The American political system in action
More you might like
this is from a "manipulation advice" video and it's just so fucking funny to me. why didn't I think of responding to insults like this
I can’t remember where I got the information now, but apparently if you stare silently for at least 4 seconds it triggers a feeling of rejection which I don’t have to tell you is uncomfortable and makes most people backpedal pretty quickly and awkwardly.
Immediately going concerned/extremely polite always throws people off their game, it's beautiful.
The Quiet Stare Of Disappointment is also super effective, indeed .
My sister and I were walking across a car park.
Random bloke: Maybe if you walked more you wouldn’t be so fat
My sister stops dead, stares him in the eye and goes: Is everything alright at home?
I’ve never seen a man’s face turn to horror so fast
We just walked to her car and drove off
The silent stare is so effective. I learned about it in social psychology in undergrad, and have often used it to great effect. Probably the best example is when I went to sign the papers on the car I was buying—I had already worked out a price and my trade-in with the salesmen the day before—and they decided they were going to take $1000 off the value of my trade-in. (I want to emphasize that I was buying a 10+ year old car; I ended up paying $8k total.)
"No," I said. "That doesn't work for me. If you're unwilling to honor the deal we made, I'm not buying a car from you."
Well, they talk for a living. So they talked. Here I am, a young woman on my own, and these two men at the dealership are giving me all the reasons they couldn't possibly honor the deal we made yesterday.
So I sat. I didn't say a word. I just stared at them.
They kept talking, trying to get a reaction out of me. After about 10 seconds, they abandoned all pretense of logical arguments and started hammering pathos. They weren't even buying my old car from me for the dealership; it was a personal favor for which they were using their own hard-earned money to help this poor guy at church who just got out of rehab and his house burned down and his children exploded and his dog left him for another man, etc etc
I didn't say a word. I just stared at them.
They began falling apart. They continued trying to hustle me, but their confidence left them. I think they might have been sweating.
Within five minutes they caved and signed the papers for our original deal.
I have been told for years I am intimidating, and by people who had never even seen me angry. Just in general, intimidating. This absolutely baffled me until a friend one day pointed at me and said — “This! Right now! You’re being intimidating!”
Friends, I was staring silently at someone while inwardly flailing desperately to come up with a response to something they’d said that wasn’t overly rude but also was holding my ground. In my mind, I was being hellishly awkward. I couldn’t summon any charm, I couldn’t figure out a sentence to string together. Silence spooled out horrifyingly between us as I got farther and farther away from being articulate and became more and more flustered by this failure to respond. From the outside, I guess, I just looked like a stone cold bitch waiting for them to get their shit together, lol.
I still don’t think I’m intimidating but you know I’ll take it.
a huge part of appearing intimidating is simply being obviously willing to no bluff just walk away
conveying wordlessly their unimportance
...Wait, so I can just do the Mom Look on full-grown people? The look I give my five-year-old when he starts to do something he knows he shouldn't... I can do that to normal adults when they do something THEY know they shouldn't?!
Goddamn, I'm gonna have to try that!
These are all great points, but the "are you okay?" answer is not just a tool to 'own' someone, it genuinely helps me in another way
That person is very probably not Mad At You, strangers are very rarely Mad At You, they don't know you. They are probably having a bad day and you are just some guy that happens to be there
'are you okay', reminds me that they are probably not a horrid rude person 24/7, they are probably having a bad day. And hopefully it reminds them too
I'm never saying it to shame someone into changing their behaviour, I'm genuinely asking because they probably are not okay
I'm going to say that this isn't just helpful with rude strangers
When my kid was small and acting up I would stop and ask "are you okay?" Because I assumed if they were behaving badly there was a reason and there usually was and they didn't know how better to articulate it
Now they are a teenager it's still helpful
And if me or my husband is being dick it's not usual behaviour and "are you okay?" Is helpful
Hell my teenager uses it on me
I was having a very bad mental health day the other day and it was making me irritable and frustrated and I was being kinda a bitch because I was overwhelmed and we had this convo:
Teenager: are you okay?
Me: *angrily* no
Teenager: can I help?
Me: no
Teenager: should I leave you alone?
Me: yes
And then they left me alone
And then after I calmed down I apologised and made sure they knew they hadn't done anything wrong and I wasn't irritated at them
Communication is good
My sister got a new kitten and it immediately decided to loaf on a watermelon and bless us with this picture.
whenever i can't picture dinosaurs existing i just humble myself by looking at birds alive today. what the actual fuck is that thing
a man who would go back into the closet for 15 years for you without even blinking, without even thinking there’s anything to forgive you for, fully believing all that patience and time and space and agony was completely worth it because he loves you that much and is that devoted to you. a horrible liar who spends 15 years lying because you aren’t ready to tell the truth yet. you might think that this man doesn’t exist but he does. and his name is phil lester