How often do you "stoop to their level"?
If someone insults and degrades you, do you insult and degrade them back? If someone is rude and disrespectful to you, are you rude and disrespectful to them? If so, is it an unavoidable instinctual reaction or are you making a point (and do excuse your behavior in hindsight by saying “they did it first”)?
I’ll admit that if someone insults me, my automatic reaction is often to insult them back. They hurt me, so I want them to hurt too. If I take just a second to think about what’s going on, I may refrain from doing so and take the high road. Sometimes on the internet I try to be more guarded because I know that if the other person starts swearing and insulting me I will come off a lot better (and be taken more seriously) if I don’t do the same. It’s hard to resist the temptation sometimes, though.
In real life, if someone is disrespectful toward me, I try to let them know that they are being so and refuse to engage them if they don’t change their behavior (“I’m not going to talk to you if…” is what I try to say rather than blow up—but of course sometimes I do just blow up). From experience I know that being disrespectful back solves nothing. People don’t learn from getting a “taste of their own medicine”. It just makes me feel bad in the end.
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11 Answers
It depends entirely on my mood, and who it is that is being rude or disrespectful to me. I am impressed if you can always be so clear headed and sensible.
Sometimes you have to make a brief and succinct reply, since the person arguing with you isn’t listening. A simple “F### You!” can get your point across .
It varies.
It doesn’t often happen in RL but when it has, I am usually calm…which surprises those who know me when I do blow up.Then their surprise surprises me.
Online it depends on who it is and if I care enough.Some times, I just have to “walk away”.
I compare it paying to listen to chimps scream.
My husband is always calm and measured when dealing with people that are in an agitated state and I think it has intimidated some people.
He has a “look” :D
I don’t care what anyone outside my inner circle thinks of me, any negativity is therefore irrelevant & cast aside like a flip flop in a high jump competition.
Mind you, if you come for me or my family, I will calmly chew you up & spit you out until therapy is your only way out :D
I wonder if they have a point. Then I either apologize and thank them for their insight or I ignore them.
I’m with @canidmajor It depends on what mood I’m in. Usually I don’t care, sometimes I’ll poke, prod and toy with someone being rude to me. Not to be a jerk but more to blow something up to see what lurks inside for my own understanding. There are times I’ll stoop to that level. None of us are above doing that if the circumstances are right. We all have that breaking point.
It depends on a lot of things. It depends on my mood, it depends on if I’m caught off guard and not prepared with a comeback (in real life), on the internet, it depends on my mood and if I feel like engaging, and how important the debate or dispute is. If it’s work related and someone attacks me, I’ll defend myself but I can do that without cursing.
I will never stoop to cursing people out.
Probably more often than I should.
I used to deliver magazines to upscale hotels and whenever a front desk manager would act snobby or rude to me, I’d always act nice and smile, and on occasions I could tell that they felt bad afterwards.
Usually I snap back, online or RL. It usually depends on the delivery and tone.
There are a few people here who are very good at explaining what they meant in disagreements, and even apologize if it was misconstrued. Those are the people I have higher respect for and continue to engage.
But if you don’t tell them how it comes across, you can’t resolve the situation, so I feel it’s important for the relationships/ conversation to speak up if offense was taken, or it feels like it was given.
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