Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with confrontation

Golliwog Etiquette

Fiasco da Gama — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:02:37 -0800

Golliwog etiquette required. There's an emboiderer's shop in a very public place near my supermarket which has put up a display of golliwogs in their window. There's nothing ironic or historically self-referential about it, they're just a bunch of red-lipped fuzzy-haired black dolls in minstrel clothes.

Is it appropriate to confront the owners about the display, and if so, what's the least pompous or self-righteous way of going about it?

I'm an Anglo bloke, the owners(?) of the shop are a middle-aged Asian couple, and the shop's in a major shopping centre in the inner west of Sydney.

WTF, Mom?

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:57:50 -0800

Mom managed to make me feel like crap (again) during a family holiday. Do I confront now, confront later, or just let it go? While doing a craft project with my nephews, mom made yet another snarky comment about "putting my art school education to use" that she "paid $20,000 dollars" for. I've heard all this before, but she threw in a new twist this time, about how I "called home crying and wanted to come home" after 2 years. Um, no. The school was in danger of losing its accreditation and I was making what I thought was a smart decision at the time. I transferred to a (cheaper!) state school and finished my degree.

This was all nearly 15 years ago.

Meanwhile, I have a house and a husband and a job. Maybe not in my chosen field, but I know very few people who do. I even have savings, which is totally unheard of in my peer group.

I was a gifted "golden child" early in life, but I've been working very hard since then to get over feeling like a failure. Bitterness over not succeeding in the career of my choice led to a period of alcohol abuse that almost destroyed my marriage. (Mom doesn't know this.) I still have an almost paralyzing fear of failure, but I'm working on it and mostly doing OK. My husband is amazingly supportive. I know that the 17 and 18-year old me made the best decisions I could at the time.

I just keep replaying the incident in my mind. Every time she does this I tell myself that next time I'll say something, but this time my nephews were there, and I didn't want to start a scene. I told my side of the story (again) and then tried to pretend it didn't happen. The rest of the weekend went fine, and we hugged goodbye like always.

She lives about 3 hours away, in another state. I don't think I'll be able to talk about this to her without crying which is going to start a whole emotional meltdown for both of us. Do I try to deal with this over the phone? Wait for our next face-to-face visit? Write a letter or email? Or just let it go?

Throwaway email is momquestion@hotmail.com.

jerry springer style drama in the real world

genmonster — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:49:57 -0800

post confrontation: how do I deal with running into someone who makes me totally furious and might be out to get me? backstory: this guy hit my car and caused lots of damage, then lied about it to his insurance company. I can't even begin to describe what a bottom feeding sack of shit this guy is. Today I saw him outside my gym and I was just...too angry to be afraid I guess. I went up to him and said/did some stuff that pissed him off enough that he went inside to get his buddies. That's when I realized I was gonna get my ass kicked and left.

me: petite young woman him: larger guy with absolutely no morals. now I'm worried that he's going to be violent towards me or (more likely) vandalize my car. We apparently go to the same gym, which I signed a one year contract with in october. What should I do to
1. not have any further bad and expensive stuff happen to me and
2. not be such a complete idiot again (i.e. be more strategic and less confrontational when dealing with these kind of conflicts)

Make the tears stop.

zeusianfog — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:12:55 -0800

How can I stop making my roommate cry? My new roommate is one of those people previously documented in these fine pages who cries whenever she is faced with a situation remotely confrontational. She has lived with us for about two weeks and I've already made her cry twice! Needless to say, neither situation felt much like a confrontation to me...

a) On a Saturday not long after she moved in, her and I went to the Guggenheim. We got into a lengthy discussion on whether or not postmodern art is still relevant, with me taking the con side--though I wasn't trying to shit all over the day, I was pretty clearly trying to say that I liked the art we had seen and this was just a quibble. But before long, this turned into one of those conversations where the other person was just mm-hmming and then all of a sudden she was sobbing on the subway platform. In the post-mortem I did on this with my boyfriend, we concluded that maybe she felt implicated because part of my critique of the artist's usage of postmodernity was his complicitness with the fashion industry, which I tied into a larger argument about postmodern art's seemingly uncritical stance on fashion. Because she puts a lot of effort into her outfits, we thought maybe she took that as an attack, but I had no idea at the time, and I certainly wasn't trying to suggest that a private citizen who cares about her appearance deserved to be attacked.

