I was just out at the grocery store, and ran into a guy I knew in college. A guy that I absolutely hate. The guy that dated my ex gf before I did and screwed her up so much she couldn’t trust love anymore.
But, since I’m a nice guy, (that and getting arrested for assault is not on my to-do list) I managed to maintain civility while talking to him and his new gf. She’s a complete ditz (the sort of girl who can’t see how much of a jerk he is), but that’s not what this thread is about. He still thinks we’re on friendly terms, but I don’t feel like pretending not to hate the jerk anymore.
I feel almost like I failed myself by not kicking his ass right there in the store. But I also feel good that I kept my dignity. Sigh. If there was a “delete” button for people, he would be long gone.
Has anyone else out there ever known anyone that epitomizes all the personality traits that you hate? How did you handle it? Is there any way to deal with such a person and not feel awful afterwards?
I know just how you feel. You rationalize to yourself “Hey, this guy is an asshole. I am completely justified in being rude to him because he wouldn’t hesitate to do the same if the roles were reversed.” It’s true. You know it. You accept it. But when push comes to shove, you just can’t force yourself to BE an asshole. Not even to someone who deserves it.
You want him to provoke you. You need something to yell at him about because you look like the fool bringing up old issues while this bastard is trying to play nice.
Allow me to let you in on a secret: Taking the high road doesn’t mean much in that instance. You don’t feel better just because you’re secure in the knowledge that you’re morally superior to him. But you’ll feel even worse taking the low road and so you’re stuck with the lesser of two evils.
In the end, I wish I could offer you a solution. Sometimes there isn’t one.
Good observation, Enderw23. Some provocation would have been nice. Some of us need an excuse to be rude, or honest. It needs to be immediate, not something from the past.
And the other thing to consider, TheNerd, is that maybe you only have one side of the story. ?? If you’re going to go off on someone, even just verbally, you want to be sure you’re 100% in the right.
What would have liked to say to this guy? What if you had ignored him? What would he have done?
The best way I know of to deal with it is to be sarcastic, be the one to open the subject, and be just slightly on the offensive.
Like, you might’ve said any of the following with a smile on your face:
“Well, Romeo, how’s your love life?”
“Brainwashed any females lately?”
Or looked at his g/f knowingly & said, “Guess, I’ll be seeing you soon.”
Or on a more general level, for those I simply have no respect for, I use any of following a lot:
“Damn, hasn’t anybody managed to have you committed yet?”
“I see you’ve escaped again! Excuse me, I have to go find a security guard.”
“Do the wardens know you’re on the loose?”
“They still let you out in public?”
…provided, of course, you’ve never been institutionalized yourself (or at least not so’s the intended victim would know).
Remarks like these to people you haven’t seen in some time let them know that you hold them in not-the-highest esteem and they’re surprised that I’m being less than my “nice” self, so their retorts are usually lame.
I didn’t want to engage him verbally. He was part of the debate team, so could twist the conversation around. That, and I don’t think he even has the capacity to believe he’s ever been wrong.
What I wanted to do was calmly reach up, take off his glasses, then break his nose. Then hand the glasses to his girlfriend and walk away.
Ah well. Hopefully I won’t have to see him again for quite some time (it’s the first time since we graduated in May, despite the fact that we live only a couple of blocks from each other).
Bottom line is that I’m pretty sure I handled it objectively pretty well, and there probably was no satisfying solution, subjectively.
Leaving him with his ditz is almost punishment enough.
Aarghh, I hate that. Been through it with an ex-bf who put me AND his next girlfriend through hell, and then had the nerve to send me a “friendly” e-mail. (I’m not sure he knew I knew about the next girlfriend, but if the father and brother of the woman you’re dating disown her because of YOUR stubbornness and religious bigotry, it does tend to become gossip.) It’s a no-win situation. Trouble is, if you tell people like that what scum they are, they KNOW they’ve gotten to you … but if you don’t, you end up feeling like a doormat … like me.
Sorry, that doesn’t help much, does it? For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing – nothing you do is going to make him any less of an asshole. This way, at least you have to deal with him as little as possible.