The discussion about whether his behaviour is “passive-aggressive” is a bit of a side-track. Perhaps I misunderstand the term. Here’s a better way to describe Tim’s behaviour:
He constantly makes critical/belittling/undermining remarks, but does them in such a way that he can defend himself if ever confronted. Eg, he’ll say something very hurtful, but laugh while saying it. His defence? “I was only joking!”. Or, he’ll make a really big deal about a tiny mistake someone makes, as in, go on and on about it for 2 or 3 minutes, but then defend himself by saying “Oh come on! Don’t you think we should all be able to laugh at ourselves?!”. Things like that.
Heh. Yeah, I can definitely see how it would read that way. But two things you couldn’t possibly know because obviously you don’t know us and I didn’t include them in my post:
A.) This was one of the situations where I confronted him about it and he fully admitted that was what he was doing.
B.) I’m not the kind of person to blame others for my own mistakes. If the tags had been important, and I had left them lying randomly on the counter instead of putting them away someplace safe, and he had thrown them away thinking they were trash, then that would have been my own fault. He wouldn’t have heard a peep about it from me.
Another one of his methods is to tell me he cleaned up the mess. Like, he’ll come and make a point of telling me, “Hey, I threw away those clothes tags you left on the counter.”
And I’m left thinking, “Um, congratulations? Thanks? What’s my response here?” He *wants *me to say, “Oh, my gosh! I’m so sorry I left those out!” but he’s choosing a round-about way of getting to it, which bugs, and makes me less likely to be apologetic for my own transgression. Maybe it’s just a personality thing.
I can’t believe I’m writing this much about an incident that was such a minor blip on my radar at the time!
The best way of dealing with people who make “jokes” that aren’t funny is to tell them that it just isn’t funny. You don’t have to take the “not understanding” route, but any way you can make that clear is good. There is no comeback to people telling you you’re not funny. Once you’ve got the “joke” out of the way, he won’t be able to continue without looking like an ass.
What you’ve got there is an habitual Verbal Abuser. It’s actually an excellent opportunity to learn how to handle them and to practice on someone who is relatively unimportant. We will all run into them at intervals in our lives - sometimes in positions of power or emotional importance.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough: you_Cant_Say_That_To_Me it is a very proactive handbook on how to recognize and respond to verbal abuse. Everyone should read it as aprt of their social education. (IMHO, of course.)
I should point out, it’s not always about making insults out to be jokes. Sometimes it’s loudly condemning an opinion that someone has shared, but Tim doesn’t agree with. Any attempt at defending the position just makes him talk louder, or infer that people who hold such an opinion are deficient in some way. How is that tackled?
It’s for these reasons that I thought it would be best to just try everything possible to minimise my time spent with him, and hope that my mutual friend understands why I won’t be attending these mutual gatherings as much as I used to.
You wear him down. No matter how sarcastic he gets, you just keep deflating him. Eventually he’ll give up or he’ll lose it and go so over-the-top he’ll come off as a huge asshole.
It’s easier to attack a position than defend it. Ask him to explain what HE believes. That forces him to expose himself to criticism and ridicule, a position he probably really doesn’t want to put himself in. But if you ask nicely with a tone of genuine curiosity, it’s very hard for him to back out without looking like a moron.
I actually had such a “debate” with him on the weekend. At the end of it, he told me he didn’t really care about the debate, he only participated because he enjoys “riling me up”. The man is a master at his game, people.
I’d say either ignore him completely - and by that I mean using a “so, how about those Cubs?”-style non-sequitur to derail the conversational track after he throws out one of his little jabs - or go with the “I want to spend time with you but not with Jerk” talk with your friend. He’s just admitted to being a RL Troll.
I actually started a thread about this one time, wondering if my intense enjoyment in taking the wind out of SS Asshole’s sails made this sort of tactic passive aggression. General agreement seemed to be that it was more simple non-engagement, because the provocation and annoyance he experienced was a byproduct of his own jerkishness, not a result of anything I said or intended. And really, what on earth is provocative, insulting, or annoying about treating someone like they’re actually being a civilized human being? Where is the passive-aggression in “Actually my next project is a big lap blanket for myself; it’s going to be star blocks in blues and greens”?
