How can I talk myself out of the desire to retaliate?

January 2, 2024 5:20 AM

I've always struggled with the character flaw of feeling the need to retaliate after I feel someone has wronged me. I'm wondering what strategies people who also experience that desire find helpful to sidestep it.

As a concrete example (and a subject of a past Ask Metafilter), there is a guy at the YMCA I swim out who made weird demeaning comments to me a number of times (how slow I swim, how beat up my car is)--I still have the desire to go there at a time I know he swims and throw out his toiletry kit that he inappropriately leaves in a public area (where no one else leaves their stuff.)
I.e., a retaliation that is wrong, doesn't help anything and only might give me a momentary outlet for my anger. I know that rationally, but the desire persists.

posted by Jon44 to Human Relations (30 answers total)

✨Therapy✨ was helpful for me in developing coping strategies to handle other people's bad behavior toward me and learning, ultimately, there is nothing I can do to fix anyone else. Much more effective for me to reduce my exposure to people who have treated me poorly.
posted by phunniemee at 5:44 AM on January 2 [7 favorites]

The problem I have found with retaliation is that some people are looking for a fight. If you give in to your desire you're only giving the rude dude at the pool an opportunity to go harder at you. He will probably really enjoy it if you ramp up and prolong the weird interactions with him.

If you want to annoy him a bunch you could try doing what I used to do to my most abusive customers when I was a server: ignore him as much as possible and when he makes it impossible make yourself scarce. People who enjoy berating strangers usually really dislike being ignored.

I'd personally be tempted to appoint myself Guardian of Toiletries and make a habit of cheerfully retrieving his bag from the public area and turning it into lost and found because I am helpful like that. But he's likely hoping for that type of response so you may want to try to be less petty than I am.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 5:47 AM on January 2 [12 favorites]

I think rather than arguing yourself out of it, just kind of go, "There's that goofy idea again!" and do your best to let it go. Or maybe, when you have that thought, imagine it in the voice of some kids movie character or cartoon villain. It sounds like, intellectually you know that this retaliation would be a just plain silly thing to do. When you engage seriously with the thought (even to argue with it!) you're giving it more time and weight in your brain.
posted by mskyle at 5:56 AM on January 2 [5 favorites]

A witchy way of dealing with this without causing yourself more trouble: Wish him well. Bless his heart, as we say in the South. May he get whatever help it is he clearly needs to stop being a complete butt to everyone around him...and if it's consequences he needs to spur him to do better, may they arrive to him quickly.

And just from a human perspective: people have to go out and interact with the world warts and all, and nobody guaranteed you a frictionless life. Humans are pretty good at generating their own consequences.

Obviously you do not have to put up with anybody's direct remarks to you and are free to push back or set a boundary, but your flares of anger at general not-specific-to-you behavior is a YOU problem, and it's up to you to pick a worldview or corrected reaction from the many that are available.

I've been recommending the workbook "The Resilience Workbook: Essential Skills to Recover from Stress, Trauma, and Adversity" a lot lately, as just a good overall grounding in being, as it says on the tin, more resilient. This kind of impatience or low threshold for annoyance is an indicator of low resilience, which can be a symptom of just general life stress, depression, anxiety, grief, trauma response, or medical issues grinding you down, and if the exercises don't help any with this I'd suggest it's time to talk to a doctor. Letting stuff go is a skill you have to learn and practice, but can also indicate a lack of resources that can't be fixed just by re-swizzling your mindset.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:24 AM on January 2 [12 favorites]

Adopt this as a mantra: The behavior of other people, most of the time, reveals something about themselves and has nothing to do with you.

When someone says something demeaning or accusatory about you, it's reflecting a flaw in their own character. An insecurity. So it's good to dissect that a little, see what's really going on. That YMCA guy? If he's complaining that you swim too slow, it's probably because knowing he can swim faster than someone else helps keep his flimsy sense of self from collapsing around his feet. If your car's beat up and you're still walking around as a confident, functioning human, maybe that's intimidating to him -- maybe he sees you as a threat to his worldview because you clearly don't need the usual comforts/status to feel whole.
posted by mochapickle at 6:28 AM on January 2 [8 favorites]

Sadly, he may be trying to bond with you in a "men giving each other shit" sort of way.

Any way you look at it the guy isn't having a happy life. Pity him instead of punishing him.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:36 AM on January 2 [6 favorites]

I feel like my own desire (not so much to retaliate but to DEMOLISH the person in an argument in front of an audience) is rooted in feelings of helplessness and feelings that everyone is against me, or feelings that the person is in fact correct (even when I know they aren't) or feelings that everyone else would wrongly agree with them - the stuff gets in my head because of my own feelings of helplessness in general. It's like this one situation surfaces a lot of anxieties and that makes me angry.

