Monday, August 4, 2008

Be Aggressive, B-E- Aggressive

Today I once again ran into passive-aggressive behavior. I have a friend in my new building who I had discussed sharing internet with. The problem was that too many people were on his network and slowing down the wireless connection. Instead of coming to me and saying sharing the internet will slow it down too much and it is not worth your money. He simply blocked all computers that are not in his apartment.

Why are we so afraid of being up front with people that we prefer to talk behind their backs and screw them without so much as the respect to talk to their face. Perhaps we prefer to be able to save face by pretending that we were unintentional with our attitude or actions towards them. I find that in the end we are simply afraid of confrontation or offending someone.

The problem with not being passive aggressive is the opposite is being verbally aggressive, which sounds much worse. It conjures images of verbal and emotional abuse, but that is not what it is. All it takes is being up-front and honest with a respectful tone, as opposed to stupid games behind people's backs and facebook groups. So as the cheerleaders at my high school said...Be Aggressive B--E-- Agressive.