conversation about defensive behaviour?

GeorginaS

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to engage someone in a conversation about defensive behaviour? How do you talk to them about it?

Here are a couple of small examples, but not the totality of what I’m dealing with:

I say – I have red hair; Kelly has brown hair.
They say – Well that’s not a bad thing, you know!

Or

They say – I think X, Y, and Z.
I say – That’s really interesting. I hadn’t thought of X, Y, and Z before. That reminds me of an instance when someone said K,L, and M to me.
They say – I didn’t say that or mean that. That’s not what I said!

Largely the cases being that I’m offering a statement that has no value judgement attached to it whatsoever and getting my head bit off for it.

It's been my experience that, when I've identified that someone is responding defensively with me in conversations, I check first to see if it’s something I’m doing. I make reasonably certain that a) I'm not attacking or threatening them, b) I’m adhering to good communication practises by acknowledging what they say and their ideas prior to introducing my own, c) I’m not lecturing/talking down to/humouring them, and d) I’m not being critical of what they’re saying.

Once I’m pretty sure it’s not me, it’s them, then I need to ask them what’s up. I’ve not figured out a way to do that yet without that person getting defensive with me about it and then the issue doesn't get resolved.

Ideas?

Pengwuino

I have a friend who is like that. She likes to argue. I have a feeling someones defensiveness is so closely linked to how much they like to argue that it basically comes down to trying to turn someone who likes to argue into someone who doesn't, which is a nearly impossible task in my opinion.

I personally side-step the situation in a rather insulting manner. If I were in the situation like you described with the X,Y,Z and K,L,M, I would simply say "whatever, whatever, so K, L, M, blah blah blah..........". I feel like people are trying to bait you into an argument. They WANT to argue. It might even be a self-esteem issue. Giving it a little thought, the people I know who do that are the ones who have some issue like that. For example I have a friend who use to be like that and I think it came down to the fact that she mistakes people not agreeing with her with people not listening to her. So when I have a situation come up with her per your example, she would take it as me not listening and thus, marginalizing her feelings (in a sense, saying she's wrong for bringing up X,Y,Z and not K,L,M). Of course, in reality, I simply get side-tracked or may just want to inject some relevant information into the conversation or what have you.

The other person I know who does that simply LOVES to argue. I have no idea what the underlying cause might be, but I know she simply wants to argue and feel like she's smarter than everyone else. She won't even let you finish your statement before she starts yelping at you. I don't even bother, I just belittle her for even trying to make an argument out of nothing as I have lost all patience for that crap. It hasn't effected our friendship because I think it's like a drug, if she can't get her fix from me, she'll get it from someone else eventually.

The polite thing, of course, would be to tell the person that you don't like conversing with the person because of what they do and tell them that it makes you not want to talk to them. However, I have the ever so sneaking suspicion that the response will be akin to your "Well it's not a bad thing that I do that!!! ROAR!!!".

lisab

Ugh, what a difficult person you're dealing with, Georgina ! Doesn't sound pleasant at all.

Perhaps they feel threatened, for some reason. What might happen if you pay them a few compliments, kind of out of the blue? Not fawning of course, and nothing made up. If the core of this person's problem is an feeling of inferiority, perhaps that could help.

waht

In the first example
This suggests to me that the use of the 'I' word here has agitated the other person; perhaps because at some unconscious level the topic of conversation wasn't about the other person.

One way to get through people is by good and intent listening accompanied by subtle body gestures, nods, and yeses to what they are saying. Keep compliments to minimum. Just hear them out.

Once the person in question senses that you are good listener, they might feel better about themselves and they might start to use you as a shrink to unload their stuff. At this stage, gradually start to withdraw listening, but still don't use the 'I' word until they ask something about you, or show interest in you. If they do, then take two steps backward and go back to listening mode. Then repeat.

In this example,

I would act like it's no big deal, and show through body language, and posture that this response hasn't affected me at all.

It takes time to work through a person like that. But it's also possible that the person has some really deep issues and there is nothing you could do.

Homophome

Being on the opposite side of this problem in certain cases, I hope I can shed a little insight. It seems to me, that I become defensive when tactless statements are made: even when they happen to be true. I have quite a few friends who lack tact; to their minds, truth trumps all social proprieties. Therefore, they often make observations about people which they think are perfectly true and reasonable, but are actually somewhat offensive. It gets even worse when I try to explain that their statement was offensive, and they cannot understand because "it was just an observation". I am aware that you think the statement has no value judgement, but people form irrational attachments of values to things which you might believe are free of such associations. I remember that I used to hate my freckles, and so whenever anyone brought them up I immediately became defensive; there are things, even to this day, to which I attach a value unshared by others. I think it's best that one withhold statements (unless they are of utmost importance) which could be interpreted as anything but praise. To you, it may seem that people are being irrationally defensive, but to them it may seem that you are being blunt.

