Passive aggression and the Cuddle

[Deleted User]Bles (deleted user)

Passive: to quietly cooperate, act appropriately
Aggressive: quietly resist
Passive aggressive: to quietly resist while appearing to be cooperative and acting appropriately.
Cuddle: experience of cuddling, messaging, communicating in between Cuddles, commenting and posting in the discussion forums.

The following are behaviors I've observed from members in this community including myself. Does any of the singly or collective suggest passive aggression? If so, how does one deal with passive aggressive behavior in the cuddling community? I know distancing is one. What other strategies work on people we're not familiar with?

1.Messaging, texting for a few days, showing intense interest. Then goes silent without explanation. When asked to explain what's going on gives the silent treatment.
2. In the middle of a Cuddle, some things are said in back and forth conversation. A comment or two is made. Someone may be offended or irritated but says nothing. Then at one moment in between cycles of changing positions just gets up, picks up his or her belongings and asks to leave. Complimenting you on a great session and says nothing else. When asked what's happening, gives some sarcastic joke and walks away.
3. Subtly insulting by complimenting negative behavior.
4. Using humor to criticize or demonize someone or something said that is disliked or disagreed with.
5. Deliberately ignoring others while talking at liked or like minded folks or to oneself.
6. Stubbornly defends viewpoints with good arguments purposefully with the intent to annoy and put down others.
7. Playing the weak and powerless victim, martyr ; giving exaggerated or imagined personal issues .
8. Self deprecation, wanting and needing attention, quitting on a Cuddle: an appointment, a conversation a connection when it's not going the one feels it should or to one's liking.

Comments

  • There are only two sorts of people in the world : those you don't understand ; and those you think you understand, but actually don't.
    Geoff

  • You will sooner develop a unified theory of the universe that eluded Einstein then develop a unified understanding of humanity. I will add to @geoff1000 most people dont fully or even significantly understand themselves. I cant offer you any construct that would give any valid universal explanation to your questions. The closest I can come is People be Crazy!

  • As much as there are times I would love to put my two cents in against someone that’s being snarky or rude to someone who’s just trying to understand something, I have to stop myself because I know that most of those passive aggressive folks are craving that kind of attention to spew more mean spirited garbage. Some of their argument makes sense but it never pushes the conversation into a more positive intelligent path. I find most of those topics just turn into name-calling cruel banter that lasts a few pages before a mod says “this is dumb” and shuts it down. No matter how weird or off- handed a question is, I try to see it through their eyes and at least answer it to the best of my ability in the hopes that my helpful comment shines above the idiots kicking the OP down.

  • [Deleted User]DarrenWalker (deleted user)

    1. Intense interest followed by total silence can be an indication of Real Life happening to someone.

    2. Leaving a cuddle midway through, reassuring the other cuddler that it was a great session, can be an indicator of some kind of internal change that necessitates leaving. (Unforeseen overstimulation can do it for me. Tough to predict sometimes.)

    3. Complimenting negative behavior can be sarcastic, or it can be a genuine compliment from someone with a different set of values to yours.

    4. Using humor to criticize or demonize is plain old aggression—nothing passive about it. "It was just a joke!" is so last generation. Punny insults are still insults. Drawing an unflattering verbal caricature of someone is amusing, but also a really obvious attack. Amusing insults tend to be powerful ones, too: something that makes people laugh will stick with them. This is why we have political cartoons.

    5. Ignoring some people while talking to others is standard internet behavior. Ignoring everyone while talking to yourself is... not.

    6. If someone defends a viewpoint with good arguments, this does not mean that their intent is to annoy or put down others. That might be their intent. But how would you know? It's entirely possible that their good arguments are meant to defend the viewpoint they're defending.

    7. Similar to the above, it's tough to know whether someone acting like a weak and powerless victim is exaggerating or making things up—Poe's Law exists for a reason. Maybe they don't really believe they're that powerless. Maybe they do. It's pretty much impossible to tell, because however pretended this martyrdom seems, somewhere out there is someone who's not pretending.

    8.
    a. Self-deprecation can be a passive-aggressive attempt to make others feel bad. It can also be not that.

    b. Wanting attention is just wanting attention. Some people seek attention by being passively aggressive. Others don't. The desire or need to be looked at isn't passive aggression, and doesn't lead to passive-aggressive behavior any more often than any other desire or need.

    c. Quitting on a cuddle, appointment, or conversation might be passive-aggressive, or it might be yet another result of Real Life taking somebody's plans off the rails... or it might be that they realized their would-be buddy's personality doesn't mesh well with theirs.


    Dealing with actual passive-aggressive behavior in people you don't have to interact with is simple—stop interacting with them.

    Dealing with it in people you can't avoid is frankly annoying. You can't change someone else's behavior for them, after all. About all you can do with someone who refuses to confront things directly (say, a landlord who will neither fix the washer nor tell you straight out that they're not going to) is bug them until they either get a restraining order or you get a straight answer (or an eviction notice).

    On the internet, option A is definitely the go-to.

  • [Deleted User]Bles (deleted user)
    edited November 2019

    @DarrenWalker Assigning comments to people they did not make on a discussion thread where the comments are clearly beside the username of the owner can be seen as rude, disrespectful and perhaps disapproving. It can also be seen as 'othering' a person whose intellect is seen as nonexistent or pathetically impaired. Or it may just be a mistake from an overzealous attempt to parse, correct and clinically analyze someone's opinion your eyes innocently glanced at the wrong sentences. That happens to everyone at times. It's all subjective assumption. Something we all do consciously or subconsciously. That is if we all are indeed human.

  • I wouldn't class all those things listed as passive aggressive behaviour, some listed are ambiguous. Maybe ask people in the moment what the source of their behaviour is?

  • edited November 2019

    A lot of things mentioned in this thread seem to involve non-pro cuddling. I wouldn't know. I only see pros and haven't experienced much or any of what's mentioned here. If Pros did many of the things listed here I doubt they'd get repeat customers. At least they wouldn't be getting any more of my business.

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