Maybe ask yourself why this stuff gets to you so much - are you worried on some level that people think you're slow or your car is too beat up? Maybe focus on speaking to that feeling - you can swim at whatever pace is best for you, caring about car appearance is bullshit unless you really like cars, etc.

It sounds stupid to say "oh just have more self-confidence", but that's not exactly what I'm saying - more like "try to think through what is bothering you underneath". Maybe this is all not helplessness but anger for you, for instance. Maybe you're angry at your boss, your parents, the bank, etc and it comes out here.

I would not say that thinking "I feel helpless, so when this asshole does something stupid while I'm biking I want to pound on his car window and yell at him AND THAT IS BECAUSE OF LARGER ISSUES" makes all the bad feelings go away, but it does at least take my mind off the asshole in the car.

This guy may be sitting at home thinking "jesus christ, why did I feel compelled to get into it with that guy at the Y? Why do I always do that? What is wrong with me?" He could easily be compelled by his own rage and stress that he can't control in the moment. He's not an arbiter; he's just some schmuck with issues.
posted by Frowner at 6:48 AM on January 2 [10 favorites]

I tell myself that person has done me a favor (now I know to avoid them), and remind myself retaliation = escalation. Whatever the slight was, it troubled me; why borrow more trouble?

Jon44, the related AskMe about this guy closes with "Can't help wishing I never indulged him in the first place." If your frustration involves lingering regret over initially reaching out, or feeling taken advantage of, when he turned rude, please work on letting those elements go? Knowing yourself to be a kind, decent person is much more important than one person's skewed approach to sociability.
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:49 AM on January 2 [3 favorites]

I can't find your previous question about this guy, so I'm not sure how you're responding to him in the moment, but I personally find it cathartic to blow off a little steam with how I respond to jerks. I don't respond with aggression or anything, but I make it clear I don't take them seriously. I'm not letting some stranger get under my skin. So he calls you slow at swimming, you retort "Good thing I'm just going this for the joy of it, and not to try and make the Olympic team!" He calls your car old "Thank for acknowledging my thriftiness!" Or whatever - have fun with it. I mean that - the correct retort is one that is neither aggressive and will make you smile as you say it.

But also, this is very true: When someone says something demeaning or accusatory about you, it's reflecting a flaw in their own character.

A mantra I use in situations where there is no appropriate verbal response is to remind myself "It may be unpleasant to be around this person for this brief interaction, but they have it way worse - they have to be around themselves all the time!" Reminding yourself this will likely make it easier to not be so annoyed by them.
posted by coffeecat at 6:50 AM on January 2 [5 favorites]

He may also just be clueless socially-he’s doing things that others don’t do. Bless his heart -which can be sincere, without any obligation for you to do more. If you have a conversation, it’s honest to say, you don’t understand why he says the things he does because they just don’t connect-and he can keep trying to be a good person in the world-you’re wishing him well.
posted by childofTethys at 6:52 AM on January 2 [1 favorite]

