My mom thinks I’m controlling. She’s told me before, but she reminded me again when she came to visit a couple weeks ago. She means it as a compliment.
You see, I don’t control people by bossing them around (actually, I do do that sometimes, but that’s not what I’m talking about here). According to my mom, I control people by not responding. She says I control them with my calm.
It’s really difficult to make me angry. I swear sometimes that I have no temper at all. If you scream in my face, I’m likely to shut down completely or walk away. I’m not going to yell back. It’s just not in my nature.
Don’t get me wrong. I love to debate. I will not give up until I’ve convinced you that David Gray is a musical genius, that calling God “He” is inaccurate, that beer does taste good, or that Mall Madness is the best board game ever in life. Debates are personal, but they’re about something.
I can spot a pointless fight from miles away, and I will not engage. It’s not a self control thing at all. It’s a personality thing.
There is only one person who has ever known how to really push my buttons–one person who could get me to scream back at her. That’s my sister. But, after years and years of emotional battles, I finally gave up. I will not fight with her. She will pick at me and pick at me, but I won’t respond. Wow, does that ever piss her off.
That’s how I’m controlling. People like my sister do not know what to do with someone like me. By being so rigidly non-responsive, I make them into people they’re not. They calm back down to my level, because that’s the only level where they can engage me.
Introspective as I am, this is not a characteristic I ever would have recognized on my own. I can’t see that I ever hold the power in these instances. I act this way because it’s just who I am, and I have an intricate series of defense mechanisms to protect myself. I’m too damn sensitive to subject myself to repeated personal attacks.
My mom knows this about me, because it worked on her. She likes to tell this story about when I was a little girl, and she got angry at me for something. She yelled. I responded: “please don’t speak sharply to me.” I have my doubts about whether this ever happened, but I’m sure my mom believes it did. It sounds more articulate than I am at 24, so I can’t imagine saying it at 4. My mom says she learned to control ‘em with kindness from me. Actually, the lesson is something about how getting angry doesn’t solve anything.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve always heard the “getting angry doesn’t solve anything” and I agree to a degree. However, I also work a lot with customers with bad credit – oh boy, is that a joy. I mean, there are people who legitimately have problems, and I understand that. However, there are the people that just not only have bad credit, but a bad attitude to go along. So, they call up thinking they can treat you the way the treat dogs… I personally like playing nice girl, then when they get huffy, to get huffy back. It gives me a minute amount of pleasure.
I do wish I had your Self-Control though… I really do :)
I don’t think it always works either, Katie. Especially when I worked retail, I noticed that obnoxious, pushy, screaming people seem to get what they want because no one wants to deal with them.
Maybe a little indifferent? To be fair, though, many writers are that way and the reason that they are good writers is because they are looking at things differently and some do not like this.
Oh, I want to control people with my calm. Now, I try to control them by yelling and making them feel bad about themselves. Calm sounds better.
Um yeah, that was me before. I think my ghost used my middle name and decided to comment with it. Don’t know why it came up that way. But, it’s me that wants to control people with my calm.
t.k., It’s really interesting that you picked up on that. I think that people sometimes unfairly characterize me as indifferent, because I’m not very good at reaching out, even when I want to. But, as much as I don’t want to admit it, there is an element of indifference in me. I am so much in my own head, and it gives me an interesting perspective, but it’s also very selfish.
Jessica, Isn’t your house haunted? No wonder you have ghosts making comments for you! At least you two agree! Probably the person who is best off is the one who can wield anger when that will work the best, and calm when it will work the best. I haven’t figured that out yet. My voice cracks when I yell, and I sound like I’m about to cry. Yeah, not very intimidating.
The title of this posts sounds very strange to me now. When I wrote it, I heard it in the sound of a villain and I was joking. Now it seems like of serious.