b) After a class we had today, she was telling people about the vegan dinner party her and my other roommate threw on Saturday. I complimented her effusively about her hostessing prowess at the actual party, but today I happened to mention that some lard accidentally found its way into one of the dishes, like, oh, ha ha, things go wrong at every party. She immediately became defensive and started to aggressively assert that this was the other roommate's fault, which I immediately backed her up on. She started to cry anyway.

I just don't know what to do here, on two fronts:

a) What does this mean for my relationship with her? I want to be friends, and when I'm not reducing her to tears things seem all right. In fact, even when she is crying she doesn't seem angry at me, while she was crying today she even reached out to me for a hug. But I don't know if she really is angry at me or not, because she seems pretty good at disguising her contempt for people, based on a social call an acquaintance of hers made here--she complained about him for at least ten minutes before he arrived and after he left, but was gracious and kind and so forth when he was here. What if all the niceness with me is just a front and really I'm the asshole who makes her feel bad for dressing up and accused her of throwing an awful party and poisoning all her friends with lard? The boyfriend thinks I should sit down and talk to her about it, but I'm worried she'll see it as a confrontation and more tears will result. Part of the problem with the crying is that if I have a confrontation with another friend they may react badly, but crying tends to shut down conversation, so I may never get to the root of the disagreement. I still don't know what the deal with the museum was, I just have a theory, and I may have been wrong about this afternoon as well. So if I sit down to talk to her and she bursts into tears, I won't know where to go from there and I risk making our relationship even worse! Besides, confronting roommates is hard because she may feel there is nowhere for her to retreat.

b) The other problem here is, even if I decide not to take any action, what do I do the next time the waterworks start? I don't know what to say--Obviously I try and be comforting and I tell her I'm not angry at her and that everything is okay, and of course I hugged her when she gestured for a hug, and I tried to produce tissues and so forth, but it's pretty fucking awkward for both of us--no one wants to cry in public, but being the guy shifting from one foot to the other and murmuring comforting things to the sobbing woman doesn't look particularly good either. Help!

Assertiveness 101

justonegirl — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 07:17:57 -0800

Armchair psychologists and lifehackers: Please help me develop some basic assertiveness skills. (My apologies in advance for the length of this; it just has been eating at me for so long and I want to provide all the information needed to answer my question.)

I seem to have a very difficult time asserting myself in many situations, and it’s causing me a lot of distress. I have always taken great pains to ever avoid embarrassing someone, putting them on the spot, hurting their feelings, or making them feel defensive. This causes me to not say anything when something bothers me and to ignore situations that clearly need to be addressed. The stress I feel while trying to spare others any bad feelings is really eating at me, and I’d like to learn what should probably be a very basic skill of adulthood.

Background: I’m 32, married with a toddler son, and run a company with my husband. I’m a little shy sometimes, but not a timid person by any means – I have no problem leading meetings or speaking in front of groups, for example.

I was raised an only child by a father who was pretty reserved and unemotional, and a mother who was chronically depressed and extremely hypersensitive. I made her cry on numerous occasions, during what I now think were normal parent-child disagreements. My mom is bothered by lots of things, but rarely if ever addresses it with the person with whom she has a problem, a classic martyr. She also used to rant and rave about how much she hated passive-aggressive people (ironic, huh?) and scoffed at anyone’s attempts to “nicely” bring up a problem.

Also, we moved frequently due to my dad’s work, and I had a very hard time making friends. And like many young women (maybe guys do this too, I don’t know), I lost many “best friends” over my childhood/teenage years due to stupid disagreements. All of this led to some deep-seated self esteem issues on my part, and a fear of not being liked.

