you’re a powder keg
I’m wary of people who can’t handle even witnessing criticisms, negative opinions, discussions or arguments because it makes them anxious; I understand this and I used to be similarly conflict-avoidant, wanting to cry (or actually crying) when others argued even though I was completely uninvolved. But you can’t be this way in adulthood. Please. How do people stay this way? You can’t cry in the meeting room when there’s a disagreement about an Excel sheet.
I see it as a sort of powder keg waiting to blow up online spaces and friend groups because these people get so uncomfortable and anxious by just mere discussion that they rile themselves up badly outside of the conversation and then enter the discussion with a mix of crazy assumptions that act like you’re stupid, and weird discussion-ending, vapid platitudes.
“Why can’t we just get along?” “Why do we need to discuss this?” “Have you all considered that the other person you criticize is a huge victim and not even the worst there is?” “Umm why do you even talk about it/watch it if you don’t like it??”
The latter especially pisses me off, because it treats everyone as if they’re stupid, it’s childish, and it ignores that you don’t have to seek out the things you dislike. You can hear Taylor Swift in the grocery store, you can have an annoying influencer video on your FYP, you can meet your asshole neighbor in the elevator, you are victim of discrimination in ways you can’t avoid. So you can’t possibly make it worse or overstate the problem by just talking about it. It’s shortsighted to pretend that just by discussing you “waste more time on it”.
Reminds me of the big brained people in 2012 that were like “You talking about how you notice racism makes you the real racists, because you are able to see it and talk about it, therefore reinforcing it.” Do not act like people talking about disliking a certain type of video, post, music etc in a private group is actually giving attention to these things that the ones creating them can in any way profit from.
Their weird discomfort blows up discussions that otherwise would have been fine, which increases the chance drastically that they go badly, which reinforces their view that arguments are fucking terrible and need to be stopped at all costs. While the rest of us are enjoying the convo, they’re sitting there sweating like “I have to do something now!! I have to get them to stop! I have to distract them! I have to defend someone somehow!”
They don’t seem to realize that their input is often really dismissive, inflammatory, confusing, and changing the stakes dramatically.
And the second reason as to why they’re a powder keg is that because their conflict avoidance runs so deep, they will never feel comfortable voicing boundaries, pushing back on something in regard to them etc. and that’s how you end up with people who go along with everything you say and do, laugh, hug you, compliment you, smile, make jokes about it, and then one day go: Actually I didn’t like this at all, I just didn’t wanna say anything, but now it’s your problem for not reading my mind, and noticing that I always lied.
When I notice someone like that in the group I really reduce my presence and try to avoid interacting with that person directly.