Zryn

I couldn't see the problem with either of those scenario's given no contextual tone. I work in an area that has constant differing opinions, and those lines seem like a valid discourse.

They have an interest in keeping the conversation going and are saying something generic in an attempt to get a feel for your point of view. They could also be confused as to why you made a generic statement, and want to put a feeler out for your point of view so they don't say something stereotypical about either color hair and offend you.

They perhaps think that you misunderstood what they said and may potentially misquote them, and are correcting the problem before it becomes one?

For males: Since you have concluded that there is no reasonable way someone could be offended by what you said, apologize to the person since they actually are offended, and ask them what you did to offend them so you either don't do it again or you understand whether they're just being overly sensitive and you should write it off as eccentricity and work around it.

And buy them a beer. Beer always helps!

For females: Be professional, roll your eyes privately and ignore them. Females are kinda emotionally weird and unpredictable at the best of times, let alone after you have already insulted them for unpredictable reasons.

GeorginaS

Pengwuino -- you made me laugh, as usual. But no, this isn’t a situation in which the person in question is arguing because they enjoy and argument. Although I entirely understand what you mean, having met more than one person during my lifetime who thought that “playing devil’s advocate” in each and every situation was a good thing to do. This person isn’t like that, though. This is a purely knee-jerk reaction to input I haven’t yet been able to consistently nail down. And yes, it certainly seems to be a form of this person not feeling as if she’s not being listened to. The issue I’m having with dealing with it is that I’m a very good active listener. I know the skills very well. Once you’ve given someone all of the acknowledgement you possibly can, where do you go from there?

What’s currently happening is that I’m just beginning to shut down rather than respond at all, and that’s unfortunate, because this person is rather important to me.

Lisa, it’s not pleasant and pretty frustrating. It’s a fairly recent development, though, so I think there are other factors playing on this person, and I’m bearing the brunt of it. Or something. And maybe I’m carrying over experiences from trying to deal with other people when they’ve been irrationally defensive with me, and possibly I should just meet this thing head-on with a “wtf”?! I’m not sure. I know that wouldn’t have worked in previous situations, but maybe this one.

You’re absolutely right, though, that this person feels threatened in some way, and I don’t think it has to do with me directly. Maybe I’m stepping too carefully; I don’t know.

waht, that’s all good advice and all demeanour I deploy regularly. It’s behaviour that I’ve learned so well that it’s ingrained in me and automatically how I respond to people. The examples I used were exactly that: examples that weren’t exact to actual conversations. There well may not have been an “I” involved anywhere in anything that I said. But something, that was merely a statement of fact, set the person off. That’s what I was trying to demonstrate. So, but, yeah. Again, maybe I should just try going in head-on and see what happens. I mean, truly, what’s the worst thing that can happen, huh?

Homophone, that’s a really interesting insight. I can well see why and how, when tactless statements are being made, that people can be defensive about them when the people around them don’t notice they are being tactless. Generally, what I’ve found, is that saying something to the aforementioned tactless people usually nets good results. Absolutely, sometimes people don’t know when they’ve stepped in it. If you let them know point blank, it saves everyone all kinds of grief.

Zryn, good point about the listener possibly being confused about why I’d posit the generic statement in the first place. Your point, given that example, makes perfect sense. I wonder the same thing myself and have a similar response trying to sort through what the potential relevance might be and what the point of view might be to give me some sense of where the whole thing is leading. (I’ve actually had this exact conversation with that very same person. They fed me a bunch of information on a topic about which I hadn’t inquired. I tried really, really hard to find out what their point was, exactly. What was their point? What did it mean to them? Did they place any sort of value judgement on it? What relevance did it have to their life? How did they feel about the information they’d imparted on me? That, too, was a frustrating conversation, from my perspective, because they didn’t seem to be focused on anything beyond information sharing about something that I hadn’t expressed an interest in. Not that I mind hearing and learning new stuff – quite the contrary – but I couldn’t put what they were telling me into any meaningful perspective or context. And I really wanted that; what did they think or feel about the information they’d given me? Surely they had a point of view of some sort.)