All of this has probably contributed to my current incapacity to tell someone (in a polite way) when I’m upset about something they’ve done. I recognize the problem, but I can’t seem to do the obvious thing (duh): tell someone (in a polite way) when I’m upset about something they’ve done. Instead I seethe and stress out and harbor resentment, all while forcing a smile and trying to just go about my business. This makes me feel like a gigantic failure as a person. I know I just need to get a grip, that the world won’t end if someone doesn’t like being called out, but I guess I’m just really afraid of hurting someone’s feelings, embarrassing them, or having them walk out on me.

This is embarrassing, but here are a few recent examples of situations I’ve been unable to address:

1. Our regular nanny is late almost every day, sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes 20. My husband and I really need to start our work ASAP in the morning, but we can’t count on her being on time. Yet I can’t seem to bring it up to our nanny because I don’t want there to be awkwardness, and I don’t want her to decide she’d rather work elsewhere, because it was really hard to find someone good.

2. My best friend has been kind of distant lately, taking a really long time to return calls. I called her a few days before my birthday (Christmas Eve) asking if there was a time I could bring over Christmas gifts for her family, and she didn’t call me back until mid-afternoon on my birthday itself. I was really anxious about it and it hurt my feelings. Yet I didn’t say anything because I don’t want her to be angry at me.

3. A babysitter we had over here yesterday spent a good part of the day gossiping on her cell phone rather than interacting with our son. He was whining and clearly demanding her attention, but she was just yapping away. Eventually I did just send her home, but I should have been able to work up the nerve way earlier instead of being angry all day. I felt tremendously guilty later that my little boy had a bad day due to this person’s inattentiveness.

4. The company my husband and I own is basically a subcontractor agency, and most of the subcontractors are friends of my husband’s. I have a difficult time bringing up performance issues or pointing out to them when they’re falling short of our standards, and I imagine it’s because I don’t want them not to like me and I don’t want social occasions to be weird.

If you have any suggestions on how to confidently and politely assert oneself in these types of situations, I would really appreciate it. If you’ve gone through something similar but were able to make a positive change, even better. I just ask that any responses be a little more detailed than “Just say what’s on your mind,” because if I knew how to do that, I would. I’m not stupid; I’m paralyzed by a bunch of psychological crap that I don’t know how to get past. Thanks so much.

Chew her out, stick it out, or move out?

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 20:27:57 -0800

RoommateFilter: My roommate of over a year really gets on my nerves, and I’m too timid to confront her. Is it too late to do anything besides move out? Last year, I moved into a beautiful apartment with one of my best friends at the time. You can probably imagine the end result: she’s not one of my best friends anymore. We rarely hang out anymore, even at home; I have been avoiding her and she may be doing the same. The very things that I found fun about her as a friend come off as immature and irresponsible now that I’m living with her. Sometimes I’m not bothered by her, other times I can’t stand to even hear her name, but overall I am not happy sharing a place with her. We’ve lived together for over a year and have over six months left on the lease, and I’m wondering if I should bide my time until the lease expires or do something about the situation now.

For starters, she’s an unabashed slob. I don’t mind clutter and am often guilty of it myself, but I try to keep it contained. However, she lets her mess spill out into the kitchen and living room, including and especially food-related mess. There are frequently dirty pots and pans in the living room. I barely go into the parts of the apartment that are covered in her stuff – there might as well be an invisible line down the middle of the apartment between her space and mine.

I also don’t find her reliable. She’s generally good with getting the rent on time, but she’s been known to flake out on things she’s said she’d do with or for me. She recently agreed to host a surprise party for a mutual friend, for which she didn’t prepare and didn’t even arrive to until after some of the guests did. She’s also been known to invite friends from out of town to stay at our place without asking me. We have more than enough crash space, so I don’t have a problem with it in theory, but “oh by the way Jane’s staying over tonight” gets on my nerves.

How could this have gone on for so long? Simple: I’m a wuss. I’m terrified of confrontation and, when I do get frustrated enough to speak my mind, I often soft-ball it or get talked down easily. I’m scared that confronting her would turn our cold war into an all-out battle, and my living situation is stressful enough as it is. On top of that, I’ve kept my frustration quiet for so long that I worry anything I say now would be too little too late.

We haven’t had official house rules, and I’m not sure they’d work at this point.

