h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So... you're steaming. They're steaming. You're both right, and any minute now, a brilliant-but-deadly expletive is going to be uttered, reason abandoned, and a fist will fly. After the police visit, you're possibly going to have a record that will affect your job, or will have stupidly goaded a much bigger opponent into bashing you senseless. So, before it gets that far...

...use the pause.

Often people don't know what to do with the pause. A common misconception is that if you stop talking, you lose the power (and the other person may go on til the cows come home,) but chances are, they will eventually begin to feel a little unnerved at your enigmatic silence, falter and stop.

A pause will allow you to gather your thoughts. What do you want from this argument? Can you sum it up? Is it really an issue, a situation, you feel strongly about rather than straight dislike/desire to insult the red-faced, het-up pile of anger you see before you?

Use the pause and tell it like it is. As soon as they start yapping, use the pause. Give them your attention. (NOT a dirty look, ok?)

You'll have the advantage of listening to them and having time to prepare a succinct reponse. Cut throught the BS. Talking over someone will only make them madder. At the point people start shouting they've usually stopped listening. Plus, it will be seen as you letting them have their say, which, if fuelled 90% by anger and 10% by reason, may begin to thin out after a couple of well-timed pauses, making them face up to the realities of the situation.

I tried it on my neighbour. She's twice my size, evil lookin' (although I haven't told her that - and therefore still own all my own teeth), and thought it was ok if her 4 kids played their stereo all day long, so loud we couldn't use the telephone.

She was most unhappy to get a letter from the Environmental Health department threatening court action. Apparently there are people up the road who own record decks who play their music just as loud and their neighbours don't complain about them. And that's what she did when she was younger. And they're just kids anyway. And it's the daytime. And I should be at work in the daytime. It's not her problem if I'm disabled and only work part time. THEY'RE JUST KIDS. (Like kids are angels, right?)

I know all this because I let her rant. Then she ran out of steam. I'd thought of the 5 words that only needed to be said during my pause - "Tell it to the court". Suddenly it dawned on her those things said in anger might not hold up in court... Not only did I make my point, she HEARD me make my point, because she had stopped shouting, caught by the pause.

I suppose I could have yelled at her instead, gave as good as I got, until, goaded by the fact we weren't getting anywhere, she'd grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and punched my lights out.

I do regret not getting to shower her with well-deserved abuse, but did find the pause technique strangely satisfying. Most people don't see it coming and it hurts a lot less. (Maybe you're sitting there saying, "But I DO want to hurt them!" Well, maybe you're a lot bigger than me.)