When we think of aggressive and violent situations, we normally think of them occurring in unfamiliar places and involving people we don’t know – places and people we can exit from and avoid in the future. Real life incidents however may be more complex and involved; aggressive acts can occur in the workplace, either with customers or colleagues, or with roommates in a house that you share, or with neighbors on the street where you live etc. These are situations where you may end up finding yourself living with/next door to your aggressor, or working alongside a colleague who harbors harmful intent towards you. How you handle yourself in such situations – even if you act and behave legally and are simply exercising your rights – may create consequences that are difficult to deal with, or future situations that put you at greater risk. 

One of the issues we often have when trying to settle disputes or disagreements, and/or enforce boundaries, is that we make the mistake of believing that we are dealing with reasonable people, when in fact we could be dealing with individuals who suffer from certain pathological conditions, such as an anti-social personality disorder, or are simply psychologically and emotionally immature, and are unable to control the way they act and behave. Where you might believe a conflict should end, they see it as the event that gives them the right to initiate a campaign of harassment against you. What you see as reasonable request to a neighbor, such as them turning down their music at 2 AM in the morning, they will see as an infringement on their right to act and behave as they want to (even though such a right doesn’t exist and society places rules on our behavior and the ways in which we can conduct ourselves). Your reasonableness will be seen as both a challenge and a weakness. What to you may have been a minor event – asking them to turn their music down – may have become a life-defining event for them, and one that they are unable to get over and move on from. Such individuals will often replay and reinvent the interactions they have with you until they have created a story and script for themselves, which becomes their reality.

Such individuals, rarely think about the consequences of their actions and behaviors, and so the normal social conventions that we assume everybody will adhere to, don’t apply. Most individuals who are the target of workplace bullying, find it difficult to believe that an adult would spread rumors and gossip, and engage in name calling etc. Things that most of us gave up on in childhood. However, the truth of it is, that such individuals do exist, and are looking for individuals to “challenge” them and engage with. It is worth noting that trying to reason with these people is fruitless. If they are suffering from a pathological condition, they will be unable to change the way they behave, act, and interact with the world; they are basically hardwired this way. When you formulate a strategy for dealing with them, the approach of “we are all adults here”, may not be an appropriate one. You may feel that the injustice being committed against you is so obvious and great, that your story must be told, however you should be very aware that telling your story, may prompt them to further action, rather than cause them to stop. There is often a big difference between doing what is right, and being effective.

So how do you deal with such individuals? The hardest temptation is not to go in all guns blazing. The trouble of trying to show a strong hand early on, is that you often reveal the limit and extent of what you are able to do – and it normally isn’t enough to deter someone who is committed to their cause. People who take out restraining orders against someone who is harassing and/or stalking them etc. are often clearly demonstrating the extent of what they are able to do to their harasser/stalker (restraining orders have their place, but they should be used wisely). After the police/sheriff has served the order, the individual in question, starts to understand that nothing in their life has actually changed e.g. they haven’t been arrested, they’re not in prison etc. What was obviously the greatest card you could play, really hasn’t had much of an effect. Most “reasonable” people would be ashamed that somebody has had to go to such a length, to stop them acting and behaving in a certain way, however not everybody is reasonable, and if they were they would have come to the realization themselves that the campaign they were engaged on was not right.

Set boundaries you know you can enforce, and don’t engage in further confrontations or interactions which your antagonist may be able to interpret as them “winning”. This is something I learnt very early on in my career working as a doorman. I once barred somebody from a club I worked at, after he’d been kicked out for being physically inappropriate with some of the female bar staff. I used to work at the club on Thursdays and Saturdays. Once many months later, I ended up covering a shift on a Wednesday night, and discovered he’d been coming back to the club every Wednesday since I barred him – something he took as a great victory. He had enough history as a non-troublesome customer by then, that it would have been petty to try and force the issue that he should be barred; and after such a period of time I wasn’t convinced that the management of the club would be behind me. For the next 6-8 months I worked at the club, I had to put up with his grinning face, every time I saw him. The boundaries you set can be small ones, but they should be ones you have the power to enforce.

Keep track of all interactions you have, whether they are friendly, cold or indifferent. It is often impossible to know what is going through somebody’s mind, or what they are planning to do – in many cases such individuals don’t know themselves what they plan to do, and so keep doing things until a plan starts to form itself. Keeping a record allows you the ability to see patterns, possible escalations, and gives you a body of evidence should you ever have the need to go legal. It also allows you to see the direction where things are heading; it is hard to make a prediction, if you don’t know what you are actually predicting, and letting your imagination run riot isn’t healthy – neither of which is denying what is happening to you, something a diary of events will prevent you from doing.

Many people look at situations from a very immediate perspective, without considering the bigger picture; how you deal with somebody may have consequences, some of which may be totally unexpected and unanticipated. You can never guarantee how people will respond to simple and justified requests, and if those people are customers or neighbors, you may find yourself having dealing with the long term consequences of your interaction/conflict e.g. a customer who you bar, may initiate a campaign of harassment against you, and your company may side with them on their “dispute” rather than with you etc. Understanding these things, will help you find ways in which to enforce your actions, without finding yourself having to deal with too many significant consequences. Hard as it is to stay quiet on certain injustices, silence can be a powerful tool in taking the fuel away from a person’s perceived injustices.