Lately I’ve been thinking of moving out. At this point, this is a bridge I don’t mind burning, but I also want to be diplomatic and fair. I don’t want to be too much of a jerk. And, since we have several mutual friends, I want to be able to make a clean break without jeopardizing my friendship with them. Moving will put considerable financial strain on me, though I should be able to find a small apartment that does not cost too much more than my current share of the rent/utilities. If I move, I will likely live alone.

Whether I move or whether I talk to her, I’m not sure how to go about doing it. Both options make me quite anxious and I’m not sure I can pull either off. I can survive with things as they are, but it’s not ideal. My strategy so far has been one of disgruntled avoidance, but considering I’m posting this question, it’s not really working.

In case you need it: timidroomie@gmail.com

Computer Reimbursement

FuManchu — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 12:06:12 -0800

How do I ask for reimbursement for using my computer for my job? How much should I ask for? Should I ask for a company-provided computer? Should I ask for payment towards my next computer?

[Simple issue made large below]

I began working at a new job while I was in a different city. My boss asked if I could use my laptop while starting up and I agreed. I haven't brought the issue up since, and am now preparing to.

My laptop is now making lots of groaning noise. It has never been moved daily as much as it has for the past two months. It is large (Dell Inspiron 9300), and not meant to be rugged. There wasn't any noticible wear on it previously. I used it for an hour a day on average; I am now on it ~14 hours a day.

I am considering leaving the job, and would not like to make sure I haven't shortened the life of my personal computer for nothing.

My boss ignores all money issues as long as possible. It is only he and myself in the company. If I ask an open ended question about what his policy is, I will not receive an answer. He is nice and a great guy, I just need a game plan going in.

He farts and he cusses and stinks up the busses

Citizen Premier — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 10:36:29 -0800

Help me defend myself against an angry bus driver! I use a San Diego youth bus pass which clearly states it's for use by people ages 6-18, however a local bus driver insists you can't use it once you turn 18, because you are an adult and not a youth. In my last encounter I simply took the next bus, but I can't do that every time. An online print-out that clarified it would be nice, but I don't know where to find them. He seems like an angry kind of guy, whereas I'm shy and avoid confrontation. How do I convince him without getting him more upset?

How to tell a new employee her clothes are too sloppy?

mygothlaundry — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 11:36:30 -0800

How do I gently inform a new employee that she needs to dress better? We recently hired a new part time person for our (very) small staff. She's wonderful; we love her; she's already great - work-wise. Appearance-wise, however, she leaves something to be desired. She's sloppy; her clothes don't fit well or match and they're just inappropriate for her position, which is very much in the public eye. She's also in her mid thirties, so you would think that she would know dressing like a college student is no longer appropriate. Her clothing style is what we here in Asheville call "crunchy" btw: messed up old Ugg boots, corduroy jeans that don't fit, a not quite clean shirt that clashes horribly with the much too small cardigan over it, striped kneesocks with a plaid skirt and so on. We do have a dress code but it doesn't cover this kind of thing: it just says no jeans & no logo T-shirts & please be neat.

She doesn't have to get all corporated out - noone expects her to wear a suit every day or anything - but she should look like an adult, have clothes that are basically business to business casual and are clean, match and fit. This whole thing is hard for me because I certainly don't dress like a corporate clone: I mostly just wear black and try to make sure that everything looks at least kind of "officey." So I have no idea how to approach this entire conversation and, as I hate confronting people for anything at all, much less something personal like this, I am turning to the hive mind.

GO HOME!

sunshinesky — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 15:01:50 -0800

How do I deal with a roommate's SO? I'm reaching my limit.

When my bf and I introduced our female-friend to our newly-single roommate last fall, we were certainly not looking for another roomie. Since their first date (Sept-Octoberish), she has literally slept over every night. This including nights during which they were officially 'broken up'.

It has gotten to the point where my friendship with her and our roommate has become strained.

It all started when she started borrowing clothes from me and amassing a pile until I demanded them back (after numerous polite requests). Since then she hasn't been the least bit shy to let her inner-bitch out in the form of rude comments and condescending tones.

