Another big reason people put confidence on their wish list of missing and much-desired attributes is the wish to face down intimidation and humiliation in personal relationships, whether it’s from a boss, parent, or spouse. While calling such intimidators “bullies” seems like an awkward thing to do once you’ve graduated beyond the school bus and playground, the title still seems fitting even if in adulthood the wedgies and swirlies are strictly psychological.
No matter how old you are, when someone insults and intimidates you, you think long and hard, over and over, about what you could have said or done in response. Unless you can also think of how to make a time machine, however, this mental exercise just makes you feel more helpless and less prepared for next time.
Like any animal under attack, you may respond instinctively and say or do something before you have a chance to think. For instance, you may go out of your way not to show fear because it might expose weakness and encourage further attacks, or you feel responsible for defending yourself if you’re criticized for something you didn’t do. In any case, being bullied makes you yearn for strength, verbal ability, and . . . confidence! And probably a gym membership.
The fact is, however, that many people get relatively inarticulate when they’re anxious, and very few people are good at the art of speaking up in the face of authority without getting into trouble. Nevertheless, they imagine they could stand up for themselves if they had more self-esteem, like the movie hero responding with a condescending smile to the bad guy’s sneer and pointed gun.
In reality, standing up to intimidation and facing down bullies is a bad goal. It would feel delicious if you could do it (which is why we love to watch such scenes on TV), but retaliation carries all the risks of road rage: losing your original purpose and direction and risking injury, guilt, and punishment for the unintended harm you cause. You’ve got other goals and obligations to pursue, and fighting battles with people you don’t like and aren’t going to change seldom makes sense, even if they’re smaller than you.
The truth is, fighting back isn’t the antidote to humiliation and intimidation; it’s more often an accelerant. Instead, give thought to values and consequences.
Ask yourself whether the fight is worthwhile and winnable by considering risks and worst-case scenarios and keeping your mouth shut to give yourself time to think. Nobody likes to be bullied or humiliated, but once you’re out of the school yard, the consequences for standing up to bullies are much worse than detention and a black eye, like, say, fines and prison.
So strengthen your resolve, not your muscles, and learn to beat bullies by remembering what’s important, and that humiliation isn’t.
Here are signs that a face down is not a good idea:
• You’re not a black belt . . . or you are a black belt
• He’s richer, stronger, better connected, and has better lawyers
• You have better things to do, like get through the day and not ruin your life
• You know that your confrontation won’t change anything in the long run, except maybe your employment status or the shape of your nose
• You’re throwing around terms like “send a message,” “unfair,” “can’t let him think that,” etc., and you’re not a Blood or Crip
Among the wishes people express when they want to avoid or end humiliation are:
• To be as amusingly insulting as Dorothy Parker and Winston Churchill
• To be as good at verbal self-defense as their bully is at humiliation
• To control anxious or deferential feelings that cause helpless paralysis
• To get someone to back down
Here are three examples:
My neighborhood was a happy place for twenty years until a crazy guy moved next door and posted No Trespassing signs on the fence between us. He accused me of dumping leaves into his yard and glared at my kids, who are careful not to bother him. He would point a video camera at them and my wife whenever they played in the yard. At first I tried to reassure him, but recently I’ve told him he has to stop, and he’s gotten even weirder. The police tell me they can’t do anything unless he physically threatens us. My goal is to get him to back off and not have to worry about him all the time.
My boss is often nasty and demeaning, though he thinks he’s just being professional. He’ll call me out during a meeting because something wasn’t done, even though he either didn’t tell me he wanted it or didn’t give me enough time. If I protest, he treats it like I’m giving him excuses or he just changes the subject. When I’ve tried to discuss his leadership style with his boss, I get told that’s just his way and I shouldn’t be so sensitive. I feel trapped and intimidated. My goal is to stop my boss from being abusive.
My husband is a know-it-all who gets overbearing when he’s drinking, but never admits it when he’s sober. He’s a good provider, and I don’t want to break up our family, but we all tiptoe around him when he starts to drink, and it’s oppressive living with him. My goal is to figure out how to stand up to him so I don’t have to feel like a mouse.
Sadly, not all protest is effective, and if you’ve witnessed most recent American political protests, whether they involve hats with attached tea bags or giant puppets, you know that protest can have unintended consequences, like making you look ridiculous. If this were a fair world, a brave protest would expose every bully to appropriate ridicule and/or cause him/her to reexamine and correct bad behavior. In this world, however, protests often strengthen and empower your enemies, especially if somebody takes your picture.
Your goal then isn’t to stand up to trouble, but to determine what, if anything, you can say or do that won’t stir up trouble even more. Whether a bully is crazy or just touchy, criticism is more likely to trigger irrational attack rather than thoughtful dialogue.
In the case of a crazy bully, you may have no choice but to accept an ongoing risk of being humiliated, intimidated, harmed, and/or fired and knowing you can’t stop it. That said (and your tears wept, and chagrin spat out), think of your other options.
Knowing that you can’t reduce these risks should motivate you to look elsewhere to live, work, etc. If you try too hard to fight a battle you can’t win, you’ll be too worn-out to leave. Instead, if you know the battle is unwinnable, smile politely until you’re gone.
Of course, every now and then you’ll discover that you actually have more power than you think and the bully’s power rests on nothing but hot air and your own fears. Most times this happens, however, you can’t celebrate a simple victory by telling the bully to get lost because s/he is stuck in your orbit (close