I mean, I suppose I could have told Jimmy that we were quite able to manage our family planning, thank you, and I didn’t appreciate his tone…but then he would have gotten what he was wanting, and I’m strongly in favor of a starvation diet for trolls whether online or IRL. That’s the thing about responding to, or even acknowledging, these sort of comments–they’re after the attention and reaction, so even telling them to knock it off encourages them. Pretending they didn’t even fire the shot across your bow is the only way to shut 'em down.
Are you quite certain that Tim’s name isn’t actually Jim? Because that is exactly how Uncle Butthole is–his entire reason for living is to pick and poke and get people whipped up and then sit back and enjoy the fireworks, and if he can’t get any fireworks then gloating as someone steams in silence will do in a pinch. Incidentally, that’s also exactly why calmly pretending he’s not being a provocative jackass is so effective. What’s the point of bothering if there’s not going to be any reaction at all?
The thing is, did you actually get riled up? That’s a no-no. The strategy is to bore him so it’s not fun for him to play his stupid mind games anymore.
So in a debate you want to just keep asking him questions or making neutral responses without exerting any effort yourself. Open-ended non-committal questions are good:
“Huh. Why do you think that is?”
“Really, tell me more.”
“Hm. I did not know that.”
“Interesting.”
“Where did you find out about this?”
I enjoy debate, but I don’t enjoy patiently listening to someone’s opinion that I don’t care for, constantly prodding them to tell me more, especially knowing that such intense interest in their opinion will just fuel their narcissism.
I do, now that I think about it, try my best to just not react to him. I certainly don’t get in an angry flap when he behaves like this, but it does leave me steaming on the inside, and it does force me to constantly have to think about everything I say and do when he is around, which is draining.
From the examples given and your description, Tim’s twattishness is self-evident. If John hasn’t picked up on this fact already, then it’s unlikely to become any more apparent by taking Tim to task in an indirect, and passive-aggressively, fashion.
I’m assuming that this behaviour is just directed at you specifically, or almost always at you. So your choice is really between a direct confrontation with Tim, or following Elysian’s equally measured approach, or obviously trying the first and being resigned to the second, if it fails. I don’t have any social graces, so I’d have tried the first once it became clear it was a persistent problem. It’s best done one-on-one, without John’s presence, where you can be clear that it’s being done deliberately and directed specifically at you. Don’t get drawn into an argument over this fact, or in trying to find out why it is being done. Clearly express the words you’ve used here to describe his behaviour as pathetic, belittling, passive-aggressive, and twattish. It’s clear you are not going to be friends, and that he doesn’t like you. You have nothing to lose from making it clear to him that your feels are reciprocal. Don’t ask him to stop, tell him to, something along the lines of, ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it’. If he carries on being vindictive, sever contact with him, and see John outside of his company. It’s simply not worth it.
Certainly not. Cut him off if that’s what you want. Just make sure you explain this to John, so he won’t “make” you get into the same room with Tim. You may want to explain this with Tim present, but there’s no real reason to do so, except to let Tim know he’s an asshole.
If there’s one thing that passive-aggressive, sarcastic arseholes can’t deal with, it’s transparent cases of confrontation. They feed on people who are too civilised to skewer them in open conversation, or alternatively try and respond in kind.
This is a very narrow definition of P-A behavior compared to the one I’m accustomed to.
P-A isn’t just a mode of verbal interaction. Is there some popular sense where it’s come to mean that?
Broadly speaking, it’s a resistance to delivering on expectations. It may not even be a conscious behavior, which raises questions whether the passive-aggressor is a fully-developed asshole or just needs help not being one.
Actually, I find this to be a very reasonable solution. Clearly, you aren’t cleaning up after yourself. If he cleans up after you, there is a risk that he’ll throw something out that you had actually intended to keep for once.
That means his choices are:
Tell you “Go clean up your mess.”
Clean up your mess and let you know so that if it was a mistake, there’s still a chance to undo it.