To add injury to insult [sic], she makes no household contribution in the form of $Funds$ or Effort. She simply comes 'home' at midnight and stays until she has to get ready for work (she lives close enough to run home just before commuting). This includes a lot of time spent without our real roomate here, since he works regular 9-5 hours. Obviously, she needs a key for this freedom.

So, I've garnered some advice on the matter from friends which basically surmises that I should "confront the bitch, and make her pay bills, tell her to get the f*ck out, etc.".

I can understand why these is the only logical answers. but it really doesn't fit my needs. I need a solution that will not render my living situation tense, uncomfortable or otherwise unlivable. I am not a confrontational person, and I need some idea of how to maintain an amicable relationship with both roommate and not-so-roommate.

So, hivemind, give me suggestions that can make this happen. I'm sick tired of being taken advantage of by matters that are essentially beyond my control.

Help me avoid all-out war.

Why do I get teary-eyed when I am serious?

sian — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 13:50:47 -0800

Is there a reason I get teary-eyed when I find myself in even the most remotely serious situation? I don't consider myself a sad person in the least, but for some reason, whenever a serious topic comes up, I find myself tearing up and getting that itchy I'm-gonna-cry feeling in my throat. My jaw jitters and I might stumble over what I'm saying for fear of starting up the ol' waterworks.

Whether it's talking about global warming, a friend's breakup, how much I love my cat, or even when I find myself in a small confrontation, I feel it coming on. I never actually cry, but I know my eyes get glassy and I look uncomfortable. I feel like a dork as a result.

It's not a serious problem--just an annoyance. I just want to know why it happens. Has anyone else ever experienced this? Is it a mental (i.e. depression that I am not aware of?) or physical (i.e. heart rate induces tears?) thing? Chalking it up to "I'm a crybaby" just doesn't satisfy me!

How do you deal with casual racism/prejudice?

lunkfish — Sat, 27 May 2006 13:25:02 -0800

How do you deal with casual racism/prejudice without starting trouble? I moved to a new area a while ago, and at least twice a day people of race Y mutter insults, try and stare me out or knock into me deliberately. I can only assume it's cause I'm a young guy of race X. Either that or some other feature of how I look.

I 'd like to ignore them as I don't care what they think, but it wears you down if it's happening all the time. It's a bad area - not that I won't stand up for myself, but I'm not really keen on escalating any situations.

How to stand your ground / survive a confrontation

dino terror — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 16:54:55 -0800

How to stand your ground / survive a confrontation I think fight or flight plays a big role in this, and I guess the answer has a good deal to do with confidence. My experience with a few verbal confrontations was ‘fight’, and then I realize I cant win and then I revert to ‘flight’ and I tend to shut down physically. I feel weak. I can barely hold my head up. I suppose in a confrontation with the threat of physical violence I may go further in this physiological abandon ship and start quivering or what have you.
How can I avoid that kind of thing happening? The way I look at it, it helps to be confident in general, confident of your chances of coming out on top of the confrontation, and then the key thing is to be unperturbed about the idea of being beaten. But how do you be unperturbed when someone has got you in a position verbally where they are going to give you a severe dressing down and there is nothing you can do about it. How do you stand there and take it at that point without flight (shutting down) or fight (having your blood boil). Both have happened to me and I think its because my body wants to act in one way and my mind is saying that isn’t an option so the body just overloads in one direction or the other. Any thoughts?

How to deal with a bully from my childhood

Civa — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 22:01:37 -0800

HIGH SCHOOL BULLY QUESTION.
I'm 30 now and very recently discovered an old school reunion site which brought up a couple of questions for me. When I was 13-15 I had a really nasty bully through the first part of high school (I'm in Australia). She made my life so freaking miserable and then, when we could leave school at 15 she left. My questions are as follows. Has anyone ever had the chance to confront their high school bully?? or (even though I know we're wonderful folk here on mefi), been confronted by someone they bullied?
I don't want to do anything but tell her that she made my life miserable and that it left lasting scars on my childhood.
PS She's not actually on the reunion site but I was toying with the idea of tracking her down.