. Life is short! We all tend toward dumbness. Forgive it all, big and small. Forgive yourself, too. God bless you.
Posted by: Nerakfish on January 18, 2003 10:21 PMThat's great, Nerakfish, and very easily said. Who among us wouldn't forgive a friend their sins if they died?
I find your comment glib, with an undertone of sadness -- perhaps you've just lost a friend? -- but I must stand by what I've said.
The fact that a person may die tomorrow does not excuse their behaviour today. In fact, your "God bless you" and "forgive it all" tends to make me think your viewpoint is more or less Christian, which leads me to point this out: Christians are taught to forgive. And generally, the act of forgiveness facilitates the very behaviour in passive-aggressives that I despise.
Enables it, in fact. Hey, if someone knows you're going to forgive them anyway, why shouldn't they try to manipulate the hell out of you?
I reiterate: Passive-Aggressives are cancerous, poisonous wretches. Let them rot in their own festering boils; when THEY can make the effort to "forgive it all, great and small," then they will have earned my forgiveness.
Pardon my cynicism. It's earned.
M
Thanks so much for writing back. I am only human (in the most humbled sense of the word) and have felt (and continue to feel) everything you have mentioned. As much as my e-mail was to respond to your site, it was that much more so to remind myself of the higher things in life. And among the (much) higher things in life is UNearned forgiveness. When I look in the mirror, I can see any number of ways in which I have been a poisonous, cancerous wretch (passive-aggressively and otherwise), and so can any truly honest person on this planet. I can thank God that so many (including Him -- please don't be turned off) have chosen to overlook my less exalted actions. I know this sounds preachy; I don't mean it to. In fact, this very evening I've found myself angry at a friend who suggested going to dinner tonight and then bailed out at the last minute in a manner I consider kind of inconsiderate and self-centered. I suppose that wouldn't necessarily qualify as passive-aggressive -- except maybe on my part, because I acted as if I didn't mind. However, the same unpleasant feelings are inside, just as if I'd been dealing with true passive-aggression. I am disappointed; we have wonderful conversations when we get together and I was looking forward to it. I am annoyed; I didn't do other things I would have done today based on the expectation of going out at a certain time. But as I write this and think about the bigger picture, he has been a mostly terrific friend for 15 years. And I'm sure in that 15 years I have wimped out on him (in fact, I can now think of several times). So I guess that's what I'm really talking about when I talk about forgiveness (in the Christian and down-to-earth senses of the word). We all mess up! Perhaps it all boils down to how much we mess up and where our tolerance reaches its breaking point. If you know people who consistently disappoint you (and let's face it; that's the emotion at the bottom of 90 percent of all anger), those people just may be toxic friends (pardon my Dr. Philesque parlance) and shouldn't be in your life. I never saw "forgiver" as a synonym for doormat or dumping ground. I think friendship without a preponderance of two-way respect isn't friendship at all. I just recently "suspended" (maybe ended?) a friendship that I felt was unhealthy for me: an old friend who always leaned toward the negative but in recent times has become intolerably (for me)complaining, opposing, and criticizing -- to your point, I probably enabled this monstrous growth in ugliness by being so tolerant in the past. Anyway, thanks for your site. It's stimulating and I admire your honesty. P.S. I was born into a family of atheistic unhappy grudge-holders and absolutely did not learn to forgive there. It is not natural to me; every day I struggle mightily with it, but when I succeed it is the most beautiful thing on earth.
Posted by: nerakfish on January 19, 2003 08:44 PMOh Lord it's hard to be humble
When you're perfect in every way
I can't wait to look in the mirror
Cuz I get better lookin each day
To know me is to love me
I must be a hell of a man
Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
But I'm doin' the best that I can
I used to have a girlfriend
But I guess she just couldn't compete
With all these love starved women
Who keep clamoring at my feet
Well I probably could find me another
But I guess they're all in awe of me
Who cares I never get lonesome
Cuz I treasure my own company
Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
When you're perfect in every way
I can't wait to look in the mirror
Cuz I get better lookin each day
To know me is to love me
I must be a hell of a man
Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
But I'm doin the best that I can
I guess you could say I am a loner
A cowboy all locked up and proud
Well I could have lots of friends if I wanted
But then I wouldn't stand out in a crowd
Some folks say that I'm egotistical
Hell I don't even know what that means
I guess it has something to do with the way
That I fill out my skin tight blue jeans
Ah, yes, the tired old "egotistical" saw.
All bunched up in an old country song. How clever.