Minor Karma will get this guy. Don't feed him...instead, imagine his death by a truck's high speed impact, with his stupid, flattened face schmeared all over the roadway.
You can't go to prison for your thoughts! It really is satisfying.
~~~BostonTerrier, serial imaginer of several ex-bosses tortured by gibbeting.
posted by BostonTerrier at 7:04 AM on January 2 [1 favorite]

The guy sounds like a bully, and bullying is about achieving control of another person and theoretically increasing status. Retaliation, real or fantasy, is about taking back control. It might help to learn confident but action-ready body posture and a cold stare for when somebody disses/ micro-aggresses* you. Any strategy that gives you a sense of control and doesn't allow the bullying to harm you is good, see above.

*that's a painfully cromulent word use; I apologize.
posted by theora55 at 7:24 AM on January 2

-Some people are not worth spending the mental energy on.
-Sometimes the best revenge is a life well lived.
-To rephrase a saying … never argue with [those sort of people]… first they drag you down to their level … then they beat you with experience.
-If you engage, you will lose out on those moral superiority points.
-Can you try feeling a bit bad for the guy? His “best self” is not very good and wants to turn everything into a you-know-what measuring contest.
-For complete strangers that you will never see again… give them a sympathetic backstory “I hope [that guy who just cut me off] makes it to his father’s deathbed before he passes.”
-Sometimes the best way to engage with trolls is to befriend them… other times don’t feed them.
posted by oceano at 7:25 AM on January 2

How did you respond in the moment to this guy?

Maybe just a well said “fuuuuuck you” is enough?

“Blah blah your car is shitty”
“Fuuuuuck you” / “well it was good enough for yo momma!”

If you feel you want to retaliate in order to “teach him a lesson” then maybe explore that too.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 7:35 AM on January 2 [1 favorite]

strategies people who also experience that desire find helpful to sidestep it

As a younger man I used to have much the same chararacter trait that you currently find yourself struggling with, and the way I'd deal with it was by deliberately ramping up both the severity and the complexity of the revenges I was plotting against my assorted nemeses until they got Rube Goldberg enough to give me a genuine case of the giggles.

I don't think there's anything wrong with plotting elaborate revenges, as long as (a) you know that you're doing it as a deliberate internal coping strategy and (b) it always stops at the plotting stage.

Two of the nice things about getting older are the way it becomes harder to take one's own self-image so seriously and how much less impressive other people's displays of self-importance become as well.
posted by flabdablet at 7:36 AM on January 2 [3 favorites]

What I had to do -- as an educator with the occasional obnoxious student -- was clamp down HARD on my first instinctive reaction, because it was never the right reaction. This is pretty usual, it seems; lots of us get immediately defensive or attack-dog.

But seriously, it was me telling myself "NO. STOP. YOU KNOW BETTER" as though I were my own pet when something happened. The first RAGEMOMENT over with, I could usually figure out the better response -- or at least make myself wait a while before responding.

It's become second nature by now. I had a student last semester who was intentionally pushing all their instructors' buttons precisely so that we'd fly off the handle and they would have something to play the martyr over. Didn't even come close to working on me. I'm proud of myself for that.
posted by humbug at 8:03 AM on January 2 [7 favorites]

Why is the car you drive any of his business?

If you're swimming in a shared lane swimmers have to pass each other, I can see that a slower pace might annoy a faster swimmer. But it's not clear that's what's going on, and as long as you're following the etiquette/rules of the pool, it's again none of his business how fast you swim, or it's up to him to deal with the shared resource of the pool.

A cheery statement (with a touch of sarcasm) such as "Thanks for your input!" can be your mantra, if you ever feel obliged to interact with him. But your question is how to talk yourself out of retaliation.

It's been mentioned that you should remind yourself that he's likely a unhappy person looking for attention and to lash out. Then, you can treat him with more pity than anger. Also, take the long view for yourself. Tell yourself that if you escalate with petty revenge, it won't defuse the situation but instead make it worse and lead to more personal stress. Remind yourself that it's just not worth it.
posted by Leontine at 8:09 AM on January 2 [1 favorite]

Imagine the most over-the-top revenge you could take over something small like that. Ruth Rendell has a short story called The Thief about a woman who has a lifelong habit of stealing things from people who have angered or slighted her. Your example of the toiletry kit reminded me of that story. In the story, you would have taken the guy's stuff home and pulverized it with a hammer while muttering imprecations. In Rendell's story, of course, it does not end well for the woman. If there's a moral, it's that she hurt herself much more than any of her victims.

It is possible that indulging in this kind of fantasy just gives the issue more room in your head. But in another way, it highlights the absurdity of the situation. A lot of fiction writers talk about using their fiction to take revenge, right wrongs and exorcize various frustrations.
posted by BibiRose at 8:19 AM on January 2 [1 favorite]

Seems larger than this one dude?

a) if there's a real threat, protect yourself.

b) dude sounds like he's doing the hs jock/locker room shtick, not conciously holding malice. shrug, I could be wrong!

c) retaliation steers my thinking to resentment. the 'recovery' way to deal with this sort of thing without retaliation is initially reflective.
- what resentment, towards whom, is driving my negative/strong/disproportionate/whatev response to 'jerk'?
- how does that resentment affect me?
- what was my part in the original resentment, if I had one?

then...
- own your part of that, and clean it up.

notice if anything happens.

traditionally undertaken with guidance from an experienced person or therapist.

(that's a nutshell version and I welcome corrections and clarifications.)
posted by j_curiouser at 9:12 AM on January 2 [1 favorite]

Remind yourself that you will just feel worse if you actually do retaliate.
posted by corey flood at 10:05 AM on January 2 [1 favorite]

