A friend gave me an excellent insight today. In response to the question “how do you deal with passive aggressive behavior?” one friend said they’d simply walk away from it.  Using myself as an example, I said I know when I was acting in passive aggressive ways, I did not know I was. I appreciated when friends pointed out my unconscious behavior. Had they simply walked away, I’d not have known what I was doing. Soul brother Frank Maiello wrote, “I think it’s a much more complicated issue sometimes, due to an individual being incapable of expressing their real feelings.  This is a tough psychological dynamic, in many ways. I find myself doing it in response to someone who is otherwise a genuinely decent person, and perhaps they can’t be open enough because they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.” I have several friends who talk about the importance of expressing their feelings in open communication yet when it comes to themselves, they cannot do it. I never knew why. Last summer I had a glimpse when a friend agonized over suggesting I shower and use deodorant after sweating like a pig in the garden.  Imagine that. Being a natural gal, I didn’t think anything about it. Two weeks later, they told me they found it offensive but didn’t know how to tell me. They didn’t want to be rude.  Since no one ever told me I smelled funky before, I had no idea. I thought it more rude to let me offend everyone else for two weeks while we went places together until they finally hemmed and hawwed and told me.  I do not understand why grown adults can’t say what’s on their mind. A friend said he stayed with his ex after the love had gone because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She’d been ready to be free for a year but didn’t want to hurt his.  They not only wasted each others’ time, pent up emotions dissolved the friendship in one angry outburst. My policy is to mention something the first time I notice it. First I decide if it’s worth mentioning.  I pick my battles but if something truly bothers me, I mention it. To not do so means I’ve woefully underestimated my audience.
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