I cry cry cry, then I complain, come back for more, do it again.

[dragonladyflame]

Passive-aggressive! It's a major buzzword for our generation. No one want to be passive-aggressive, and it seems like everyone gets accused of it at some point

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[dragonladyflame]

Speaking of gender, it's interesting how the gender divide has worked out on this post. Guy commenters seem in favour of the "clear communication solves everything" approach. Girl commenters seem to agree with this, but caution that sometimes so-called "clear communication" isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Maybe women are more so-called passive-aggressive than men (as one commenter further down explicitly accuses us of being). But I think this is probably more because women dislike confrontation more, and are more willing to subordinate what they want to what the other person wants. It's true that this approach may be more likely to cause hidden (sometimes badly-hidden) resentment, but I don't think it's a straight-up bad thing. I think it's just another approach to a flawed issue. Who's to say it's better to have a giant fight than to be a little passive-aggressive? Sure you might not have a giant fight -- but what if the last 12 times you tried to have a calm and serious conversation, you ended up fighting? Can you really blame the passive-aggressive party for being a little gun-shy?

In my case, most of the time, when I'm accused of being passive-aggressive, it's because I'm trying really hard not to make a big deal out of how I feel, and to simply back down without causing a scene. Bad? Maybe. But often I am right when I believe that talking about it will cause huge problems. You could say that that may be because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy -- I think direct discussion will cause negativity and conflict, so it does. I'm not convinced. Hey, maybe it's a little bit of both.