Annie fought a bully! Yeah!
I read the post at Smart at Love, “If a man tells me “You know you want it” – he better be talking about an iPhone“. This is scary territory. It is easy to imagine that ‘You know you want it’ proceeds to something the other person really didn’t want. This is almost a cliche, a page out of the “Bully 101″ intimidation handbook.
I read an article by John Lyons, about training horses. Lyons makes the point that when you grab the halter and enter the pasture, if the horse moves away from you, your job just changed. You are not longer about to tack up your horse and exercise, train, go for a relaxing ride, etc. Your job just became to train your horse to accept the halter and to behave in the pasture.
Reading Annie’s post I get the same recognition that whatever had been planned, with those words ‘You know you want it’, something else is now going on. Instead of shopping, enjoying a date or daily activity, all of a sudden the task becomes to confront a bully, an emotional abuser. Nothing else is important any longer, not the iPhone, not intimacy, not a relationship. First things first. Just as if the bozo pulled an actual weapon, a knife, a gun, this is no longer a conversation, it is a confrontation.
And I think that is why discussing the former topic is a mistake. You let the bully corner you, manipulate you, when you let him or her choose your position and argument. The real defense is to confront the bully. “You are bullying me.” “I want to see the Manager. Now.” “Let me be. I am calling a cab.” “What next, should I call the police now, or after you finish with me?” I don’t think it is possible to over-react to something like this. This isn’t a slip of the tongue. This is an gross act of disrespect.
And disrespect always gets worse until someone gets hurt, unless corrected. We are generally not in a position to chastise or admonish adults, but we can clearly refuse to accept disrespectful behavior.
I am glad you snubbed the bozo, Annie, but I think you missed the point. With those words the topic was no longer about what to buy, but whether you would confront the salesman or reward him. And I think you rewarded the bozo, left him primed to abuse the next customer.
Reminds me of when I was a grad student and this kinda cute bald library desk clerk commented on the number of my overdue library books (and I quote) “You’ve been a very bad girl” and I responded: “no, I have overdue library books. There’s a difference.” He was left speechless. Yeah. Bullies must be stopped in their tracks–they may not even know they’re doing it.