That’s not the case, though, Zryn, if I gave you more specific examples. I was only trying to illustrate something that’s so entirely innocuous that I’m having trouble figuring out why someone would have a, not just any sort of response to it, let alone a vehement one. And then, what do I do with it?

Zryn, you said this: “They perhaps think that you misunderstood what they said and may potentially misquote them, and are correcting the problem before it becomes one?” And, yes, absolutely I understood that, totally and entirely. And I said that to them, very specifically, and more than once. I said, point-blank, “Yes, I understand that you said “blah” [and reiterate in a paraphrase what they said] and that it wasn’t what I’m saying now at all. Yes, I got that. What I’m saying now is that what you said made me think of something else, and this is what it made me think of…” And they repeated how they hadn’t said “that”. “That” being the offshoot idea that I offered to them.

I was only making conversation and relaying connecting ideas. You know, the way one thought flows to the next and connects to various other ideas? Like that. But I was certain to, repeatedly, acknowledge that I heard and understood entirely what they said and that what I was talking about was something totally detached from that.

Your observation, Zryn, about females made me laugh. I’ll have to hold that in my mind.

I’m still left with how to best approach someone about their defensiveness without causing a purely defensive response.

Physics-Learner

how about something direct and simple - "have i said something that has upset you ?"

DanP

Can you give a real example of the behavior ? The situations you describe are ambivalent and the hair example is somehow surreal IMO, not very conclusive for me. For example try something like:

1: I am very serious at work. Kelly just kiss her boss's ***.
2: Kissing your boss *** is not a bad thing to do.

This has substance. Hair color example is nothing, it contains no load to defend. The answer is just as general as the statement. "So what?" would be the best answer to an statement like the one with the hair. Saying "Thats not Im talking about" is the nice way to answer in this case :P In fact any answer whatsoever is fit for such a statement. It is so substance-less that it doesn't worth a real answer. In the boss example, even if you are not attacking Kelly or judge her the answer has a lot of relevance. And it is not defensive. The person is simply telling something about them, about what they are. That they agree with a tactic of kissing your boss *** at the work to gain a foothold.


Second, introspection is known to fail humans time and again. It can be you. Im not saying it is you, but it can.

Third, do you lately talk to that person in generalities avoiding substance in conversation ?

This is pretty much annoying. When someone makes statements completely detached of the conversation at hand it usually tries to avoid the conversation and steer it in a different direction. DOn't start talking about weather if you are engaged in a talk about money, before the conversation run its course. Else it may be interpreted as an avoidant behavior. You simply avoid to talk about the subject. They say something, and you jump somewhere totally unrelated. Surely, someone will sooner or later remember you that this is not the discussion he is trying to have. If I want to talk about X, Y, Z Im not really interested in K,L and M , unless they are connected in a very solid way to the events. If they are detached, why even bother to bring them in ? To try to shift focus from X,Y,Z? Or use them to avoid the discussion on X,Y,Z entirely ? Sure we can talk about them too, after we finish the conversation at hand, and should you want to talk about K, L and M for your benefit.

Ask questions. Direct and unequivocal questions.

GeorginaS

Good point. There's a good chance I'm over-thinking this.

Thanks, Dan.

Andre

Have you tried personality tests, Georgina? Like Myers Briggs for instance. Would that help understanding social interaction?

DanP

And another thing. While I am agreeing that asking unequivocal questions is a good way to fish information out of someone, you have to be careful, and also not hope that you will get a straight answer out of them Humans may (but not necessarily) play mind games even if they pretend they are giving straight answers to straight questions. The ability to see through does not comes easy :P

This is one of the best scenes which comically illustrates the effort of humans to understand others in their social relations:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQNHBUqfLnM

This scene may be exaggerated and comical, but in essence this is what we humans do on a daily basis in figuring others socially.Your predicament reminded me of it. Psychology calls it "theory of mind"

mathwonk

such people may be hopelessly insecure. in my experience nothing can be done to have a normal conversation with them. one can only listen and nod, or ask mild questions and listen attentively. i am not at all good at this.

Pengwuino

My friend was hopelessly insecure. Divorce + biweekly drinking at a bar seemed to fix that though. I'm not sure how...... it just worked for some reason.

lisab

Alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.*

*Homer Simpson

Zryn

I read somewhere that Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy. Possibly in the bible?

mathwonk

This reminds me of an old soviet joke; an American is in the subway in Moscow in 1960 waiting for a train. After a couple of hours he asks a soviet citizen "when does the train come?" the response is:" And what about your black people!"