I know some of you will tell me that I'm immature for this, but I believe that there are many benefits to deliberate confrontation. And as Irish I think we tend to avoid confrontation too much. You know that moment when you seem to be getting along with someone, and then they say something you don't agree with, and you let them away with it? Why? There's a lot of people who have never been in a confrontation outside of when they were drunk. As a result their social skills have been stunted. However, when confronting people it can go either way though; sometimes people will love you for exposing a bully, and other times they will very cruelly exploit your weaknesses. What led to me feeling this way is that from being young I have had a problem of agreeing with people when I shouldn't and then resenting it. It could be something like someone buying me a drink and then saying a bunch of stuff I disagree with... then afterwards I'll never know for sure whether that person "thinks" that because they've bought me the drink that (to them) this means that it's rude of me disagree with any of their opinions... OR whether all that is only in my head. And that drives me mad! Now I feel almost compulsed to express my opinion when someone is either bullshiting, lying, being a hypocrite, or making a stupid rationalisation. When you do this to a bully they instantly strike back at you, and this tells you where 'they' think you stood with them all along. It can be very therapeutic in this way. It also pressures me not to become complacent myself, as you can't afford to make mistakes if you've become too cocky. And of course it also means that you won't need to complain about that person to someone else! It's as simple as speaking your mind when it boils down to it, but it takes a lot more courage than people would realise. It's no different from the amount of courage involved in making the decision to fight someone. I've had people I've been in confrontations with apologise to me afterwards. I'm not trying to say that this is because I've changed their outlook. But if they're apologising to you, what does that tell you? It tells you that they know they've let themselves down. They've taken it for granted that no one would ever confront them to such an extent that when it happens... they act on impulse and make a fool out of themselves. Now whether you're an asshole or not, no one likes making a fool of themselves, therefore afterwards they've no option but to apologise for the sake of their reputation. And yes, it is interesting to think that you were the cause to someone questioning their own behaviour, and asking "what caused me to behave like that?". If I know that if I will be risking speaking my mind more often, this actually pushes myself harder in life. I know that I can not afford to expose others unless I'm near perfect myself. You can get away with being a bit weird or whatever as long as you're not too cocky yourself. The moment you get cocky people will start to dwell on you're weaknesses and ask questions about your past. As a result of this some people "think" that I don't know how to avoid trouble, or that I'm just winding people up! But they couldn't be more wrong. You always learn something from confrontation. For example, I remember once I got blunt with a fella and he couldn't take it. He sort of lost his head and then when he calmed down he implied that I was ungrateful by saying "I try to be helpful to you"! In other words some of times that we had been having chats, in his mind that was him giving me advice! His reaction was almost as if to imply that I should have been grateful that he was even speaking to me all along! I wouldn't have realised that he thought he was this far above me if I never challenged him.
It's always good when you can figure out a facet of your personality / life that doesn't feel right as you go along and and then make the necessary change / s to your satisfaction.
my own feeling is that most if not all of what is wrong with this world is a statistical if not direct result of deliberate confrontation being over rated, over romanticized and over rewarded. different people might wish to live in different worlds, and that's fine, for them. the one i want to live in, would be one where no one hated logic, consideration, honesty or imagination. i'm not suggesting anyone should try to live someone else's, or one that feels just plane wrong to them, but this idea, that birth gender should have a dam thing to do with one's priorities, preferences or perspectives, is one that feels totally non-right to me, as does the culture that goes with it. i don't believe we are born to imitate, either each other, nor what anyone feels is a standard for, well really anything other, then being considerate of each other and of all things. and when yes, when consideration for one, comes in direct conflict with consideration for environment and even cultural diversity, sometimes you do have to draw a line of distinction between them, but i've never been convinced this requires nor even justifies being deliberately nor any more inconsiderate, if any, that ever it requires. i hope i haven't made that too clear as mud. i'll return to the subject when some clearer way of stating it occurs to me.
I've had a grounding in 'confrontation' from an early age, My GrandMother was a 'match girl' (google it), and a Sufragette. My Grandfathers (both of them) were active Trade Unionists, as too was my Father and both my parents were politically active as well. I followed suit, joined a Trade Union, and became active. I too became politically active, but with a different political party to that of my parents and as a consequence there were heated political arguments between myself and my Father.
My brother and I were just discussing something along these lines. He’s a middle school teacher, coach and referee. He was reffing a basketball game and some guy in the stands was making a big deal each time my brother called a foul yelling stuff like “Cmon ref, that’s not a foul!” So after the 4th or 5th time my brother walked straight up to the guy, removed his whistle, held it up to the guy and said “we are looking for volunteers, you wanna ref the rest of this game?” The guy was silent. My brother said he probably shouldn’t have done that cuz like OP said, everyone sorta frowns on confrontation and this is my brother’s place of work. But I think - fuck it. We only get one life. Why should we always be expected to be the bigger person and let it slide. Sometimes it feels great to speak up