It figures, doesn't it, that someone like you would attempt their clever diatribe and then not sign their name. In fact, since you're only transcribing a song, one could say you're not even being negative, it's all in the mind of the reader.
How...passive-aggressive.
You do realize, of course, that every IP address of everyone who posts here is logged?
No, you probably didn't know that. Otherwise you might not have said anything, and that would have deprived me of a perfect example illustrating my point, wouldn't it?
M
Posted by: Agent M on June 13, 2003 02:11 AMYou're right. The worst part about it is when you find yourself doing it. Its like passive aggressives are like vampires. They bite you and you turn into one.
Posted by: Agent Z on July 3, 2003 04:09 PMI have passive aggressive assholes, I have one in my family and would love to knock the shit out of him.
Posted by: Tweety on July 31, 2003 07:00 AMI am not a passive-aggressive (although I understand they don't recognize themselves) but I have been plagued by one. A parasitical creep who takes two steps forward and then four steps back, blankly stares and comes back again saying "I didn't do anything!" That's just it! Error of omission! Withholding! At first, I was confused. Gee, could it be me? Should I have said yes to having sex in the laundry room? Maybe he was offended by my saying that the flattened toothbrush he handed me must be at least 1 year old when they should really be replaced every 3 mos. Get some Teflon, dude! Ask him what his favorite color is, he hems and hahs. What do you do for a living? Lies and deception. Did you go to that school over there? "No." Who did the punishing in your house when you were little? How scary is this thing called life? Those little messages in bottles just keep coming and I always forget to bring my secret decoder ring! Damn! After I flew into an uncontrollable rage screaming at the top of my lungs in raw public things like "You can't talk about anything, can you?! You can't talk about anything, can you?! Why can't you talk to me? I AM A REASONABLE PERSON!", I knew I had reached the only the top, just scratched the surface of a bottomless, endless, pointless pit of nothingness. I, right there and then in a parking lot, knew I had met my match. Soon thereafter I discovered what all the fuss was about over the "passive-aggressive personality." Who can deal with these whackos? Who marries them? Me, being the direct, assertive, open, honest, bull-in-a-china shop of a woman cannot bring myself to just run screaming into the woods. No, Betty! I had to take the fucker on. What an eye opening experience. Heaven help me. I wish I could be P/A just for a day. Apparently there is power in that shit or you wouldn't have started this website. Screw forgiveness. At this juncture, I'm takin' care of numero uno. Somebody else can help him. Somebody more skilled. I just wanna live!
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Posted by: slot on January 29, 2004 10:09 AMI was surfing looking for info on passive/aggressive behaviour and found your site. I had to comment. I don't feel I am passive/aggressive, however, I am guilty as well of using this type of behaviour.
Passive/aggressive behaviour is extremely controlling behaviour. I feel for Tresa Queen of All She Surveys. I so totally understand because I have been there on more than one occassion.
I also understand that forgiveness is important when wronged Nerakfish, however, when confronted with passive/aggressive behaviour it is better to run as fast as you can. These people hook into you and suck every piece of sanity out of you. I truly don't believe God/Jesus wanted us to be doormats or abused.
With a passive/aggressive you think you are going mad. You seriously think there is something wrong with you. You want to discuss something and they simply won't deal with it. I think their mantra is "Confrontation is the enemy, avoidance is good".
The behaviour is so controlling you want to scream. If you don't stay cool, you blow a gasket. Then they have you. They own you now. They have found your button and in the future, they keep pushing the same button over and over and over again.
I found something off another site and copied it so you can post it for people who don't know what passive/aggressive is. It describes how a number of personality types react with respect to anger.
Stuff it” (also known as Passive): The person basically swallows their anger and holds it inside.
“Hide it” (also known as Passive-Aggressive): The person stuffs their anger and then makes sarcastic comments or seeks revenge at a later point. This approach results again in unmet needs, unresolved conflicts and increased resentments.
“Vent it” (also known as Aggressive): The person throws their anger at others like an exploding volcano. Usually the person blames others for their anger (you made me angry! it’s your fault!).
“Direct it” (also known as Assertive): the person speaks directly to another person and states the Facts of the situation (When this happened...), their Feelings (I felt...), and makes a Fair Request as to how to resolve the conflict (I would prefer that...). The result is that anger is expressed, and often mutually agreeable solutions are reached to resolve a conflict. When this approach is used, it places ownership on the person to manage their own anger.
For those out there that are passive/aggressive please go get help. We, the non-passive/aggressive, would just like to get our phone calls returned, our questions answered, and should there be a conflict, like to resolve it in a timely fashion without going crazy.
Thanks for your read.