Thread by @TheMentalist_0

How to deal with passive-aggressive attacks

A thread to make a nasty person regret disrespecting you without being aggressive:

In general, when you’re verbally attacked by someone you want to answer violently and end the interaction.

The problem is that in some situations the person will be passive-aggressive.

This means that the person
won’t attack you directly, but will rather make insinuations to hide its hostility.

Most people don’t know how to react in this kind of situation.

Cause you need at the same time to defend yourself without being aggressive and save your face.

Here I’ll show you 3 ways to help you answer this kind of situation:

1) Sarcasm.

When someone gives you a harsh remark hidden as a joke, she often tries to destabilize you.

The intent is often to get a reaction from you by pointing out your weaknesses.

And that’s precisely the trap you should avoid.

Here, you should just follow the steps of the critic using sarcasm:

In this interview with Cara Delavigne, the journalist's question can seem neutral.

But if you look at the particular way she asks, you’ll understand that she's trying to belittle the actress.

As she laughs with arrogance.

The journalist's question is full of hidden meanings.

Here, what she truly means is that you're certainly like other celebrities who merely come to read the script without any interest in the original story.

But Cara remains unshakable.

She intentionally dives into the journalist’s game using sarcasm coupled with her facial expression to show the journalist how much the question is stupid.

You can observe that she:

-Raise her eyebrows.
-Use a dry tone.

The use of sarcasm allows you to cancel the critic, you implicitly show the other person that what you’re told is bullshit.

Here, what is essential is to stand firm, and never end up saying that you’re just kidding.

Then, like her, close the question by giving the real answer without justifying it, to get more impact.

2) Ask questions.

One of the biggest difficulties when dealing with passive-aggressive people is that they’re hiding their bad intentions which makes it difficult to answer frontally.

They’re trying to speak their mind and at the same time avoid conflict.

What you should do is ask questions to force them to reveal what is hidden under their remark.

You might not understand French, but here the journalist asks Mbappe if he chooses to give the ball or not depending on who is in front of him

Mbappe understands the hidden meaning here and immediately asks the journalist "What do you mean by that?"

This forces him to reveal his real intention in front of everyone, which is here to ask him why he passes more of the ball to Benzema than Giroud

By exposing your opponent's real intention you completely reverse the balance of force.

Cause then you can then either choose to close the interaction firmly judging that the remark is rude or you can give an appropriate answer.

Remember that If you don't expose the remark's insinuations before answering, you're unconsciously validating these insinuations.

3) Reverse the dynamic of domination.

Now, when you're facing a passive-aggressive attack with successive rude and embarrassing remarks or questions.

What you should do is reverse the balance of domination.

Watch in this extract how Ane Hathaway handled a similar situation:

You can tell seeing her facial expressions that she was getting increasingly shocked and embarrassed by the journalist's uncomfortable questions

Then, what she smartly did was reverse the balance of domination by flipping the whole interview to ask him the same uncomfortable question.

Here, you want to simulate a curious interpretation of your opponent's remarks and questions to turn them against him

The key is to stay serious and act as if you were truly confused by the real purpose behind the person’s remarks.

By doing this, you emphasize how stupid and nonsense the remarks are and you switch roles by making your opponent embarrassed by having made those remarks.

That's a wrap!

If you enjoyed this thread:

1. You’re free to follow me.
@TheMentalist_0
for more of these.
2. RT the tweet below to share this thread with your audience.