When I'm on psychedelics, anger feels so absurd and silly and far away. I remember what it felt like to be a kid - adults would huff and puff and grumble and I'd crack up because they looked so self important and ridiculous. It's easy to remember that feeling sober.

I used to be a very vengeful, angry person, and I stopped being that way because I didn't want to be anymore. I don't mean to make it sound easy, because it wasn't - it was a very difficult process, and it involved prioritizing staying calm and pleasant, no matter what. Once I made that a rule, it was easier to stick to - no matter what anyone says or does to me, no matter what happens, I stay calm and don't retaliate. Obviously it didn't always work, but when I did retaliate, I would go back and figure out why I wasn't able to stay calm that time (poor sleep? low blood sugar? etc) and fix that for next time.
posted by wheatlets at 10:13 AM on January 2 [2 favorites]

I have had these kind of impulses at a difficult time in my life. I never retaliated and the things that kept me from doing so were that I knew that if I did it once I would find it satisfying and I would want to do it again. I knew I couldn't do it once and that if I did it repeatedly (or escalated), I would surely get caught. Second, I realized that things I wanted to do would cause a lot of inconvenience to people who worked in the place, that those people might be initially blamed, and that I had nothing against those people and in fact liked them quite a lot. So for example, if your impulse were to dump out this person's toiletries (instead of throwing them in the garbage), for example, that would make a mess that the janitorial staff at the pool would have to clean up, or that someone might slip on. Your beef is not with the janitorial staff or the other people who use the gym or anyone else. this second part doesn't fit the one specific example you listed, but it might fit some other retaliatory impulses you've had.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 10:52 AM on January 2

Yeah sometimes our brains go down these pathways just because it's the well-worn rut and thinking thoughts along these lines is just our default when there's nothing else engaging us. It's a bit like scrolling on our phones or snacking aimlessly. Just a bad habit, nothing more. Try not to ascribe big meanings to something that's basically noise from a bored brain.

The best way to quit a bad habit is to replace it with a new one. Every time you find yourself thinking about or fantasizing about retaliation, drop down and do ten push ups, OR sing a song - making sure to stand up and put your whole body and mind into it, OR drink a cup of tea - making sure to linger on the sensate feelings and aromas, OR write in your journal about what you did today, etc. The idea is to create a different pathway in your brain, so the wheels of your train of thought can choose to run down those alternate set of rails, and the original path is overgrown with weeds. It should only take a few weeks of consistent practice. You'll forget and/or miss and/or fail a lot in the beginning few days, but that's okay, it's to be expected. Don't beat yourself up. Just do the new habit whenever you do catch yourself.
posted by MiraK at 11:54 AM on January 2 [3 favorites]

For me, the feeling dissipates after I perform some secret and extreme symbolic action. Like, draw a picture of the guy (while you feel all the feelings), rip it into little pieces, throw it in the toilet, pee on it, and flush. You may find yourself snorting with laughter. You may feel free.
posted by Morpeth at 12:59 PM on January 2 [2 favorites]

I make up a story about them in my head - driver cuts me off and flips me the finger? Maybe he just got the worst news of his life and he's rushing the ER. Server is curt with me? Maybe she was just berated in the kitchen by a jerk of a manager and had her hours cut. Probably I'm wrong and these people are just seething for general purposes, but there have been times I'm know I was wounded and acted badly with no directed intention toward someone else, so that could be true here, too. Plus, assuming the worst (for them, not of them) activates my empathy a little and chills me out.
posted by Ink-stained wretch at 1:00 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

I found a saying once that really helped me for this: "don't wrestle with a pig; you both get dirty, but the pig likes it". It reminds me that if I would engage*, the most likely outcome isn't that the other person learns a lesson - it's that I regret my actions.

The mental image helped me to see that not engaging was a way to stay true to my character.

* In my case, it was more of a 'pick your battles' thing than retaliation, but I think this works for both.
posted by demi-octopus at 3:30 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

The thing about retaliation is that it brings you down to their level. If someone does something shitty, retaliating just means that you also end up being shitty. You know damn well that your imagined retaliation is a lousy way to behave. Since you know better, you have the ability to be a better person. Why waste that opportunity? I'm not saying you just have to take the abuse - they say something insulting, you can say you're not interested in their opinion, you can tell them to shut up, you can walk away. Any of those is better than insulting them back.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 4:47 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

In the example you give, going there to throw out his toiletry kit would be an inappropriate retaliatory reaction, sure. But there are appropriate reactions you can have instead! For example, it would be 100% appropriate to politely complain to the staff about his behavior. They may already know the guy is a problem, but they need official complaints to be able to actually do anything about it!

So that's another tack to take: come up with a response to whatever provocation is bothering you that's more helpful than retaliating.

(Also, remind yourself that if you retaliate, you're sacrificing the opportunity to ever escalate more appropriately. Any third party who can help is going to see it as a situation where they have to act as the referee for two problem children.)
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 5:19 PM on January 2 [4 favorites]

When a coworker got me fired because she didn't like the cut of my jib, imagining the effect of my retaliation on her innocent daughter was what stopped me.
posted by Beethoven's Sith at 6:14 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

It may be useful for you to read up on the gray rock technique and consider cultivating it as an offensive strategy - it’s more likely to succeed than retaliation, less likely to backfire on you, and more satisfying than stewing in your own juices.
posted by bq at 7:13 PM on January 2 [2 favorites]