Nine Passive-Aggressive Techniques to Turn any Discussion into a Full-Blown Argument

Passive-aggressive techniques abound in the world lately — even among people who pride themselves on their relationship savvy. I’ve decided to make a list and describe the ones I’ve noticed lately. This list is probably not comprehensive — I bet there are plenty more!

1. Before your partner, colleague, friend, boss, team member, parent, or child even opens their mouth to speak to you, think of something slightly disparaging to say to them to get them off balance. Examples of this might be:

“Is this another one of your discussions?” Make sure the word, “discussions,” comes out dripping with sarcasm.

“You’re ready to tell me I did something wrong again, aren’t you?” Be sure to smile after saying this.

“Are we doing another session of [insert name]-bashing?” Don’t forget to smile after this one, also.

“What are you going to say to me this time??”

If you prefer a comment that is much less substantive, because actually being substantive would not be quite passive-aggressive enough, you can say, “So. You finally decided to spring for a new suit!”

“Don’t you look well-scrubbed!”

“Look who decided to show up [early — if you’ve ever been late] [this time — if you were recently absent].

If you are called on whether or not your comment was helpful, of course you can say you were only joking.

2. Of course, if words escape you, you can always greet the moment with a non-verbal passive-aggressive technique such as rolling your eyes. If that is too indirect, try raising your shoulders and your eyebrows, bugging your eyes out, and holding your hands out in front of you as if to say, “Now what???” Or you can simply stiffen your body, freeze your facial expression into something slightly menacing but, at the very least, some version of unreadable.

3. If this is a planned meeting, simply don’t show up for it.

4. Deny everything. You didn’t say it, you didn’t think it, and you didn’t feel it. Unless you simply weren’t there. Or, you don’t recall. If there is a note, a text, a receipt, or an empty bottle, feign wonderment. You can even get curious and look at the note, text, receipt, or empty bottle and speculate as to how it could have ended up in someone else’s hands. Bring in extra-terrestrials, poltergeists, or someone-who-means-you-harm if necessary.

5. If someone says something specific to you, pointing out something you said or did, you can use any of the above or, you can ignore the specific example and instead, give a response as if you heard a generalized example. Here’s an example of a specific incident brought up for an, er, discussion:

“Last Tuesday, when you were late for our [insert important appointment/meeting/ride/babysitter/etc.], I felt frustrated [if a personal relationship: and abandoned]. I thought we agreed to go together and, in fact, you told me you wanted to go.”

You can, again, ignore the specific example someone has given you and say, “So, you’re unhappy with our relationship/job/company/arrangement/friendship.”

If you’ve tried the general version of this type of rejoinder in the past, and you want to change it up, again, ignore the specific example and go global, saying:

“You haven’t seemed interested in me lately.”

“You haven’t seemed as focused on your job.”

“You don’t seem happy lately.”

6. If someone says something more general to you, such as a general dissatisfaction in a job or a relationship or agreement, go specific in a way that is attacking and sidetracks the person. For example, if they say, “I just haven’t felt satisfied with the way things are lately and I wanted to discuss it with you.”

You can say:

“But you seemed fine last Tuesday!”

“That hasn’t stopped you from going out with your friends every weekend!”

“Is that why you’ve been taking longer lunches?”

“Is that why I keep finding receipts in the trash for shopping trips?”

For numbers 5 and 6, just remember that if the speaker gets specific, you get either general or global. If they are general, you get specific. Got it?

7. Of course, you can always talk louder than the other person. Oh, and be sure to talk over them. You can also make your point — over and over again. This is especially good if you are loud or you have either a deeper voice or a more shrill voice or you are in a position of authority or power.

8. Then there is always condescension. You can go one-up on the person you are speaking to or, another way to say it, talk down to them. In a super patient voice, dripping with false empathy, you can explain something to them that, you make clear, they didn’t know. They didn’t know it about you, or about the situation or — well, about anything. To really make your point, you can keep saying it. More than once, in various ways, so that you are sure they get it.

Last, but, perhaps, best of all:

9. Turn on your heel and walk away. Refuse to talk to the person you were just with and refuse to look at them. But, most importantly — fail to set up a time to pick up the, uh, discussion again.

The Time Out

This is in contrast to the healthy way to suddenly end a conversation that threatens to become heated:

Call a Time Out, where you have both agreed ahead of time to stop talking — right then — and that the one who declared the Time Out will ask to reconvene within 24 hours. Since this technique is usually used — and is often necessary — in intimate partnerships and marriages, the 24-hour pause works well. If you have instituted this with someone you have a relationship with other than a partnership or marriage, such as a colleague, sibling, boss, or friend, you will need to set it up beforehand with an amount of time that makes sense for the frequency with which you usually meet, such as within two or three days or a week.

An alternative to the silent treatment

The Time Out is an alternative to the silent treatment. Many of us experienced some version of the silent treatment as children and being on the receiving end of the silent treatment is going to usually cause anxiety and desperation which can easily, for some people, lead to despair and feelings of abandonment, or, for others, rage. The Time Out is, again, a useful and necessary alternative.

Take a breath and suggest that you speak about this again. Or simply say, okay, and walk away with as much calm as you can muster.

Either the Time Out or the simple end to the exchange needs to be honored by both parties. That means no more speaking, no yelling, no throwing verbal hand grenades as you part, and no stomping.

Yes. No more speaking. Quiet.

Ending an exchange that now includes one of these passive-aggressive techniques — because, by this time, it’s probably not really a conversation — will require that you each can self-soothe. That means that you each have ways of calming and comforting yourselves without further verbal sparring or promises that you’re not mad or that you’re okay or still good. It means being silent. Because it is not likely that anyone feels good at this point or isn’t angry and any declaration to the contrary is probably not honest. What matters is that you stop and walk away and seek ways to calm yourselves and you each know that you will speak again. The silent treatment can, eventually, kill even the best relationship.

Nine ways to ruin a discussion

There you have it: Nine ways to escalate any discussion and turn it into a full-blown fight.

I hope you realize that I was indulging in a bit of sarcasm here, something I don’t think I have ever done in print — and that I have worked hard to avoid in my relationships. But this piece wanted to be written that way, or so I thought. Maybe I felt you would more easily see these things if I wrote it tongue-in-cheek. Heck, maybe I was being passive-aggressive. Maybe you do these things under stress — or maybe people in your world do them. But once you see them, once you can spot them, you can’t un-see them. And then you will begin to realize that they were there all along, dynamiting your discussions, and ruining your relationships.

Let’s try to avoid them in our own behavior and then, over time, we can learn not to be baited into a fight when someone uses them in response to our sincere efforts to, um, discuss something.