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

I seem to have stepped in it again. I made a reasonable and detailed response to a terse and aggressive post from a casual friend (NOT on H2G2, Thank God! People here are nice!). I got a lengthy and very insulting post back, to which I responded by asking the person to drop the subject, that they had achieved their objective. This will not be the end, of course. Now what should I do?

Please cast your votes for the following:

1. Ignore all further attempts to continue dispute, and be cooly polite in future. (My fave, but almost impossible)

2. Defend myself tooth and nail. (Emotionally appealing, but not the most effective)

3. Whinge to the others in my non-profit about the abuse. (My Inner Child loves this one! "Mom, (s)he hit me!!!")

4. Take it, be invisible and seethe inwardly. (Like I often do, part of the reason I never sleep)

5. None of the above. (But by all means PLEASE provide alternatives!)

Thank you in advance for your consideration (and desperately needing the advice!) but

SC

Whenever you recieve an abusive or angry email from someone just send it straight back to them without comment. Confronted by their own words people tend to be less hasty the second time....and if they aren't just send that reply back to them and so on. It'll soon stop.

If this friend is someone you care about and you want them to remain a friend, then you should be embarassingly humble and apologetic. Go overboard in making it quite clear you did not mean to cause any offense. You may end up with a better friend as a result. Hide completely the fact that you feel hard done by, but don't lose any sleep over it. In most good friendships, each person feels and should feel that they work harder at the friendship than the other.

On the other hand, if you don't particularly care, don't waste your time on someone who doesn't matter. Just drop it, forget about it and spend some time doing something you want to do.

One of the most effective forms of apology is to say "I am sorry that you were upset by what I said"

It is in fact a very subtle statement. You are not apologising for saying what you said. Their reaction is their responsibility, and you are not accepting the responsibility for upsetting them. You are apologising to them that they reacted badly.

On a less subtle level, it can mean taht you are accepting responsibility for causing pain, but again you are not retracting what you said.

It is one I used to use a lot.

Ben

Hi SpaceCadette,

Apologize for making them angry and you may wish to explain what you meant in more detail (don't apologize for what you said unless you truly believe you misspoke). If they are still angry after that then drop it, just go on with your life. They will either get over it or die unhappy.


Mostly Harmless

The thing is, wait until you get a response from this casual friend to your request to let it drop Don`t second guess what it will be,you may be surprised.
If it`s as you expect, well you have to decide whether to "roll over", or ignore it. Whatever happens,DON`T lose any sleep over it!

Thank you all for your advice; I suppose I will have to apologize even if the offense wasn't from me but to me in the first place.
It's either that or I'll have to walk away, even though I have been with this non-profit group for 20 years and invested just a little of my life in it. Oh well, easy come, easy go I guess.

SC

Amazed that I still agree with the advice I gave three and a half years ago, although I have no recollection of it.

Were you that casual friend, Kea?

I'm amazed SpaceCadette is still active on this site! There are few of the early members left!

alji

Ach, some of us are still around.

Ben

Well, I'm still around, though frequently invisible

Gnomon, I was intrigued by your comment: "In most good friendships, each person feels and should feel that they work harder at the friendship than the other." I am inclined to agree with that, but am curious as to why this makes for a good friendship. Would anyone care to have a go at elaborating or explaining?

Gnomon, I'm not the friend in question, I was just trawling the backlog of Ask, and I thought a thread with the subject line "How to achieve a truce?" seemed pertinent.