A fight

It's interesting how we fight. It’s not necessarily the overt act of arguing, per se, but how we battle with one another on a psychological level. Sadly I’ve witnessed and been a part of a good bit.I’m not sure how it happens, but there are times when we’re so inside of ourselves, so convinced that our right is Right, that we disconnect. We all do it, indulge if you will.

It isn't just with the women in my life that these psychological-button-pushing fights happen, so the men (one in particular) shouldn't sigh in complete relief. But it is the women who usually tend to wear the world on their sleeves, a tacky holiday vest of wrongdoings and slights. Yes, they -we?- often tend to see ourselves as victims. There are the ones undermined by coworkers, ignored by whomever, forgotten by those who didn’t matter just the day before.

There are the reactive of us for whom every disagreement is the end... The end of dinner, the end of an otherwise rewarding vacation, the end of the relationship. ..An action or an ill-phrased comment turns into ample cause to terminate what has taken months or even years to create.Explosive emotions trump history. Years of investment crumble in an instant.

There are those of us who take every opportunity to push buttons. To act initially as a shoulder to cry on, a confidante with whom one may share every confession. He didn’t want me. They found out I wasn’t the person they thought I was. And in flashes of conflict with those who know your every vulnerability, when you are most susceptible, they hurl them back at you. And the onslaught is infinitely more powerful and more hurtful than were the moments of confession. Sadly, there seems to be sick pleasure taken in their ability to wield your every acknowledgment as a weapon. And no matter what, no matter how genuinely the comforting shoulder is offered again, things can not even be made the same.

And then there are those who ignore. For whom nothing is wrong and all is fine. Avoided at all costs, confrontation is the STD of the interpersonal interaction. You poke and you prod and you try to engage them in a healthy discussion, but they remain mute and go about the days, Seinfeld on reruns and conflict on the back burner. It’s pervasive. They do it with you, with their bosses, with their mothers. It's fine that a friend chose a better option despite established plans...established wedding date!

I wonder if we even recognize that one or more of these are part of us.