Jerk

So I had the chance the other day to be a jerk—and, boy, I wanted to. I assure you, the person most unquestionably deserved it. A friend had wronged me, wronged me in the worst kind of ways. In what I thought to be a casual, friendly conversation, this person made an attack on me—a puny, subversive, contemptuous, passive-aggressive spittle of an attack. Oh, yes. The worst of kinds. If there is one mode of human interaction I despise, it is passive-aggressiveness. Do these people not have the fortitude...the moxie…to simply address their problem directly to me? Or could they be in denial, making the problem just below their conscious radar that they can only subconsciously dribble out a weak, yellow slander? I can’t speak to that. But I can speak to the fact that I was offended—-offended not particularly at the content of the comment, but offended at the contemptuous subversion of the problem. Ooooo. Snakey people. I was proud, too proud, and naturally, I wanted to be a jerk right back. Of course I would have been appropriately direct, though not hostile, in my retort. Wishfully, I’d like to think I could have responded with some caustic Oscar Wildish witticism. Ultimately, however, I did not. Did not respond at all. Carried on the conversation as if I had not heard a thing. (Perhaps in part because I am no Oscar Wilde). It certainly wasn’t out of friendship that I never retaliated their smug little criticism. My non-retaliation was for my own selfish benefit: I know that they could not have left that conversation thinking that I was some puny, subversive, contemptuous, passive-aggressive spittle of a bitch.

But I could.

Moral: kill them with kindness then speak about the incident ambiguously, in a public forum.




Hypocrite disclaimer: Because it's not this person specifically that I have a problem with (rather, their isolated behaviour is merely representative of a larger, more widespread annoyance), there is no need to come down on them personally. End hypocrite disclaimer.